On Wednesday, Elder Shrope spent the day in Nalaikh helping to get the church grounds ready for the open house to be held on Saturday.  I stayed and worked in the office while he mowed grass.

 It really looked good since this was the first time it had been cut all year.  This is only part of the lawn behind the chapel.  Most of the front is driveway and brick sidewalks.

The branch had made these invitations for the members and missionaries to give out to nonmember friends and family.  Then on Saturday the missionaries and many of the young people passed them out on the street as they invited people to come see the chapel.

 Each room in the chapel was set up to teach a little about each organization of the church.  This is the Primary room and showed a little about what the children ages 3 through 11 have been learning.

The Young Women's room showed the things that the girls between the ages of 12 and 18 learn and the awards they work to receive.

The Relief Society room explained the adult women's program in the church.  They also talked about families and being self-sufficient through budgeting, gardening, etc.

The Young Men's room talked about the Aaronic priesthood and the things that the boys from age 12 to 18 are taught.

 They were shown the baptismal font and told about baptismal procedures and the need for baptism.

 Even the library was opened and had a display showing the variety of materials that are available to help them learn about the gospel.

Here Pukie, the Elder's Quorum president, is telling about the Melchizedek priesthood for those older than 18.  He also explains a little about the addiction recovery program that the church has here to help those with alcohol or drug problems. 

 Sister Erdene-tsetseg was one of the guides.  She has been a member a long time and is the Sunday School teacher in Nalaikh.  She gave detailed information in each room and answered all questions those she was showing around might have.  Then she would introduce that person, or group of people, to Ser-Od as they were leaving.  He would give them some missionary pamphlets and take down their name, address, and phone number if they were interested in learning more.

Even the young boys out back playing basketball were doing their part.  When other young men or boys came to play with them, they would ask them if they would like a tour of the building and bring them inside to one of the guides.  It was a very successful day and they had between 50 and 60 referrals for the missionaries to contact.  Plus the weather was beautiful-warm and sunny-which helped bring out more people.  

This week we had some sad news.  This sister in Nalaikh who was baptized a couple of months ago passed away on Monday.

Her funeral was Friday but even though we wanted to we could not attend.  It was at 7:30 am in Nalaikh.  Most funerals here in Mongolia are very early in the morning.  It was not the hour that made it so that we could not attend but it was due to a new trial law that was started on Friday to last for the next two months to try and eliminate some of the cars on the roads.  It goes according to the last number on the license plate.  Certain numbers cannot drive on certain days on any city street during the hours of 8:00 am to 10:00 pm.
The schedule is Monday-#1 & 6, Tuesday-#2 & 7, Wednesday-#3 & 8, Thursday-#4 & 9, and Friday-#5 & 0.  Saturday and Sunday and all legal holidays all cars can drive.  The mission president's car is a 5 and the van is a 0 so neither of those cars can be driven on Fridays.  The Landcruiser is a 8, but we could not drive it because two of the couples had left Friday morning for Murun with it.  Since the funeral was before the starting hour we could have gotten to the funeral but then would not have been able to return to the city and our office.  If this trial run works, they will extend the time past two months.  It will make it difficult for us to get to any baptisms in Nalaikh since they are all on Fridays if the Landcruiser is not available.

We finished our Michigan test preparation classes on Thursday evening and gave the test to five people that thought they were ready on Saturday morning.  Hopefully they will do well so they can then continue working towards going to BYU for their education.

Back to a normal work week of people coming in to look at the newspaper and bulletin board for job openings, using the phone to call about jobs, asking questions about online classes they should take, helping with online visa applications, and teaching English and Michigan test preparation class.
On Friday we had a baptism in Nalaikh.  This young father is a great young man and will be a great priesthood holder in the branch.  His wife is a less active member who is now coming to church with him.  His parents were baptized a couple of months ago.  Great, great family.

We received an email on Saturday from a Brother England informing us that he and his wife have been called as our replacements.  That really shows us that our time is getting short here.  They are to enter the MTC late December and if all goes well with their visas should be here the middle of January.  We will pray there are no delays in their visas.

Our trip to Khovd.  It was a business trip and not a pleasure trip so we did not do any sightseeing.  President Clark and Tom spent most of the day in meetings and interviews all the time we were there.  But it was a nice trip and we are glad we went.

 This is Khovd from the air.  It is about a 3 hour flight from Ulaanbaatar.  The weather was beautiful here.  In fact it was warmer here than when we returned to UB and this is up north.

This was the hotel we stayed at in Khovd.  President and Sister Clark had stayed here before and liked it better than the other one they had tried.  And it is only two blocks from the chapel.

 This was our room.  It was the second one they showed us.  It was nicer than the first one so we took it.  The bed was so hard it reminded me of camping with a sleeping bag on the ground and no mat!!  There was that little fridge on a nightstand but not hotplate or microwave to heat things up.  But we did okay.

