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?