Christmas in Mongolia

This has been a different but special Christmas for us.  We miss everyone at home and all the traditional gatherings, food and other events.  Here Christmas for the general population does not happen.  This is a Buddhist country so schools and stores are open, and life goes on just as an ordinary day.  The big celebration is New Years Day.  They even have trees and lights and gift giving (our English class students told us that most gifts are "sweets" and when guests come over, they put money on the tree).

The Elders were so polite
they even let the Sisters dish up first

We emptied most of the furniture out of our little living room, hauled two tables from the Church and had two districts - 14 missionaries and 3 Senior Couples over for "Christmas Dinner".








  It wasn't Turkey and stuffing but we had three kinds of crockpot chicken, rice, corn, green salad and even red jello that I found in our cupboard.
 It was cozy but fun to have a big group - made us feel like home.  It was also great to be able to have someone else's kids over since we couldn't have our own!

Elder Stewart asked our sign language Elder to say the Blessing.  How touching to have him sign while his companion translated into Mongolian and one of the sisters translated into English!

Some of them had to go early because they had to teach their English Classes and others had a meeting but we had long enough to eat, sing and play a game of "pass around the present".

Cal was excited to give each of them a little bag with oranges, banana and candy when they left. We wash all the fruit and vegetables we buy in bleach water and then rinse in clean water.  Elder Stewart is good at this job - here are some of his oranges!!

 We are so grateful to be able to be here with such wonderful young (and old) people who are happily serving our Heavenly Father.  Even though the general population here do not recognize Him, we were able to collectively remember our Savior Jesus Christ on this day we celebrate His birth.

Sharing a message from the Book of Mormon
with the occupant of an ice house!!

One of the Department Stores close by had a beautiful display of Ice Sculptures.  In this country there is little fear of them melting before Spring!!







During the last few days Cal has gotten pictures of lots of the missionaries over there.  He has been able to e-mail some of those pictures to many of the American parents as a special Christmas surprise - they have appreciated them.  Most of the Mongolian Missionary's parents do not have e-mail.

Life is Good and All is Well!

modern technology

Eeggii, our translator, holding the IPad with
Marsha on line.
Aza and his Mother in the background
and Anne doing some
measuring as directed by Marsha.

Little brother Zolta and Aza showing the two chairs

We had a chance this week to try our skills at using the miracles of technology.  With the help of Ritchie and Judy Whitehead, we were able to have a real live consultation with Marsha Edmunds, a great retired occupational therapist and friend of ours in Lethbridge.  Our Branch President has a son born two months early who has Cerebral Palsy who is now 7 years old.


 He has two wheel chairs but has not been using them.  They just carry him around.








 The family came to the church where we able to "Face Time" with Marsha so she could see first hand the child and tell us how to measure him and the chairs.  She had some good suggestions about how to make them more functional and fit him better.  It is exciting and we hope that it will make a difference for all of the  family.  Thanks Marsha for sharing your talents.







Christmas Season is upon us and it just would not be the same without some Ginger Bread Houses!!

Zolta and Dad

Mom and AZA

It was fun to have Branch President Mungunkhuyag and his family join us along with Eeggii's Mom and brother.  It is amazing to see that people are creative whichever part of the world they live in!   We had a great morning and loved seeing the excitement in their eyes.

The whole family

Eeggii's mom

Eeggii's brother

The whole group minus photographer Calvin (Elder Stewart)

We are blessed each day as we have wonderful experiences, make new friends, and continue to learn and grow.  We wish everyone a Merry Christmas -

               enjoy the season and remember that our Savior Jesus Christ is the "reason for the season".

All is Well, Life is good.

Dinner in Mongolia

A kind Sister invited a group to her home for dinner one night.  She lives in a small house with a Ger beside it.  It was cold, about -35C but inside the Ger it was just toasty warm.  There is small stove in the middle which burns coal and wood.

Four Sister Missionaries drinking their harum.
It is polite to hold the bowl like they are and slurp out the milk.

The darling Grandchild and the soup

She served us all the traditional courses, harum (hot milk, water and salt), Monglian bread, delicious soup with potatoes, carrots, onion, cabbage and some kind of meat, and another kind of milk(not the fermented one!) that was quite sour.

On our way we picked up some bags of coal and wood to take to her.  They sell them on the sides of the road for about a dollar a bag.  It got so warm in there that they opened the door, even though it was -35C outside.  The dog really wanted to join in the party!

The Elders were able to share the Christmas message, Luke 2, with the family.

One of her sons and a neighbour

It was a special evening and we felt honoured to have been able to share it .

