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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