A Visit to Zuunmod and the Manjusri Monastery

We are so blessed to be able to serve with other dedicated and wonderful senior missionaries.  They are service oriented and love to help others.  They truly Love their Savior and are a great example to me.

 One of the other things I appreciate is that they include us on their P-day outings.  This week we got up early and went to Zuunmod and the Manjusri Monastery.  The travel there was a little over 2 hours, but that is because we had some side adventures on the way.

The Monastery was first founded in 1733 and had 20 temples and over 300 monks.  To make a long story short, in the 1930's Stalin ordered all Buddhist temples and monasteries destroyed and the monks were either shot or put into the military.  Most of these monks at this site were killed and the temples and Monastery destroyed.  The site is located on the other side of the mountains that we hiked last week.

An interesting thing happened on the way to Zuunmod.  We turned off of a road thinking that it was the right way.  We were not quite sure but saw this man, just a running towards or van as fast as he could.  His truck was stalled and he needed to be pulled to get it started.  Elder Stewart agreed and we got him going and he got us back onto the right road.  This was not a coincidence.  This man needed help and you could not see him from the road that we turned off of.  I am glad Elder Stewart was following promptings from our Heavenly Father.

 Elder Linford and Elder England with our Mongolian Friend

 Pulling the truck

 His sheep and goat herd

 Monastery Rocks

 Missionary Stew

Elder and Sister Stewart, Elder Nay, Elder Linford, Sister England

 Beautiful Forest

 Ruins of the Monastery

 Rebuilt building at the Monastery

 This religious art was carved into the stones and then painted.

They had built shelters over these stones trying to protect them

Elder Linford at a Buddhist Shrine

The last week of September

This week we continued to work on finding a water project to do. 

We have funding, we just needed to find a water project that fit the parameters 

of Deseret International Charities.

We think we found one or two on Tuesday, September 24, 2013

We visited with some government officials in the Chingeltei area of Ulaanbaatar. 

 They showed us a site that they had already picked out and needed some help with.

The site looks like a good project  :)

Great Need and it is accessible to the water trucks.

 It never fails that when you get a strange vehicle and
 white people nosing around dressed in suits it always attracts a curious crowd.

The people were not hesitant on telling us how far they needed to go to get water.

Some had to go over 1.5 km to get water.
They travel down hill to get it which means they
have to pull their full water carts uphill.
Can you imagine doing that in the winter when it is -40 outside and icy?

 The site proposed is to serve 206 families 1080 people.

The water site that people are getting water from now
had people standing in line to get water.
The water had already been emptied from the storage tank
and they were waiting for another load of water to come..
  

The second site we found was in Songino District

It is way out there.  It is on quite a flat piece of ground.  

Another good lesson to learn....

In Mongolia, the sidewalks and streets tend to get quite dirty.  I can have perfectly polished shoes at home and then walk the short distance to our office and my shoes will look terrible.  I had almost giving up on having half decent looking shoes.  My attitude was why bother, I will be going out again anyway and they will just get dirty again.  

Our translator Muugii taught us a great lesson. She always comes in first thing in the morning and polishes her shoes.  She told us that it is important to always be clean and look your best! 

 And she does. (By the way, she lives in the Ger district and has to haul her water to her home). She rides the bus to work and has quite a walk from the bus stop to our office.

Mongolian's take great pride in how they look. They are a beautiful people.

 Muugii's boots

 Muugii's shoes and my dirty shoes

Our freshly polished shoes

Scripture of the Week: Mosiah 15:18: And behold, I say unto you, this is not all. For O how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that is the founder of peace, yea, even the Lord, who has redeemed his people; yea, him who has granted salvation unto his people

Working on Water Projects

This week we have had our water specialists Jim and Karen Greding from California here to help us with water projects.  They are over the water projects that LDS Charities or Deseret International Charities build in several countries ranging from Africa, to Nepal to Mongolia.  They have just been assigned to Mongolia so felt it necessary to come and see the country, the people's needs and how things are done here.  They have served in Kenya doing amazing projects there.  They also served in Indonesia after the big typhoon and in Haiti after the devastating  earthquake.  They are an amazing couple, full of great knowledge and experience and will be very helpful in finding sustainable water projects.

The following pictures are of a water station that has never been fully fuctional because electricity has not been brought in.  DIC paid for it but it never happened.  We have the invoice paying for the materials and service but not the results.  This happened before we arrived. The local governor said he would be responsible, but guess who is not the local governor any more and surprise, the current one knows nothing about it.  We need to figure out what to do. When we build a water station, we build it and then turn it over to the local government.  They are responsible for it and are suppose to maintain it and keep it running. It is depressing when we go back to check and see how they are working to find out they haven't been maintained.

On Wednesday we went on a 3.5 hour drive (one way) to visit 4 wells in Zuunkharra and to see how well they were serving the people.

Notice the roof, doesn't look very good.

Some of the wells in Zuunkhara were well maintained and being used, while some were not. Need to figure out why.

There was a camel on the side of the road on the way back from Zuunkharra.  It was a friendly fellow.  Here he is with our translator Mugii

This was some of the beautiful scenery on the way to Zuunkharra  It was kind of a misty  rainy day so the colors are hard to see.

Yak grazing.

Herds of goat, sheep and horses.

Harvesting Hay.  These trucks would go down the road and would look like hairy beasts.

Another herd of horses

 One of the fresh water dumpstations that we checked out. It was in a middle of a field instead of being next to a road.  Someone had fenced off the road.  We were surprised that there was not by a bunch of houses or gers.  We don't know why it was built here unless the government had presented that this would be a growing area and would need more water.  It did not look that way.

Our water specialists said that this work can be either very gratifying or very frustrating.

We went on a hike Saturday, probably the last one of the season. It is suppose to snow on Sunday. One species of pine tree here has it's needles turn yellow and fall off. The name of the tree I think is Larch.  Our hike was spectacular, but we were in the shade most of the way, so the pictures do not do the scenery justice.

A cute little black squirrel.  His ears are radical!

Scripture of the week: 1 Nephi 21:10 They shalt not hunger nor thirst, neither shall the heat or the sun smite them; for he that hath mercy on them shall lead them, even by the springs of water shall he guide them.

A Fun Ceremony...

September 13, 2013

Friday the 13th was a good day for us.  We had a ceremony at "Little Pearl Day Care" to celebrate the donations that Deseret International Charity gave to this handicapped day care to help them care for these special children and to help train them in mobility and how to feed and take care of themselves.

In Mongolia usually both parents need to work to be able to make ends meet and to feed their families. When they have a handicapped child, that means that one parent usually has to stay home to take care of that child.  The owner of "Little Pearl" has a handicapped daughter and decided she would start a day care to help other parents in her situation.  She tries to keep the price down and the parents come in and help when they can.

Deseret International Charities provided the child size wheelchair, and the yellow wheelchair stroller that you see in the background.  They also provided exercise balls, trampoline and other mobility and therapy equipment.

Deseret International Charities also provided the two fridges that you see in the background plus some cooking equipment.

Some of the children and Staff of Little Pearl Day Care. I was impressed of how well the children are taken care of.  Also how clean the facility was.  They truly love the children.  I am impressed with Mongolia and how they care for their children, they do treat them like 'precious pearls!'

Elder Nay and our translator Muugii

The owner of Little Pearl presenting Deseret International Charities with a handmade Thank you Plaque.

Deseret International Charities is funded through donations from the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for humanitarian work throughout the world.  We appreciate the generosity and Christ Like charity of these faithful members. 

Thank you!

Scripture of the week: Mark 10:14  But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased, and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of God.