First a little catch-up of some things that have happen in our family.  First, Sam and Lilli had a little girl, Kayla, on April 21.  She is now at 14 pounds! She was our 12th grandchild.  Then on July 12th, Robert and Cheryl had a little boy, Austin.  He makes grandchild #13.  And this week our son Chris became engaged to Josie Richardson from AZ.  So our family continues to grow and we are so delighted!!

This week has been almost things as usual.  Almost!  We have not had hot water this week because it is shut down for maintenance.  So we wash up by filling soda bottles half full of water and then finish filling them with boiling water.  It takes two large ones to shampoo the hair and four to wash the body.  Fun, fun!!  But hey, it works!!!  Then on Friday Elder Shrope had to go to Darkhan with Pres. Clark and some other brethren, so I had to go to the school and teach Altan by myself.  Then I had to go to the office alone.  There were no lights in the office for most of the day.  The computers were still on, but with no window in our office, there was not enough light to see the keyboard.  So I sat in the dark and talked to one young lady about her score on her English proficiency test and what she should do now, talked to another young lady about her requirements to renew her visa so that she can return to BYU-Hawaii to finish her schooling, (She is here doing an internship right now) and discussed some business with Miigaa, our secretary.  Elder Shrope did not get home until after 10:00 pm.  On Sat. we walked to the American Goods store.  It was very sunny and hot.  A few hours after we returned, we heard thunder and then the sky turned dark.  It started to rain and then hail.  "The pic is of the pea size hail out on our bacony. That lasted for a short time and then the sun came out again.  Love this weather because you never know what you are going to get.  Like I said, it was almost a usual week.

 This is some of our FHE group.  On this Monday night we had a birthday party and celebrated everyone's birthday.  We had cake and soda, and the 1st councilor in the branch presidency and the Elder's quorum president made cotton candy.  We had everyone sing, "Happy birthday to Me." 

 This was the first stop on our retreat. This is President and Sister Clark, Elder and Sister Gledhill, Elder and Sister Richardson, Elder and Sister Ford, us, and Elder and Sister Martin at the Chinggis Khan monument.  It is the largest statue of him in the world.

 This view is to show you his golden riding crop.  Legend has it that he found this crop in this very area.  There is quite a bit of property at this park and someday when it is finished it will be quite the attraction park.

We went up inside of the statue and came out on top of the horses head.  Elder Shrope is at the top standing in front of Chinggis ( also known in world history as Genghis Khan).

 Then we went to the 13th Century park.  It consists of six different areas.  This is the first one.  The young man lives and works here during the summer.  He has been to Tennessee and speaks English.

 This is the gateway to this area.

 This sign says that this is the guards area.  They call it the men's camp.

 Inside the guards main ger, the men were allowed to dress in some of the clothing and gear of the guards of the 13th century.  Notice Elder Shrope's sword!

 President Clark donned the winter clothing they wore.  He was quite toasty in it!!

 This is a Mongolian bear skin.  The guide didn't know the name of it in English, but said they also have the brown bear and the black bear here.

 There were several herds of horses, camels, and yaks in the area.  This is just one of the small herds of horses that we passed as they grazed on the side of the hill.

 This is area number 2 where we ate lunch.  Among the things we were served was fermented mare's milk and a meat dish called hooshures (or something like that).  We did not care for the milk but the meat dish was good.

 This is the two young ladies that served us our lunch.  This side of the building built into the rock is a very nice restroom.  The other side is the kitchen where our lunch was prepared.

 In this main ger, we not only ate lunch but we were allowed to dress in traditional clothing.  The chairs were for the king and queen.  Don't we look great as 13th century Mongolians?

 These posts line both sides of the entry way to the camp.  These are original 13th century symbols and so the Nazis were not the first to have this symbol.

 This is camp #3, the Buddhist shrine area.  As you look around, you are told not to touch the scarves, they are prayers.

 This camp also had different styles of gers that were used in the past.  Only the men were allowed to go into the last one, it was forbidden for the women to enter it.

 

 This one is an actual teepee covered in animal hides.  It does have a wooden doorway and wooden frame like the other gers.

 This was inside the teepee.  It looks alot like some of the outfits of the American Indians.

 Here at the 4th camp Elder Shrope is going to ride a Mongolian horse.  Notice how small the saddle is and how far forward they sit.

 And here I am riding a camel.  It was a lot smoother ride than on the horse!

 And Elder Shrope decided to ride the camel also.  Probably a once in a lifetime experience.  It was fun.

 The 5th camp was the library.  Chinggis Khan was the one to introduce the written language into Mongolia.  Before that it was only verbal.  This is what the ancient writing looked like.

 A neat rock that sits outside the entry to the 5th camp.

 This camp is the craftsmen camp.  These are some of the things they crafted all by hand.

 Here the guide is showing us how they grind wheat.  He had made a type of donut out of the wheat for us to eat.  It was good.

 And this is his three year old daughter who entertained us by riding her wooden stick horse.

 This camp had a walkway that went through the rocks to a lookout post below.

 That is the lookout tower below.

 These are the two young sisters that booked our outing and were our guides.  They are both returned missionaries and served in the states.  Yes the yellow t-shirt does say BYU-I.  She served in Idaho and Rexberg was her last area.  The other sister served at Temple Square.

 This is the Tiara Resort where we stayed the night.  It rained on us Wednesday morning as we all went horseback riding.  But a little rain can't stop senior couples, so after the ride, we continued seeing the sights.

 This is Turtle Rock.  Can you tell why it is named that?  They have alot of turtle designs in their decor because the turtle is pretty easy-going and peaceful.

 This eagle was pretty heavy!  It took both my hands to hold him up.

 Of course Elder Shrope had no problem holding him up high.

On the way back to the city we stopped at this Cusack graveyard.  Here they are all buried above ground.  They still use this graveyard today.
Well that was our two day retreat.  We had a blast learning alot about the history of Mongolia and trying some of they traditional foods.  We would not have missed this experience for anything.

I forgot these two pictures that I took at the garden project to show how they use things we would just throw away.  The first pic is of a old car door used as a gate to the garden area.  The old bed springs in the second pic is just one of several we saw used as fencing.  Very ingenious!

 This week we went with Elder and Sister Richardson, the Deseret International Charities couple here, to see one of the garden projects here in Ulaanbaatar.  These garden projects are where the Church teaches about gardening to the members interested and then supplies them with seeds and other things to garden with.  This project was on about 5 acres and is worked by 12 families.  It was a beautiful garden.

 This is a well for irrigating the garden.  There is one at each end of the garden area.  The pumps are some of the things the Church supplies.  The wells are about six meters deep.

 They also have an area where they do box gardening.  It was also quite a large and nice garden.

 They use these glass windows as greenhouse tops on the box gardens.

 This is the sister that showed us around the large garden project.  This is her yard and the greenhouse the Church supplied to her for her own project.  Most projects are private ones in their own yards.  As you can see, her garden is doing well.

 These are two of her four "root cellars" that she has dug in her backyard for storing her vegetables she grows.  They are three meters deep and then go in for one meter.  She has one for potatoes, one for carrots, one for onions, and one for another vegetable.  She is a remarkable lady!

These are two more beautiful little wild flowers we saw growing around the garden project.