First sniff me, then sniff my tobacco jar🐉

sar shinedee saihan shineleerei! Happy tsagaan sar! The holiday of lunar new year here in Mongolia. This holiday is one of a kind lemme tell ya. You eat a bit feast (like Thanksgiving) you get gifts (like Christmas) everyone dresses up and the kids go house to house collecting candy (like Halloween) for however many days the people decide it should last! For us it was 3 days straight of visiting people, and eating the same big feast at so many houses.

TSAGAAN SAR

there are so many cultural things you have to do. First when you enter a house you have to do what's called a золгох. It's a greeting where you take the host or oldest person by the elbows, with their arms on top of yours, and you say "Амар байна уу" and other things like that as you put your head on each side of theirs. The old ladies will kiss your cheeks and sniff you. Also they have these little jars of smelling tobacco that they hand you, you grab it in your right hand with your left hand holding your right arm, and then put it up to both nostrils to sniff it (we just fake smell it tho don't even worry)

Then you eat buuz (meat dumpling things) potato salad type stuff, salami and pickles, rice with raisins in it, candy, and you drink hyaram, or hot milk and water with oil in it. They have a centerpiece of a stack of fry bread representing the stage of life of the family (ex how many kids) and it usually has aaruul and butter or candy on top! They also usually have a huge basket of meat from a cow or a sheep. Just a huge hunk of the body. They leave it out the whole celebration and they cut off a peice for you to try. Anyways. This probably made zero sense.....but yeah

My experience: 

I ate So. Much. Food. At every house they tell you "eat the buuz. Drink the hyaram" all in the command form of the verbs. And then they just watch you like this I also tried some interesting things like a chunk of pig fat and meat fat gelatin. Yum. My stomach officially is full of meat and flour and oil and milk #afullstomachisahappystomach

It was so cool to see everyone outside walking around in traditional clothes, hats, riding, horses, throwing milk, and all those traditional things. I'm loving the culture here so much! It felt so festive! It has been so awesome getting to visit so many people in our branch and celebrate with them

All weekend our days were filled with visiting and eating. I don't think ive ever felt so full in my life. It doesn't seem like a lot of food at the time, but boy does it add up. I've eaten over 50 buuz, and we have two more meetings today so wish me luck. I'm really just trying to embrace the culture and forget everything I ever learned in all my nutrition and dietician classes 

Some fun highlights (if you really read down this far I love you )

- My first tsagaan sar visit was at the Anna Home orphanage!! They made us food and we got to just eat and talk with some of the kids! It was such a blast. As I was leaving one little girl named nominchimeg told me we had to золгох and so i bent down and she sniffed my cheeks and said amar baina uu and it was the most precious thing

-I got another assignment from a member to learn a traditional Mongolian dance that apparently everyone knows 

- got kissed partially on the mouth by an old lady 

- got some candy from random little girls in a store 

- I now know how to tell the difference between cow meat and sheep meat solely based off the color of the fat 

- did karaoke with a member while waiting for the food to cook 

- a taxi driver gave us a ride just so he could take a picture with the foreigners after 

- did a photoshopt with a bunch of branch members before church because EVERYONE was dressed up

- we were visiting and member and her baby son was running around with only a t-shirt on. And then he proceeded to sit on elder erdenekhangais lap and drink the rest of his hyaram. 

- gifts. the gifts are so fun and Mongolians are so generous and giving. They will give you whatever they have. I got stuff ranging from chocolate and socks, to tights and face masks, or fruit and money. The best part is they often have a different gift for the girls and the guys. So me and sister Allen walked away from one house with matching pink sparkly shirts that say "love the way you are" 

- also it is finally spring now I guess??? It jumped from -30 to almost 30 degrees! So everyone is saying it's nice and warm outside and spring has begun 

- ate some buuz that were so filled with oil it made a pool on my plate. I was then told to DRINK the oil because that's the Mongolian way. The oil + 8 buuz I ate + chunk of sheep fat + all the hayram mixed up all my insides as we sped down a super bumpy dirt road with 4 missionaries squished in the back of a car while blasting rap music. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else 

Spiritual thought: 

“In order for Him to endure the most excruciating experience ever endured on earth, our Savior focused on joy!” President Russell M. Nelson

Sometimes life seriously is just so so hard. But I absolutely LOVE this quote! It must have been so hard for Christ to go through everything he did. So hard we can't even comprehend. But all throughout his life he focused on joy and looked for ways to love, serve, and make others happy!! As we focus on joy in our life we will be able to endure all the hard things life will throw at us

I love you all!! HAPPY VALENTINES DAY

Go tell everyone you love them 

/систэр жэнсэн 

flics

- so many tsagaan sar visits! (We took a billion pictures on a camera too and I will have to send you them all once I get them hehe  )

- sunrise and sunsets

- at our English class at Anna Home we talked about colors. I gave them sticky notes and told them to put them around the room to match colors. Then they all put them on their face at the end of class

- horses and cows on the street