Sorry but I do not know how to rotate the pictures, but the top one was our bathroom.  No toilet paper but we did have a shower.  The first morning it was luke warm but the second day it was hotter.  It was only a little more than a trickle but it did the job.  The bottom one was the bathroom in the first room we saw.  The shower was part of the bathroom with the drain in the center of the floor and the spray nozzle attached to the wall.  It was the reason we chose the second room. 

This was the scenery from our room windows.  The top one was our bedroom window and the bottom was the livingroom window.  Those men would mix the cement and then pour it into a large metal container which the crane would then lift to the top of the building that they are building.  They work seven days a week and live on the job site in gers.

Sunday after church we went to Branch President Gankhuyag's home for dinner.  He was showing us his chickens.  He gets about 10 eggs a day from them.  He also had about 10 young chicks too.  His wife made us some traditional Mongolian food and watermelons and Crenshaw melons that they had grown themselves.  Pres. Gankhuyag remembers every missionary that has ever served in Khovd since 1994.  We had a very enjoyable time visiting his family.

 Out side his home we could see snow on the mountains to the north.  Snow in August!! But not close enough to make it cold there.

The Elders gave us some watermelons.  They say Khovd is famous for three things--wind, mosquitos, and watermelon.  We did not have any wind, Tom and Iggy (one of our translators) was bitten by a mosquito on the last day, but we did enjoy the watermelons.  And when we were flying back, people were bringing back large bags full of watermelons to sell in the city.  They are very expensive to by in the city.

 We had district conference with the missionaries on Monday.  Elder Tugsbaatar is the district leader and did the paintings behind our heads for our discussion.  He served in Nalaikh so we knew him from there.  His companion, Elder Enkhtaivan, is from Nalaikh and is our Mongolian missionary son.  He hugs us every time he sees us and gave me a bear hug because I brought him some cookies to share with his companion.

This Sister also served in Nalaikh and just left there last week and came to Khovd.  I also brought her cookies to share with her companion who was with President Clark when we took this picture with Sister Clark.

The Elders were welcoming all to come into the church building.  In their hands were the leftovers from the lunch we had together at Nomads.  It will feed them for the rest of the day, I think!!

This was our flight out of Khovd.  Our little plane had one propeller on each wing and about 48 seats inside attended by one hostess.  But on this short flight they feed us piroski, Oreos, and a drink.  I have been on flights where you have ups and downs but never where the plane actually fishtailed when in the winds landing both coming and going!  But it was a good flight both ways.

As we were leaving Khovd and headed back to Ulaanbaatar we saw several lakes.  The first one was quite large and we were still gaining altitude when we saw it just past these mountains.  The second one was also quite large showing that there is lots of water here in Mongolia.

My blog post will be a little late this week.  We are flying to Khovd with President and Sister Clark for the weekend to visit the branch there.  We have never been there before and are looking forward to see a different area of Mongolia.  Will post about our trip when we get back.

This has been a busy week, at least for being on the road.  It is transfer time and so there were many trips that needed to be made to the airport either picking up or dropping off missionaries.  Since the assistants do not have driver's licenses for here, the couples had to do most of the driving.  Elder Shrope had to make several trips to the airport.  Friday morning as he backed the van out of the garage, he noticed it had a flat tire, so he proceeded to put the spare on.  As he lowered the van he found that the spare was flat too.  So he and the Elders he was driving had to transfer the luggage to the Land Cruiser.  They were late picking up Sister Pugee who was also flying out to Murun but they still got to the airport in time.

Then that same afternoon I went with him to pick up two Sister missionaries from the airport.  It was raining and the plane was half an hour late getting in.  This is the airport terminal as seen through the van window as I waiting for them to arrive.  Then with the rain and traffic, it took us one and a half hours to get them back to the mission office.

We also had the eight missionaries return from the Manila MTC.  We met with them and heard of their wonderful experiences at the temple. They are a wonderful group and will be great missionaries.
On Saturday we had a reverse MTC with nine missionaries that have finished their missions and are going home.

This is another great group of missionaries!  They served wonderful missions and will be great additions to the home wards and branches.  We served them tacos and Mexican rice for lunch and they loved it.  We see these as the next leaders in the Church here in Mongolia. 

This is been just a ordinary week in the office.  Nothing new or exciting happening except that after two and a half weeks of no hot water, Saturday morning we were finally able to have a normal hot shower!!!!  We decided not to post pictures of that! HA! HA!
The other surprise we got Saturday morning was this---

Yes, we woke to find that during the night that had painted these white lines on Tokyo Street in front of our apartment!  Now the lanes are actually marked but it is yet to been seen if the drivers will stay in the lanes or continue to make their own as is the usual here.  Of course no lines painted on Peace Avenue yet which is a main road in the city.  Of course that road has so many potholes they probably could not paint lines on it if they tried!! Driving is such fun here that Elder Shrope will not know how to drive correctly when he returns home!!