Flat Stanley came to Mongolia

Last week Flat Stanley arrived in the mail from Gerry Dalziel (Barb and Tom's son) and his Grade two class in Loveland, Ohio.  Stanley is a boy who got flattened when a bulletin board fell on him.  Now he is travelling the world looking for new sights and adventures!!

Sister Largin getting her cast checked

The Doctor

A typical bumpy street

One of his first stops was at the Orthopedic Surgeon's office with his new friend Sister Largin.  She was hurrying in the dark in the Ger District and fell on one of the very bumpy icy roads and broke her ankle. 

 Gers are the felt houses that many of the local people live in.  The streets in Ulaanbaatar are very  uneven and it is always necessary to be watching every step!  

Stanley went to visit someone in their Ger (Mongolian home)

One of the next stops was at the BioMedical University of Mongolia where he participated in a class with first year students.  They are learning about Cells and Genes in English - they liked Stanley!

Cold but not too much snow!

Chinggis on his throne

No trip to Mongolia would be complete without a visit to Sukhbaatar Square in the middle of UB.  The snow is starting to pile up and the great Mongolian leader, Chinggis Khan, guards the whole place with his trusty horsemen by his sides. 

One of the many thousand horsemen from his army

Last stop for this week was a cultural show where he listened to some great Mongolian music -

played on the "Horse Head violin"  -  the khuur,  and the traditional Mongolian harp with it's 23 strings (bet you string players would love to try to keep that tuned). A beautiful girl danced and could sure bend in a lot of directions!

The Horse Head Violin

The week was not really spent just touring around looking at sights.  The pictures at Sukhbaatar Square happened when we were on our way to buy drugs to stock up our office - all good drugs from a very progressive pharmacy.  

Our English classes are going well and we are learning lots about BioMedicine that we forgot we even knew.  It is a big relearning curve for me!!

We have met several Doctors this week.  At one hospital we were even offered the chance to get temporary licences on the spot so we could come to work.  Anne teaching Nursing and Cal teaching Medicine!!  Now that would be a stretch!!

The young Missionaries are amazing as they go about doing their work in the cold weather without complaint.  The members are faithful and loving. Lots of young people are getting their missionary applications filled out since the new age guidelines were announced - they are excited at the prospect of serving their Heavenly Father here in Mongolia. 

Life is Good and All is Well

First trip out of town

This week we had the opportunity to travel 5 hours north to visit the cities of Erdenet and Darkhan.  One of the responsibilities of the Mission Doctor is to check out the Medical facilities in the different places so he could refer missionaries with medical problems to the appropriate place.  It was very interesting.

The Defibrillator in Erdent

From the private hospital in Darkhan

Erdenet is a relatively new city, established in the 1970's when copper mining started.  The hospital came from that era and lacked most of the equipment we take for granted!  In Darkhan we were able to visit a new (9 years old) private hospital.  It had fairly new equipment and they were certainly trying to make it up to date.  We feel blessed to know we have been able to have our great Health Care in Canada all these years!

The trip was beautiful, we had a great Driver, Batbold, who has been a member of the church for about 15 years.  It takes a special talent to drive in Mongolia!!  He is also the person responsible for all the missionary apartments (similar to Croft's new calling).   It felt like we were driving down the I-15 through Montana.  There were mountains on both sides and a big wide valley in between.  There were few buildings and lots of animals, cattle, horses, sheep and goats!  The sky was blue and clear.  Some parts of the road even reminded us of Monida Pass!

Looking out our window at the office.

It dawned on me this week why most of UB is heated by hot water that runs through big pipes underground all over the city.  Their electricity is generated by coal power plants heating water and the by product - hot water - is used to heat the city.  Those plants do not cause too much pollution but all the Gers using coal and wood in little stoves create the biggest part of the problem.  We learned from a girl we met, who is here doing a Post Doctorate in Air Pollution, that UB is the second most polluted city in the world.  She thinks we should wear masks during the evening hours when it is at it's worst!!  

One of the members of our Branch came by this week to give us two big fish he had caught.  Wish we were home to have Karri or Karrin cook them up on the BBQ in Waterton!!

Yesterday we celebrated American Thanksgiving with all the other Senior Couples at the Mission Home.  They found a very expensive Turkey somewhere (they are hard to come by here) and we had all the trimmings to go with it.  We were thinking of all those Americans out there and hoping you didn't spend too much money on Black Friday.

Another great new member of our Branch,
 baptized this week, Elders Woodward and Flint.

We are THANKFUL for all our blessings and specially Family and Friends, the Church and this opportunity to serve in Mongolia.

Life is good and All is Well.

added pictures

This is the man from the University who asked Cal to talk
and the girl who was going to translate
(but he ended up doing most of it!)

Don't know what I did but here are the pictures from last time.  Technology is challenging but we are very grateful for it!

Cal and his reindeer!