Long story short, this has been both the hardest and most rewarding year of my entire life. I have spent this entire year in Mongolia. Of course I sometimes miss America (Costa Vida and Chick-fil-a) but I wouldn’t change this time I’ve had in Mongolia for anything else in the world!
In January
I was living in Choibalsan, Dornod, Mongolia. Basically it's a little city way
off on the edge of Mongolia, pretty close to inner Mongolia in China. I fell in
love with this area so very quickly and met some of my most favorite people
ever here. Some highlights of January included Sister Allen and I baptizing our
friends Uchral, Suvs-Erdene, and Anujin! Such special baptisms and such special
people. The winter in Mongolia is so hard, sometimes getting to temperatures
lower than Antarctica, but besides being sick 24/7, it’s not too bad, because
it is so easy to feel joy in such an adorable happy little place with so many
happy people (as long as you are still wearing layers on layers of clothes to
stay warm of course).
February
was an amazing month because we got to celebrate Mongolia’s National Holiday of
Tsagaan Sar!! This was a wild experience. It is the lunar new year, and you
celebrate by dressing up in deels, or traditional clothes, visiting peoples’
houses, eating just literally so much food (so..so…so many buuz….and also
interesting salads and chunks of fat/meat that has been left on the table for a
few days :)) and getting gifts! It was literally hype! It lasted about 3 days
here in Choibalsan, and I loved EVERY second! One of my most favorite things in
the whole world is that in this area I taught english at an orphanage. These
little kids became my bestest of friends. A few highlights were lessons that
included making valentines and teaching them how to sing and dance “L.O.V.E” by
Nat King Cole, and doing a full exercise boot camp to teach them different
action words.
March flew
by too, being busy teaching lessons, meeting members, playing games with youth,
and teaching english. I absolutely love teaching english here, I plan fun games
and activities and it is always such a blast. We also celebrated women’s day
and made 150 cookies and delivered them to ladies in the branch. We also
baptized our cute little Aminzul! March was also the month where I found out
that I would be TRAINING a brand new American missionary. To say I was
terrified is an understatement, seeing as I could not speak Mongolian to save
my life. But this transfer was incredible and I wouldn’t change it for
anything. My companion was sweet Sister Boyle and her and I became incredible
friends so very quickly. Of course my language was not anything spectacular,
but I felt the gift of tongues and support from the branch so very strongly.
Since neither me or my companion knew what was going on most of the time, every
day felt like an adventure, it was fabulous!
April was
filled with fun memories with the youth of the branch, my english class, and my
best friends at Anna Home orphanage. We also had a huge dust storm move across
all of Mongolia and so that was a fun adventure and it looked like an
apocalypse movie outside. My adorable little Tsetseehen got baptized which was
amazing. I’ve never seen anyone so excited to get baptized before, it was so
precious. I soon found out that I would be leaving Choibalsan and I was
absolutely heartbroken over it, but I was excited for a new adventure. I moved
to Nalaikh with Sister Janyeguli to finish her training! We were whitewashing
and there was definitely a language barrier between the two of us, but we had
lots of fun.
Mongolia
was becoming so incredibly beautiful in May. The harsh winter was gone, the
grass started growing, and more and more cows and horses started roaming
freely. Missionary work in the summer definitely requires more creativity,
because most Mongolians tend to just pick up and move to the countryside for
the summer. Which led to lots of address checking, and lots of outdoor
adventures. I also had my lungs destroyed by who knows what, so I became very
reliant on an inhaler. So that was fun. Some other May highlights included
getting to take quite a few trips to the city, first for an English Teaching
seminar and a BYU vocal point concert, then Elder Soares came to visit and we
had some incredible meetings with him all about finding joy in missionary work!
Also this month I rode a camel and held a huge eagle and also I turned 20 and I
also received the mongolian name of Anuhatan!
In June I
got so quickly moved right back out of Nalaikh, heading back into the city to
an area called Jargalant with Sister Bethers! It was definitely a little bit of
culture shock being back in the city, because I had to learn how to calculate
traffic time and ride buses and deal with way more drunk people. Good stuff.
One of my favorite things about this are is the way it is surrounded by
mountains and ger districts. It was so green and beautiful in the summer. We
also had to get really creative with what we did since not many people were
able to meet. But every day was an adventure. We met with members, hiked
mountains trying to find less active members, almost got eaten by dogs on
multiple occasions, got yelled at in russian by drunk men, and also had some
awesome miracles with the family we were teaching being able to come to church!
