Happy New Year!

This week was the best. New years is great. People were home that weren't usually home. No they didn't want to a lesson but we met them. So I'll take them as a win. And Like a ton of part member families brought their whole family to church. It was the best.  New years we had our big plan and then ate at a members house. I ate too much, because yes I made a chocolate cake that was delicious, and ate it before we went to the members house. Then my companion and I tried to sleep but we just ended up talking for an hour or so.Then i finally feel asleep but my companion hear our neighbors counting down together. we live in this u-shaped apartment building. And Everyone's light was on except ours. We just laughed. Then new years day we just ate a ton and visited members all day. THE BEST. 

I got to do a transfer in my old ward. IT WAS THE BEST. And one of my new members was so fun. I diiiid not want to leave. She is like my grandma. She is so funny. And she is going to the temple as soon as she can, in april or may or something.  She is truly amazing. I'm so thankful she was my investigator. She is just the best. PLUS she makes the best food. Like everything she makes tastes like it's from a restaurant. 

Sorry this is short. TAKE CARE.

I'm leaving Mongolia 2/26. Family you will probably get my itinerary soon.

LOVE YALL FAMILY.

bunch-of-christmas-stuff

This week was just a bunch of Christmas stuff. We had the missionary Christmas and it was so good. My mission is so talented. This one girl she is like a real opera singer or studied it. She sang Ave Maria, it was heavenly. And the Mongolian Elders sang this traditional  song about mothers and it was just so beautiful.  All the sisters in the city sung Santa Claus is coming to town and oh come all you faithful.  We started out Santa Claus is coming to town and did a cool little arrangement.   I will show you guys the video after my mission I promise even if you don't want to see it.. Then that night we went to a members house to eat and it was so fun. They are so funny. The day after Christmas was my school's new year's party so the kids had this program and it was so cute. I will show you that video after my mission too. Then Saturday was the teacher's new years , which we almost have to go, or we offend them. Okay I have a confession. I danced. I'm horrible I know. So I was with the Lindfords (the senior couple, that teaches at my school) and we kept saying no no we can't. Then they were like, you 4 are the only ones not dancing. So we got up and I haven't danced in sooooo long, so I can't just half dance. I danced and it felt so good.  I'm horrible, don't follow my example. But they started playing a bad game so we left soon after and I was thinking, why didn't I leave earlier. Cause that's how temptation gets you. You can't stay in places of temptation too long, cause well for me i'm not too strong willed. Anyway, i'm repenting.

Then on Sunday this stake choir puts on this Christmas fireside every year and it was so good. K DON"T TELL ANYONE THIS BUT, you know is the Christmas story where the assigns are singing jingles bells. Yeah the YM/YW did a song, and I couldn't stop laughing because they were singin in English and they were trying hard, but I just kept picturing the Christmas story.  Anyway i'm going to h---- i know.  Other than that it was a really really good fireside. This week was so busy. I can't believe how fast it went.  

OH and I gave a talk yesterday. And when I always prepare my talks I feel like their amazing, and they will change people's lives and stuff. But reading in mongolian is hard especially when everyone is watching you. I got caught on a few words. After words this lady comes up to my and companion and I and she was like, Oh Naranzul you talk was sooo great. And then this is what she said to me "Please study mongolian well". I just laughed. 

Well happy new year, make good new years resolutions, that will last 3 weeks instead of 2 weeks like last year.

LOVE!

"Come eat my apples boy, and be happy"

OK so this week I did not get transferred and i'm with my same companion. And we were like, ok good, we can probably baptize or investigators. They just are taking a little more time to be prepared. Which is totally fine.  We are teaching 2 families right now. One is a part member family, where the wife is the member and one of her kids are members. And the other family is their friends.  It's such a blessing. We keep telling them how lucky they are that everyone is interested at the same time. 

So this week my ward had their Christmas party. And the spiritual part was so good. Thad different rooms and everyone entered and they preformed kind of. And one of the 1st rooms was about temple work. And the room was dark and it signified spirit prison. And they were talking amongst themselves. How long have you been waiting? Oh i've been waiting 1000 years. And then people would leave the room and say i gotta go and it signified being baptized. It was so witty and cool and definitely maybe how it is.  

So this week we kind of chastised one of our investigators. She like stopped praying cause she forgets. And I kind of felt bad after, but then the next day, we talked to her (kuma) and she was like "I prayed twice today!". So I was so happy.  

Ok this week in my English class i am reading the giving tree to my 2nd graders. I LOVE THAT BOOK. And we are making it into kind of a play that they can read/perform.  I'm really excited. But I have read the book a million times and just this time I realized the main point of the book.   The tree ends of giving everything she has and  by the end of the book you think she has nothing. But then the boy takes and takes and takes and is never happy. But the tree is happy.  Those who give are happy. So simple but a great lesson to remember.  Especially for christmas.

