The future of Mongolia

This week we were invited to attend a ceremony at the government building that honored the top Students in Mongolia. 

They honored children from every Province and the 7 districts in Ulaanbaatar.

All of the children were so impressive with their medals and accomplishments.

It is good to recognize those children who work hard and do a great job.

They received a bag of goodies, a framed certificate, a book with their picture in it and a start to a savings account.

 This is the official standard room in the Parliament building.

This is where the ceremonial signing of documents takes place.

This room is also where they welcome visiting dignitaries and 

official pictures of the ceremonies take place

Not just anybody can get into this room.

This is our translator, Muugii and in the background are Mongolian Horse Hair Standards.

When these standards are white, Mongolia is a peace, when they are black Mongolia is at war.

During the time of Chinggis Khan and his sons and grandsons, they were black most of the time.

Spring or maybe summer is finally here.

The sun is warm, the sky is blue, the trees are green, and the flowers are out.

Saturday, May 31, 2014 We went for a morning hike.

The temperature was warm, the mountain and wild flowers were beautiful.

It was refreshing to get a little ways away from the city.

I think it would be easier to hike, Elder Lewis if you weren't trying to push a tree up the hill.

 The camel at the bottom of the mountain.

We went for an afternoon hike in the city. 

Its was HOT in the high 80's.

We are not used to that and it about killed us.

Any way, I felt bad for these military personal that were standing at

Chinggis Square. It was noon, hot sun and they stood there for at least a half an hour

listening to a speaker.  

We don't know what was going on, we were just there long enough to take a picture.

 We then headed back to the Bayanzurkh Building.

June 1 is Children's day in Mongolia. 

The Service center was having a party for their children on Saturday.  

It was fun to see the children and to watch for a while.

Mongolian's love their children. 

Their children are their greatest treasure!

Scripture for the week: Luke 18: 16 But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.

Nay news is good news

We really have no news this week.  Which I guess is good news.

We are still here in Mongolia.

We still are trying to figure out what we are suppose to be doing here.

Elder Nay did a disaster simulation exercise with the Mongolian government agency NEMA and other NGO's in the country.

It helped the government realize that they really are not prepared for a major disaster.

This exercise gave them some starting points on what they do need to improve on so that if they do have a major earthquake they will be more able to respond to the people's needs in a timely manner.

We had our the missionaries that are assigned to the Jargarlant Branch 

over for dinner the other night.  They are a great bunch of Elders

and we appreciate their testimonies and hard work.

They are awesome!

Elder Murat, Elder Hill, Elder Erickson, and Elder Suralt

For family home evening this week we made another trip to

Zaisan Hill with Elder and Sister England and the new Doctor, and his wife,

Elder and Sister Lewis.  The Lewis' had not made the

trip yet, so we thought it would be fun and adventurous to take the bus and go.

It was a beautiful, clear, crisp and breezy evening.

It is always touching to read the dedicatory prayer given by

Elder Maxwell over 20 years ago and see how his prayer has been answered

with the winds of freedom in this country.

You can tell that spring is finally here.

I love the green!

It is so great to see green leaves on trees and green grass!

 It rained all day Saturday, but Sunday May 25, is bright and clear.

Have a good week

Scripture of the week: 2 Nephi 25:26 And we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins.

Here were are in the Middle of May

Again, not much has happened this week.  We have been busy writing reports to close some of the DIC projects.  We did attend a Disaster Response and Preparedness meeting at the UN Building here in Ulaanbaatar.  They want to be prepared for the worse case scenario of an earthquake in UB in the middle of winter.  43% of the population of Mongolia lives in UB, the government is in UB the major transportation and industry, and major hospitals are all  is in UB.  We have watched the construction practices in UB and all I can say is if there is a major earthquake here it would be devastating.  I have to give them credit, that want to be prepared and try to have steps and protocol in place when a disaster happens. They are going to have a simulated disaster this next week, it will mostly be computer and agencies trying to figure out if they know what to do in case of an earthquake.  I think Elder Nay plans on attending and I will keep our office going.

Again we had some snow this week.  You can see the ice floating down the river.  

Sometimes I forget that it is actually the middle of May.

But then I do see things that remind me that spring is here.

Life is still hard for some people here in UB.  

Almost every morning you see the bottle collectors going around and

gathering up the plastic bottles.  I don't think they can possibly get very much

for recycling them.  But that is what they do.  I am pretty sure they are homeless.

At least they are doing something to try to survive.  

Most people here are trying to survive.

I am constantly surprised at their ingenuity.

If they are unemployed they try to come up with some kind of plan

 to provide for themselves and their family. 

 We see a lot of street vendors, just selling out of boxes along the street.

We see people setting up car repair places just to the side of the road.

We even saw a car wash to the side of the road.  

The man had a couple of barrels of water, an airless spray machine, a generator and hard work.

There is a lot of dirt and mud here and cars get dirty quickly,

so hopefully he will have a lot of business.

Speaking of hard work.  Most people do not have water or sewer in there homes.

They have to haul their water to their homes.

Here is a picture of a typical water dumpstation and people waiting in line to get water.

This is my favorite statue here.  

I don't know what it is called but I call it "cooperation"

If everyone works together and helps each other out, 

we can all have plenty and be happy as we serve each other.

Days seem to come and go pretty fast. 

We have been on our mission for almost a year now.

We will be home before you know it.

Mosiah 2:18 Behold, ye have called me your king; and if I, whom ye call your king, do labor to serve you, then ought not ye to labor to serve one another?