July
started off with another Mongolian National Festival called Naadam! It was soo
fun! Basically we just got to go to the center of the city where they do the
big opening ceremony, and while we weren’t able to actually be inside the
opening ceremony, we got to walk around the outside, dress up all fancy, take
pictures, eat huushuur, and my favorite part was that everyone treated me like
a celebrity! There were so many foreigners it was actually nuts...but they had
people going around and interviewing people there. Everyone was all over my
outfit since I got a short deel for summer and the mongolian traditional dancer
boots. People kept taking pictures with me and I even got interviewed four
times, ending up on the news! Then I got transferred AGAIN. (I call myself a
one transfer wonder) I moved to Khan uul on the other side of the city, with my
sweet Sister Swenson! Khan Uul is definitely one of the more bougie areas and
it was also my mission president's ward, and there were a few american members
of that ward which was crazy! This part of the summer tends to be filled with
rain storms, and let me tell you, mongolian rainstorms are on another level.
It’ll all of the sudden pour rain out of nowhere to the point where the roads
flood like crazy, and then after 10 minutes it just stops. And its sunny again.
I think its hilarious. I made some close friends in Khan Uul, especially with
the new members there and the english students.
Some of
August’s adventures included: impulsively getting bangs, having a drunk man
give us flowers, singing at a baptism with my 10-year-old bestie named Oscar,
and baking cookies with our English class! Then we had transfers again, and I
stayed in Khan Uul, BUT we all know that it’s impossible for me to stay in the
same apartment apparently, so I got moved up to Zaisan with my new companion
Sister Loosle!! Zaisan is so bougie but also since we opened a brand-new
apartment that was a whole adventure in itself, and we didn’t have a mirror for
half the transfer it was splendid. And then I dyed my hair brown yay!
In September I ate sheep head! It is
a fun little Mongolian delicacy. But, since no one had made it for me yet, I
decided to make it myself with the help of my friend Hulan. It took a lot of
hours and tasted very interesting, but I ate every part of it including the
eye. This month we definitely also had to get creative to fill our time. We
tried to start up mutual in this area since there aren’t a lot of youth, and it
was tons of fun! We did book of Mormon painting, Just Dance, and learned some
wild Mongolian games that were hilarious.
In October I got transferred yet
again, to a place called Erdenet!! I am not gonna lie I was so so so relieved
to get out of the city before winter. Erdenet is known as “Nomloliin Diwaajin”
or mission paradise. It is an adorable little city and the members here are
amazing. My companion was Sister Burningham and we had tons of fun together! To
get to Ederenet it’s a 14 hour train ride. It felt like the polar express I
loved it. My first day here we did a harhog which is a huge bbq feast type deal
and so that was soo cool. Also Erdenet is way warmer than the city so that was
so epic. We were whitewashing here too, so it was a little bit of a tough
start, but things picked up really fast with the help of the youth in the area.
A few little side quests included helping some teenage girls prepare a song for
their school talent show, playing in the snow for four hours on pday, doing a
karaoke mutual activity, and having an epic halloween party where Sister
Burningham and I dressed up as Rapunzle and Flynn Rider.
November started with celebrating
the amazing holiday of pepero day! It’s a holiday where you buy peperos
(chocolate stick candy things) and give them to people. Each flavor is a
different reason you give it to someone. And it’s on November 11th cause it
looks like an 11. It’s a lovely holiday and I will celebrate it for the rest of
my life. Then we had transfers and I got to say in the same branch yay! But…i
did have to move still. Across the street lol. But my new companion was Sister
Bell from my MTC district! It was strange because half of my mtc sisters went
home a transfer early, so I ended up sending someone home from my own district.
Weird. An exciting event from this month was our Darkhan District Conference.
The Erdenet youth were singing at it, and boy did they take it seriously. The
boys had matching hot pink ties (that sister bell and I helped make) and the
girls had hot pink hair bows. It was so exciting. We also started teaching
english at a Tax Department Office this month! It is such a fun group of people
to teach. We had thanksgiving and made a feast as a district. I learned how to
make pumpkin pie from scratch.
In December we had Khuslen and
Narantsatsral’s baptisms! They are so amazing and I love teaching them. I also
spent half a pday feeding pigeons with some bird seed that a random old man
gave me, cause I was trying really hard to catch a pigeon. Then Sister Bell
went home, along with so many of my other friends, and I began my final
transfer as a missionary! My new companion is Sister Stewart and I wouldn’t
want to end my mission with anyone else. We’ve been partying it up every day!
Some exciting things were our Christmas celebrations (opening presents at the
church, doing just dance, singing to members, and some fun english parties),
getting to teach a lesson with a family online in Japan, getting a new fridge
and a new water filter, and going ice skating twice!
This year was incredible and so full
of memories that I will never forget. Looking back it has been incredible to
see all of the miracles that I have been able to experience in this beautiful
country and with these beautiful people. What a special blessing it has been to
serve my Savior this year in Mongolia! I am thankful for all that I have
learned this year, and I can’t wait to see what next year brings.
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