So last week, i didn't write i forgot to tell you guys. So my companion and I were getting off the bus from English and this guy like runs up to us. He starts to talk to us about church right away.  And then asks about english. And then we evenutally get his number but he was like, no wait can I get your number to call you. So we got his info and went home. Then we call the other sisters that serve in the same church building and they told us that, he came right into the church and wanted to meet with the missionaries right away. But how amazing. we've been meeting with him but we kind of want to give him to the Elders cause he's 20 and we'd always have to find a witness. But he's so prepared. He keeps asking us about what activities are going on. He's more active then some members. It's kind of amazing.

This week I have started to read Our Heritage, ITS SO GOOD. LIke if you have read it you need to read. Sometimes we think oh this commandment is hard, oh this is hard too. But we forget the great sacrifices that the early saints have made. And whenever I read the book and just remember how thankful I should be. I never had to walk across the plains with bleeding feet from no shoes. And never had the really leave my family. One guy he lead some saints on the way from nauvoo. He had to leave his pregnant wife and didn't hear anything for 2 months. Finally he heard that his wife had a "fat baby boy", and then that man wrote the some "Come come ye saints". Even though these saints bore so much burden, they were happy to and didn't want to be anywhere else. 

Last week I read in 1 Nephi 15:

"And they said unto me: What meaneth the river of water which our father saw? And I said unto them that the water which my father saw was filthiness; and so much was his mind swallowed up in other things that he beheld not the filthiness of the water."

So especially me I get distracted and caught up in things that don't matter.  And then don't realize the consequences of my actions, or the "filthiness of the water".  Anyway I loved that this week.

KI LOVE YOU FAMILY. Talk to you on christmas eve.

Is is bad that my prayer turned into a two minute nap? Obvi bc it was so spiritual and peaceful. #excuses 

christmasing

Wow this week went by so fast. I miss Christmas so much. Yes I am listening to the Christmas devotional right now because I want to completely understand it. But I've decided we are going to do Christmas eve with our investigators and try and start some traditions for them. lol Cause there is no Christmas traditions really in Mongolia. But My companion will get it full blast. I HOPE IT"S my companion Naranzol that I have right now. SHE IS AMAZING. She has a feeling we are getting split up the next week. I DON'T WANT TO. But yeah it's cool whatever happens. 

My English classes got really heavy and more stressful. Like I feel like we didn't do that much actual misssionary work. But thank goodness my kids are going on a break for a month next week. I am suppose to plan a 2-hour English program for their parents to come watch in January. I HAVE NO IDEA what to do.  But I do Have to say, my kids cheer when I go into their classes for english. They (like 90% of them) LOVE my class. There is nothing better. But I do know I neeeeeever want to be a teacher again after my mission.

Oh this week I was alone for like 10 minutes. haha So we were coming home, and all of a sudden the conductor was like everyone get off this bus and go on another one. So we get off and I was like, we are so close to our apartment, lets just take a taxi.  But then all of a sudden she got on a bus. And I was surprised, but I was like okay whatever.  Yeah except i didn't follow my companion. I followed some woman with the same coat and same color hat on the bus. I start freaking out, because I went away from my companion. So I told the conductor I got on the wrong but, and mind you when I'm stressed, I CAN"T SPEAK, so it was very broken, and who knows if they even understood. So I get off the bus as soon as I can at the next stop and was like. CRAP what do I do. Do I stay or go back to the last bus stop. I decided to go to the last bus stop. So I started running. And then I get to this stop light and my companion is in a taxi yelling my name. So in the middle of the intersection I got in the taxi. My companion was like, I thought you were playing a joke on me and she thought I was hiding and she was looking for me. And this guy was like, your friend got on another bus. She decided to go to the next bus stop. And she was like "I've never had that happen before". I told her it was my 4th time. Oooops, it's always with buses.

 This morning I was reading in Genesis when they are talking about Noah and how the world was so full of evil. So there is one verse in their that really stuck out to me."And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart." And the foot notes says that repented really means sorrow. So what I learned from this is that, Heavenly Father truly never wanted us to to suffer. He never wanted us to go away doing evil. Even though his plan is truly the great plan of happiness, the fall of man would cause pain to all of His precious sons and daughters.  And I think even the thought that he couldn't live with his children because of their own will and iniquity cause Heavenly Father great sorrow. But that being said, we still must endure any suffering from this life, with the the hope that we will rest from all are sorrows, and be crowned with eternal life, through the great gift of the Atonement.  

