Another fun week.  It was Tsagaan Sar this week so not much work in the office.  We started our celebration on Tuesday after noon when Miigaa and Bolormaa made us chicken bansh(dumplings) for lunch. 

 Then on Tuesday evening we went to Altan's home for our first tsagaan sar meal.  Altan is the lady we teach English to.  Besides buuzs, she served us beef bansh and a delicious vegetable soup.  This is Altan, her two sons, daughter-in-law, and grandson.  We had a lovely evening with her family.

 Then on Wednesday we dressed in the Mongolian jackets that Miigaa gave us for Christmas and went with
 all the other senior couples to a couple of homes for tsagaan sar.  They were the same ones we went to last year with the couples.  First was Batsengel and her Mom's.  This year they served this desert that looked like a cake but had the consistency of fudge.  It kind of tasted like the sour milk with raisins and sugar in it.  I only had a taste.

 There we were given these four sheep ankle bones.  They are used in games.  Each side is a different animal.  The flat side at the top is the horse, the its opposite side, the second one, is the camel.  The sides of the bone are the sheep and the goat.  On Thursday we watched people on tv playing a large table-top board game where they roll these bones like dice to see how many spaces they got to move.

 The second home we went to was the home of President Odgerel's grandmother and aunt. The grandmother is 89 years old.  She was one of the people who went on a hunger strike many years ago to give Mongolia religious freedom.  As she greeted us she gave us a kiss on each cheek which is a traditional tsagaan sar greeting from the elderly people of the home.

Last year I put a picture of one of the bread towers on the blog, but this one is taller and we learned a little more about it.  They are always an odd number of layers, this one has nine.  They alternate from happiness to sorrow, showing that we enter the world happy and leave happy and have times of sorrow and happiness in between. 

 On Thursday we went to Bolorsaikhan's grandparents.  He is a renown painter here in Mongolia.  The first painting is of his childhood area.  The one here is of a camp of Chinggis Khaan and his warriors.  The medal on her grandfathers jacket was given to him by the government as an honor of being the only one who has painted the World Wars.

 This was us with them in the entry hall of their apartment which they have lived in for 32 years.  All together we ate many buuzs and several bansh this tsagaan sar!

Then on Saturday morning we held a reverse MTC for these five sister missionaries that had completed their missions and were being released to go home.  They were a fun group and a joy to have come to do the career workshop.

 This was a fun week.  On Wednesday the senior Sisters had a lesson on making buuzs.  Eggy demonstrated making the dough which is just flour, water, and a pinch of salt.

 Whiule she did that we cut and minced garlic, onions, and some vegetables. Batsengel gave us our instructions and she is the one who showed us how to seal the meat inside the dough.

 Here we cut the meat into very, very, very tiny pieces.  They do this instead of using ground beef because they say it is juicer and therefore tastes better.  It is alot of work especially since we cut the fat off and they do not.

 This is our finished product.  They were steamed in Sister Clark's steamer. The pretty one in the center was made by one of the Mongolian natives helping us.  Our buuzs may not have been so pretty but they tasted great!

 On Thursday we had a birthday part for Miigaa's son, Munkh-uils.  He is one year old.  This is some of the young people that either work or are always at the office building blowing up the balloons.

 Here is the birthday boy playing with a balloon with his dad, Batbayer.

 And here he is with his Mom as she tries to get him to blow out his candle.  Dad finally helped him blow it out.

 Look at his boots.  These are traditional Mongolian boots that his grandmother gave him.  They are so cute and are identical to grown-up ones.

 Munkh-uils favorite part of the party was playing with the balloons.

 Of course he was not the only one playing with the balloons.  Elder Shrope and a soon-to-be missionary had a fast and furious balloon game going here!

 Then on Saturday five of the senior couples went to a new restaurant for a real cheeseburger,  The owner is from England and also coaches a rugby team here.  He grinds his own fresh beef and makes his own buns. 
It was the best burger we have found here.

 We also tried the Philly chicken sandwich.  It had a good flavor too.

And of course, you can not have a cheeseburger without fries.  Again, not frzen potatoes but fresh ones.  It was a great lunch.

Also this week Altan returned from her trip to Russia and brought us some sovenirs including Russia chocolates and a ceramic plate of the place she went to.  And today we decided to tell our children that they the way they are because their parents are aliens who at the moment are in a area called Sansar, which meand out of the world, which is located in outer Mongolia.  These are our registration cards to prove it. So now maybe their family and friends will understand why they act as they sometimes do!

No pictures this week.  Altan, our English student has been in Russia all week with three students from Erel School taking part in a foreign forum study.  So that meant we got an extra hour to get ready for the office each day this week.  Plus President and Sister Clark were in Hong Koing all week for a mission president's training so there was no staff meeting on Wed.  Instead, all the couples went out to lunch. Fun, fun!!
We had a knock on our door Friday night at 8:00 pm and since it is not safe to open the door if we do not know who is there, we didn't answer it.  When we went to leave to do some shopping on Saturday morning, we found a notice sealing our door shut.  Of course since we were going out the door, the paper seal just ripped off.  We took it to the mission office and were told not to worry, they would take care of it.  Since it was all written in Mongolian we are not sure what it is about, but we have paid our rent this month so we know it is not that.  It is just one of those little things that makes life exciting.
Today after church we went to Bolosaikhan's home and her family fed us buuzs.  They had made 1500 of them last night as they are starting their tsagaan sar preparations.  They were delicious and they were sweet to share them with us.  Her mom wants us to come over sometime and learn how to make them.  Hopefully we will be able to do that.  Then I will be able to make them for our family when we return home! 

 This week we received 'Flat Nick', a school project of our grandson, Nick, who lives in Cedar City Utah.  We are helping with the project by taking Flat Nick to do some things here in Mongolia.  Here he is with me outside the mission office building.  We did things like work in our office, go to the park, and play ping pong.  Now we need to send him back home.

 Then on Thursday I finally got up the courage to go have my hair cut at a salon.  I had the top guy do it and it was wonderful.  For about $18, he cut my hair, shampooed it before cutting and then after to remove the cut hair, blow dried it and also massaged my scalp and neck!!  I wish I could bring him home with me when we go.
Yesterday Elder Shrope helped the district train all the young men leaders in the district.  Bat-Orgil translated and helped with the training.  I just baked blond brownies and served them to the brethren along with some juice.  Each couple was assigned an auxilary to assist with the training.

Today on the way home from attending church in Nalaikh the wind was really blowing strong.  It was blowing the snow from the fields across the roads.  It was not snowing but with the winding blowing the snow around so fiercely, at times it made the traffic on the road hard to see.  But we made it safely through and fortunately only saw one car that had been in an accident!  But that wind is soooooo cold!!!  We will be glad to see warm weather arrive.