Monday was family home evening.  One of the young men drew this on the board for the night.  It was planning night for the month of July.  They are learning how to plan activities for their family night.

 The Sister missionaries had some Mongolian clothing with them and one of the young men decided to dress up in them and do a little Mongolian traditional dance.

 It is ladies clothing and was a little snug on him.  But he got a laugh out of everyone.

 On Saturday we had our reverse MTC for these three missionaries that have finished their missions.  The Sisters returned last week from the United States and Elder Davaadorj will be going home Sunday.  He has been with us in Nalaikh for the last several months and we will miss him because he speaks great English and has translated alot for us.

Sister Munkhtetseg and Sister Zulbayar were in the MTC with us 18 months ago.  It was good to see them again as they came for the reverse MTC.  We talked afterwards about their missions, one in Washington DC and the other in San Bernardino, CA, and our mission here in Mongolia.  In the top pic we are pointing to our mission areas and in the bottom one we are pointing to areas in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

We have made several trips to Nalaikh this week.  On Monday we had family home evening.  Again they wanted to have a campfire and the rain stopped and we did have a nice evening.

 Ii was still windy even though no rain so they had to put the sheet of metal to act as a wind break for the campfire.

 They loved the marshmellows.  There were some here that were not here last time and had never had a marshmellow.  They ate 4 bags of marshmellows!!!

 Then Pukee played his guitar a little to entertain us.  He was the lifesaver for the evening because the person that was supposed to bring the wood had to work and wasn't there, so Pukee went quickly and got wood for the fire.

 Even the Elders had fun eating marshmellows.  You can see the worker in the background.  They have been working the last couple of weeks replacing the trim and eaves of the chapel.

 After eating their fill of marshmellows, they finished the night with a game of basketball.  They love basketball and play in the cold and rain!
On Tuesday evening we went to Nalaikh because that is when Elder Shrope does a priesthood preparation class.  I went this week to train our new young women's president.  She was called one day after the district training so she missed it.  She has just returned from graduating from BYU Hawaii and therefore she speaks and reads English.  The leadership manuels are just now going to the printers to be printed in Mongolian but she can use the English one and so I did a little training for her from it.

 On Friday evening we had a baptism in Nalaikh of this wonderful elderly couple.  The young man that was only baptized a few weeks ago baptized the brother and the fulltime Elder baptized the sister.  They are a sweet couple.

Then Saturday morning we were driving to Nalaikh and it had been raining.  I thought it was neat how the clouds were below the mountain tops and  down into the valleys.  And everything is so green right now.  Beautiful country scenery!

Saturday morning was an activity for the less actives.  There were about 16-18 leass active members in attendence.  And some of the active oldtime members were there to friendship and let their old friends know that they missed them at church.

Some of the young women came and cooked a snack lunch for the activity.  They had the burner a little too hot and yes this is smoke that makes the pic hazy.  But they did not burn the food!!

They members enjoyed the lunch and then were taught a refresher course of the basics they knew by the full time missionaries.  And one of the older active couples bore their testimony of the church and what it means in their lives.  They also challenged the others to return to activity. It was a great day.

It also included some fast paced pingpong.  These brethren were very good and could keep a fast and hard hitting volley going.  The brother in the top pic even hit the ball up, hit the ceiling, and still had it land on his opponents side of the table and stayed in play.  It was a day of food, fun, and spirituallity and the perfect end to a great week!

 We had a little party down in the basement to celebrate Miigaa's birthday.  I baked a couple of cakes and we invited the other couples and the young ladies Miigaa works with and some of the young men that work in the building.  It was nice.

It is time for elections here later this month so you see election banners everywhere.  For two days this week this bus with banners for candidates has parked outside our apartment building with a table set up with campaign workers beside our stairs to the doorway.  We do not get involved with the elections here but it is a good reminder that it soon will be time for us to mail-in our ballots for the elections back home.
I am having problems with doing the blog on my laptop.  Every time I try to publish my post, it just disappears!!    So I will now do it in the office on Monday morning instead of Sunday evening as I have been. 

This entry is for those back home in the Carlsbad, CA stake.  The youth leaders here heard about youth in the states going on pioneer treks.  Elder Shrope shared with them the pictures of the trek he and our youngest son, Chris, went on with the Carlsbad stake.  They were so impressed with it that they have decided to do a trek here this summer.  They even used pics from Elder Shrope's file to make their posters.  Now we get to see Sister Stoiloff and her girls pulling their handcart every day as we go to the office! This is Sister Hunt and some of the young ladies showing the aprons and bonnets they made for the trek.  And the first of the handcarts they are making.  They are very excited and we are sure they will have a blast!

 We also administered the Michigan this week to 17 BYU hopefuls.  We hope they did well, especially those who have attended the preparation classes we held and have studied.  These tests are not easy even for English speaking people.  But they do not give up and keep taking the test until they either pass or become too old to go to school!!  These young Mongolians are serious about getting an education and are very determined.  We love them.

We have had rain this week.  In fact yesterday the couples dinner out was cancelled because we were to walk to the restaurant and it rained pretty steady all afternoon and evening.  The streets and sidewalks were flooded.  But everything is getting green!!  We gave the pre-Michigan tests to 6 people who wanted to practice before taking the real one next week.  Four did pretty good.  In fact one of those was an elderly gentleman that comes and takes the test all the time just to see how he is doing for his own personal goal and not to try to get into BYU-Hawaii.
On Friday we had a baptism at Nalaikh.  This young man is the cousin of the branch president and will be a great addition to the priest's quorum.  It was a great baptism and was nicely attended even though it was a holiday.  It was Child and Mother's Day here, there was no work in most places, and the traffic was heavy from people coming back from the countryside in the evening.

Can't believe that we entered the missionary training center 17 months ago today and that we only have 6 more months til we go home!!  How time flies!!!