This is the 100+ missionaries serving here in Mongolia at our missionary conference this past weekend.  On Thursday night the 11 missionaries we taught the temple lessons to a few weeks ago returned from the MTC in  the Philippines.  On their flight was also Elder and Sister Holland, and Elder and Sister Pratt, who were coming to visit Mongolia.  On Friday morning, Elder Shrope and I met with the 11 new missionaries again and taught them the last temple class.  Then they were introduced to their trainers.  All the other missionaries from all of the areas began arriving for the conference.  Elder Holland and Elder Pratt, accompanied by President Clark, spent the day visiting with various government officals.  Friday evening we had a baptism service where 10 people were baptized.  Then early Saturday morning we returned to the chapel where all the missionaries had a group photo taken with Elder Holland.  When we receive our copy, I will post it for you to see.  When Elder Holland entered the room, I begin to tear-up and Elder Shrope felt his chest tighten and a lump appear in his throat as the Spirit bore witness that we were in the presence on an Apostle of the Lord.  We all took our seats as Elder Holland and those with him moved to the stand.  We were privileged to hear from each of them.Elder Chueng said that we are not alone in this work but have the Holy Ghost to guide us. Sister Pratt said that it is not enough to know the gospel, we have to live it. Elder Pratt taught that in the scriptures when it says that we will prosper, it does not refer to wealth but to happiness.  Sister Holland counseled the missionaries not to be afraid to claim that Jesus is the Christ for every time we do it is recorded by angels in heaven.  Elder Holland then left the stand and came down on the floor.  Instead of talking, he taught us.  He said he had never taught like this before and thern began to teach the Plan of Slavation in a way we had never thought of before.  He talked about the plus and minuses of beeing in the Garden of Eden.  Then he showed how the pluses became minuses and all the minuses could become pluses after the Fall of Adam.  Then he taught that through the Atonement of Christ all problems in life are solved and all pluses and minuses were made into multi-pluses. Then we began a full day of missionary lessons.  Elder Shrope and I taught a 2 hour class on "How to Begin Teaching" from Preach My Gospel.  We were quite nervous because some of these missionaries have been out teaching for over a year and knew more than we did.  But everything went great, and a couple of sister missionaries asked us to go with them to a lesson they had with one of their investigators.  We did that last night.  This lady was very sweet and it was easy to share our testimonies with her.

 On Sunday morning we went to the Ulaanbaatar Palace to hear Elder Holland speak to the members in Mongolia.  This is a concert stadium.  In fact there was a rock concert here on Saturday night.  But it seats many and all the members were invited.  We only had a little over half of what we had hoped, but many live many hours and in some cases a day away and could not get here.  But there was arounf 1500 or so in attendance.

 This is one of the young ladies from the branch we attend singing in the choir.  She is the the third one from the right looking straight at the camera.  Her name is Enkhsuren.

 This is the choir singing as Elder Holland arrives.  They did such a wonderful job tha Elder Holland said they should come to Salt Lake and sing at general conference.  He kept blowing kisses at them and gave the director a kiss on the cheek. Again we were spiritually fed as our leaders bore testimony to us.  Sister Holland bore testimony that her husband was an Apostle of the Lord.  She told how he had been a skinny boy with very deep dimples in his cheeks and how as the years passed and he had strived to do whatever he was called to do, he grew into the man that would be an apostle.  She also said that he had perfect love for everyone.  Elder Holland then spoke to us on the Plan of Salvation and how the gospel how been restored for the last time.  He expressed how lucky we are to be living during this last dispensation where we had the restored gospel of Jesus Christ.  Then he gave all of Mongolia an apostalic blessing.  He blessed the children, the women, the men, the land, the government leaders, the missionaries, that the Church would swell in membership, and that prayers would be answered.  He promised that he would have the blessing printed and a copy sent to us to give to all the members.  It was a wonderful meeting and Elder Holland left expressing his love and blowwing kisses to all of us.

 On Monday morning we had activities with the missionaries.  Our activity was trying to keep the balloons in the air.  The wind made it difficult at times and also we would throw in extra balloons.  It was to represent taht sometimes missionaries have many things on their plates at once.  They need to work together and they need to concentrate on the important ones first.

 Then they had to act out their favorite animal.  Some of them were too shy to do it and of course some really got into being that animal.

We ended the conference with them telling why they chose the animal they did and what Christ-like qualities it had.  Everyone had a great time and learned alot.  It was a very busy weekend but was well worth all the hours put in.