K LOVE YOU FAMILY! 

Also I asked my mission president in an email when I'm coming home, so maybe I'll know next week.  

ENJOY CHRISTMAS!

Winter Bolson

This week we met with our investigators Bayarjargal and Kuma. And they are so wonderful, they have a little baby. Bayarjargal is ready to get baptized. We had a lesson with him about keeping the sabbath day holy and how sitting in church 3 hours, and not working on sunday is really important. I thought we would have to beg him. But he just accepted it right away. HE IS THE BEST. I think this friday he will enter into his baptismal interview. We are still trying to work with his wife more. She is kind of hucelgui but we decided to meet with just her, because her needs are different than her husbands. And she doesn't talk as freely if her husband is their.

Also, we got a referral this week, and she came to church with her friend who is a sansar member. The lesson after church was amazing. She kept talking about how much she wanted to change her life. She is so hungry (not literally). So we set a baptismal date for January.She is so ready. And this member that sat in the lesson apparently has brought so many investigators  for the missionaries. She is amazing. she just wants to share her light. She is going to study in japan, and then leave from her mission their in like a year. Yeah i need to be like her after my mission.

So the other week my companion and I were talking about the tree of life in lehi's dream. How if the iron rod is the word of good and we continually holding fast, like what exactly does the fruit represent, yes of course the love of god, but I think it's the atonement. Some people say it's keeping the commandments. But is the fruit something you continually eat? And if so do you need to be eating the fruit and holding on the the iron rod at the same time? Yeah I have really thought about this.So my companion was like, well then that's why we need an eternal companion. One has to pick the fruit from the tree and one has to be holding on to the bar and you have to be holding on to each other.

K love you have a good week. SORRY MY LETTERS SUCK NOW. haha

pfast

So parents I had the weirdest dream. I had a dream i really did bring a mongolian baby home and a cute puppy. And you were like soo happy. Like at first you were really mad but you loved the baby and the puppy so much right away then you weren't mad anymore. So yeah don't ever encourage that behavior from me.

This week was soo good, so fast and so busy. I went on 2 exchanges with 2 different companionship. I loove exchanges cause I get to see people in other wards, that I never get to see. And I have so much fun with the sisters and learn soo much.

And I'm learning how important keeping the sabbath day holy is. Omg there are so many less actives that get baptized, and go straight into less-activeness because they  get a job where they have to work on Sunday all of a sudden. So one of my investigators REALLY wants to get baptized, but he's not ready because he still works on Sundays and only sits in 1 hour of church. So this week we are going to lay it down and talk about how important obedience is to all the commandments.  Anyway I ran out of time sorry. I have a lot of funny sayings this week, but i forgot my planner. These are the one's I remember:

"Nephi is being so hot right now" (I was reading 1 Nephi 6 or 7 or somewhere around their and he like burst some bands, And they tell you to imagine the stories in your head as your reading. And in the middle of study I said exactly what i was thinking to my companion) 

"Oreos are TOTALLY healthy" (Sister Peterson, the new missionary who was in a Miss Pageant)

LOVE YOU FAMILY!

BY THE WAY THANK YOU FOR THE PACKAGE AND THE LETTER! I can't wait to make no-bakes.

tieng fu

OH  my goodness. This week we taught Maa again, but we didn't have a translator.  haha So we just went on mormon.org and watched a mandarin I'm a Mormon video and we watched some mormon messages with mandarin subtitles. But today I'm going to find mandarin translated church videos.   Our translator is out of town for the week. But we still need to visit her even though there's no translator. But we got a mandarin book of mormon. And we tried to show here the lds.org in mandarin.  She is amazing. She makes the best food. I want to learn how to make her food.  Oh my goodness and I said the closing prayer.  I said it in english because obviously she doesn't understand mongolian either. I LOVE PRAYING IN ENGLISH. Even my personal prayers are in mongolian. But my prayer just seemed so much more genuine through english. I just hope she felt the spirit. I think she did because she either had something in her eye or she was emotional. haha I can never tell.  We are trying to learn chinese words. I know how to say heavenly father, but yeah that's the extent to my church vocab.

This morning I went to my school's opening ceremony. IT WAS SO COOl. There was some performances and then we took a tour of the new school it's so nice and big. I will be able to teach englsih in big classrooms! And My sponsor is taking all the teachers out to dinner tonight. My mission is truly very different than any other mission.  And I LOVE MY KIDS. They are so dang cute.

Okay my brain is scattered. I don't know what else to write. LOVE YOU FAMILY!

Twitter

"at church: She has either been praying for 20 minutes or sleeping. #whichone?."

ALSO... Happy Birthday Taya!

Love,

Sista tengriin goonj