We had another baptism in the Nalaikh branch on Friday.  After her baptism, this young lady bore a beautiful testimony.  Here a baptism service goes like this: Welcome, opening song and prayer, talk on baptism, talk on Holy Ghost, candidate for baptism and person baptizing them are introduced and then invited to go to font, everyone else follows, person is baptized, while they are getting dressed everyone else returns to chapel to sing hymns til they return, the baptized person bears their testimony, and then we have closing song and prayer.  It is usually very simple but spiritual.
Other than that our week has been pretty light.  Altan is still out of English lessons with her broken hand but she did stop in on Wednesday to say hi.  She is hoping to return for lessons on Monday even though it is her right hand that is broken so she cannot write.  So it will probably practicing her speaking English for a while.

We have had a pretty lite week because Altan, the lady we teach English to four days a week, slipped, fell, and broke her hand.  We have missed her coming in because she is so fun to teach!  Hopefully she will be well enough to return soon.

 On Thursday, the Hunts and us took those that work downstairs with us out for an 'Appreciation for all you do' lunch.  Taylor just started working as the Hunt's translator this week but he has helped us with some temple classes and other translations.  Miigaa works in our office, Bolormaa is President Odgerel's secretary and works with us on PEF, and Batsengel runs the BYU computer lab.  We went to an Indian restaurant and the food was good, and the company was even better.

On Friday we had a baptism at Nalaikh.  This is the sister with the sister missionaries that have been teaching her including one who finished her mission a couple of months ago.  This sister is 61 years old, has been investigating the Church for over 5 months, is hard of hearing, and has a great spirit about her.  She was so excited to get baptized and is now praying that her family may someday have an interest to learn about the gospel too.  She is a wonderful addition to the branch.

On Monday four of us couples had our picture taken in traditional Mongolian clothing.  How do we look?  The onlt black that is my hat is the part sitting ontop of my head.  The hoopes coming from the hat and going down the front of the dress is how they wore their hair.  They kept their hair very long.  This style was worn at special occasions.  They stiffened the hair and then styled it.  It was fun to dress-up.
On Tuesday we received our extended work visas from our sponsor.  We are now cleared to teach English for the rest of the year!
On Saturday we held a reverse MTC for two Elders and one Sister who were finished with their missions and going home.  We also taught the last temple class to two Sisters and one Elder who just got back from the MTC in Manila and are starting their missions.
The weather has been pretty nice.  Sunny most days but still quite nippy!  The snow doesn't melt here but it does get ice crystals on it as you can see in this picture I took today at church.
Sorry, something is going wrong and it will not let me post the picture.

This is what the top of the snow at the church looks like with the ice crystals on it.

Well it has been a slow week, probably everyone recuperating from the holiday!  Everyone at the office had Monday off since New Years was on Sunday.  We did teach our English student Monday thru Thursday, but other than that we just helped two young ladies with some things on their BYU applications-one for Provo and one for Hawaii, looked over another persons I-20(student visa) application, and helped a couple more complete and fax their cvs(resumes).  We also listened and gave a little counsel to a couple of young people who came in to talk to us about some things they were facing in their personal lives.  So it was quiet but that is okay because soon it will be PEF time again and then we will be very busy helping those who want to apply for the school loan!