Here we are Friday in Nalaikh at this sister's baptism.  These are two of the Elders that taught her.  Hers was the second baptism in the branch this month.  Since we have been here, around 12 sisters have been baptized.  This sister is a nurse and works in the local hospital in Nalaikh.

 On Saturday we attended the wedding of a special young couple.  This is the wedding party in the chapel where they had the ceremony.  Tsoogii is a dear sweet friend who is the maid of honor. 

Then we went to the Chinggis Khaan hotel for the reception.  The bride and groom had changed into these traditional Mongolian wedding clothes.  We had a wonderful 4 course meal and much entertainment.  We were even pulled onto the dance floor by Tsoogii and participated in the group dance around the wedding couple.  The groom's mother danced with us and hugged us.  We had a great time.  A reception here kind of reminds me of the Polynesian ones back home only with different music, clothing, and dances but the same fun atmosphere.

 Today we returned from church to find that the heat had been turned on in our apartment.  It is nice in here.  Wish they had turned the heat on in the church building.  We spent another quite chilly time in our meetings again today.  Yes, winter is on the way.  I had to wear a jacket almost everyday this week to the office.  The cold also killed our little garden.  But we did get 6 more cucumbers and these tomatoes from our plants.  They are ripening up nice in the kitchen window!

On Saturday we had a stake Relief Society meeting.  It was based on the book, "Daughters in Thy Kingdom."  We were all given a copy of the book.  I thought you would like to see the RS motto in Mongolian.  It was a wonderful meeting even though I had to have a translator for it all! I was lucky that Tsagii was there to translate.  Sometimes we have been in meetings or classes where we did not have a translator and did not know what was being said.  We also spent a couple of hours in the office on Sat. and had a couple of people come to us with problems that we could not help with.  It is hard to turn these people away, but they need to learn to go to their priesthood leaders.  It is heartbreaking at times though.

This is President Batmunkh and his family.  Today he gave his new little son a name and a blessing at sacrament meeting in the Nalaikh branch.  It was the first time he had done it and the first time we have seen it done since we have been. It was wonderful!! The baby is just 6 weeks old and look at that head of hair!! And big sister is a real sweetie!

This week we spent alot of time in the classroom but not for teaching English.  On Wednesday we taught the missionaries of the Bayanzurkh district for two hours as part of their district conference.  We taught them from Preach My Gospel about "inviting, commiting, and following up".  Some of them were getting close to the end of their mission and could probably teach us more than we did them.  They were a great class.

Then on Friday we taught the new missionaries that had just got back from the MTC in Manila for an hour.  That class was on their experience in the temple and about returning as often as possible.  That is a wonderful class because these young Elders and Sisters are on a spiritual high from going to the temple and are excited about beginning their time in their first area of missionary service.  I think this is our favorite teaching assignment.

Then on Saturday we had the Reverse MTC for these 6 returning missionaries.  First we got all their contact info so we can keep in contact with them and I took their pictures to put on the Returned Missionary Board.  We fed them lunch of pizza, soda, cookies, and an apple.  As they ate, we counseled them to stay active in their wards or branches and to serve in a calling.  We told them to continue praying and studying the scriptures just as they had on their mission. We talk to them about their future plans. Then they began the Career Workshop to help them in applying for a job and to help them decide what they would like to work as so that they will know what to study in school.  This took five hours and you can see by the smiles on their faces that it was a good time spent.  And one of these Elders just baptized a young lady last night, the last night of his mission!

 This is Elder Shrope's little garden out on our balcony.  Just tomatoes, cucumbers, and flowers this year.  These have survived despite the rain, wind, and even hail.

 The tomato plant is loaded with little tomatoes but we are not sure they are ever going to get ripe.  It is starting to cool down in the evenings so we may just end up with green tomatoes.  We will have to wait and see.

 The cucumber plants also have many cuccmbers on them.  They are doing better than the tomatoes.

These are the first two cucumbers from our plants.  We picked them on Saturday.  We ate them today when we had several young people from the branch over for a meal.  We served them 'haystacks' which they had never had before.  We also served them homemade brownies and ice cream.  We had three young ladies and five young men here in this small apartment, but we did okay.  They were here in the city for district conference this morning and then a special young men/young women meeting this evening followed by a special young adult meeting.  Elder and Sister Gong of the Seventy are here for conference, and Brother Ochoa of the general young men's presidency is here from Salt Lake to meet with the youth.  They have delivered some great messages and the members have been blessed to be able to hear them and meet with them.  And we have been blessed to be able to attend some of the meetings too.