Senior Missionary Trip

We went with the senior missionary couples on a short trip to the 13th Century Mongolian History Park and also to Terelij National Park.  We had fun but we probably had better get back to work!

We visited the Chinggis Khaan Monument. It was very impressive and can be seen many miles away glowing in the sun.  The Mongolians love their history and their great leader Chingis Khann.  

This is the impressive group that went.

Front Row: Janga, (tour guide) Sister Nay, Sister Wood, Sister Gardner, Sister Fredley and Elder Fredley

Back Row: Elder Stewart, Sister Stewart, Elder Nay, Elder Wood, Elder England, Sister England, Elder Gardner.

You can climb up stairs inside the statue and go to the mane of the horses Head. It was a great view of the valley from up there.

We saw a lot of animals by the side of the road and in the road including  horses, yaks , sheep, goats, camels and cattle.

The picture below shows the Mongolian Freeway.  You are free to go which ever way you think your car can make it!  I will never complain about the potholes in Utah again.  The roads here are terrible. When you are in Ulaanbaatar it takes you for ever to go anywhere because of the traffic.  When you leave UB it takes you forever to go anywhere because of the road conditions.

Alvin was able to have an Eagle perch on his arm.  They also had huge buzzards that the wing spans had to be six feet long.

Views of various sites in the 13th Century Park.  It was very educational to learn about Chinggis Khan and how life was back in the 13th century.  Some Mongolians still live that nomadic lifestyle.

The wildflowers were out in full bloom and were beautiful!

We had to ride a camel to say that we did it.  Mongolia is the only place where you will find the two humped camel. It is interesting that their owners sing to them while we are riding them.

The Mongolians all have beautiful singing voices.  

In Church it is fun to hear them sing, because they can and they love to.

 We had an archery tournament.  I didn't do so well, but Alvin did fantastic!

 We slept in a Ger.  Let we rephrase that.  We tried to sleep in a Ger.  It was plenty warm. but the beds were not what I was used to.  They were very hard.  It was an interesting experience.  They were really pretty however and I am amazed at all of the people who still live in Gers, in and out of the big city.  No running water, no bathroom, some do have electricity however.

A beautiful sunrise, and gorgeous new day.  I love the morning, it reminds me of our Savior Jesus Christ and because of Him we have hope.  Because of Him we can repent, we can be cleansed from our sins and live with him and become like him.  I love the promise of a new day

Some pictures of life in Mongolia...

 We pass this on the way to Church every week.  We call it the car service road. It is quite interesting.  They are just off the side of the road doing car repairs.  They will dig a pit in the dirt to work on the cars or they put ramps up over the canal and then work on the cars.  Not exactly environment friendly.

We are starting some preliminaries on water projects for some of the Ger districts.  The ger districts seem to go one forever.  And people keep coming in every day.  Ulaanbaatar is surrounded by them and the living conditions are not great.  They need to carry their water, back to their ger.  The lucky ones might have electricity and an outhouse.  The others just seem to strew their garbage and everything else all over.  It was hard to get good pictures, because I thought Elder Nay was going to be attacked by dogs.  He wasn't concerned however.

This is one of the proposed sites for a Clean Water Station The area is very steep, and if I had to carry 5 gallons of water up that  mountain I would be very frugal with it.

The closest clean water station to that area.  They bring in water trucks, and fill the tank and then the people bring their water containers and fill up.  I was impressed they could get the water trucks on those roads.  They are full of holes, steep narrow and hard to navigate in a car.

 This is outside our apartment.  In Mongolia anything that is green is good.  They usually do not
weed or mow lawns, but this lady is cutting back the grass so you can see the beautiful flowers that she planted.  They are planting more flowers around town, I will post some when I remember to take my camera with me when I go shopping.

We went on a hike Saturday with President Benson and Sister Benson, Elder and Sister England and Elder Stewart.  It was fun to get out and enjoy nature and look down on the big city. It was beautiful.

Some sort of Buddhist Shrine at the top of the mountain.  You see these all over.  I am not sure what they are or the significance to the local people.

Scripture for the week: "All things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea, and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator.  Alma 30:44

More Naadam pictures...

We spent most of the day on Thursday, July 11, 2013 observing the Mongolians celebrate their Nadaam.  It kind of reminds me a Peach Days in Brigham but multiplied by a 1,000,000 people. There are street vendors selling their wares and just a lot of interesting things to see.

We started out the day by going to Sukhbaatar Square.  

The Guards carry the Nine White Horse Hair Standards from Parliament to the Stadium where they are guarded during the competitions of Nadaam. These standards represent Chinggis and his eight generals who were united in conquering much of the world so many years ago.  

We followed or ran ahead of the procession to the stadium and found what seemed like a million people all ready there.  It was fun to wander and watch the people.  We did not have tickets for the inside opening ceremonies but had fun anyway.  We discovered that it was easier to watch the wrestling on TV than in the stadium.  They just feel the field with wrestlers and they try to take down their opponents.  Basically the one left standing after all is said and done is the winner.  (It really is more complicated than that, I really do not know all of the rules)

The archers are amazing, the women can compete now days in both the horse racing and archery but not in wrestling.

The Mongolian people have been celebrating Naadam off and on for almost 2000 years. 

We were tired by the end of the day.  We probably walked 8 miles again.