This week at school they had an assembly celebrating the International Organization of Friendship.  Many of the students were dressed in traditional clothing from their native countries.  The two girls here are a couple of our students.

 These students were singing a Korean song.  All of the older students in the back come to our English class.

 Here they are playing a game similar to our "jacks", only they use candy instead of jacks and a object such as a key chain to throw instead of a ball.  They throw the object in the air and try to scoop up candy in their hand and catch the object in the same hand.  If they catch it, they get to keep the candy they scooped up.  The boy and girl in front our our students.  We did not get to see the whole assembly because it lasted longer than we had expected and our driver was waiting outside to take us back to the office.  We would loved to have seen the whole assembly!

 This is how those living in the countryside and outskirts of the city get their water.  This guy is pulling a cart with a water barrel on it that he has filled at the well and is taking home. They also get their wood or coal for their heat the same way.  Some have to walk a long way through the snow and ice to get it.

 This is a load of wood on a truck.  They pile it as high as they can and then drive it wherever it needs to go.  It does not seem very secure.

And this is how they haul hay.  Sometimes it is stacked even higher!  It doesn't look too sturdy but so far we have not seen any lost hay anywhere along the road!
On Thursday night Tom and I taught an Eternal Marriage class on communication in marriage. We had about 25 in attendance.  Since most do not speak English, we had a translator.  We had a couple in the class that are deaf and they had a sign language translator also.   Then on Saturday we taught a class on the temple to a group of missionaries that just returned from the MTC in Manila.  These are all Mongolian missionaries so again we had to have a translator.  But both classes went well and the students seemed happy with what we taught.
Tonight I made my first chocolate chip cookies since we have been here.  I did not have any chocolate chips so I chopped up a couple of Hershey bars.  I also did not have brown sugar so I made some with white sugar and molasses. The cookies came out pretty good, just a little crispier than at home.  They are for FHE tomorrow night at Nalaikh branch.  I hope the people will like them.