Welcome Back!

We arrived back in Mongolia the evening of March 13th. We spent 3 days in Ulaanbaatar, shopping for some food, which we can't get in Choibalsan, gathering information and materials for the Branch and for our callings, meeting with Pres. Andersen and renewing friendships with the other couples. We flew to Choibalsan the afternoon of the 17th. I ask the Elders if they could drop us off at our apartment, "No, the Branch has something planned for you." We walked into the Church and the Relief Society was having an activity. They had rented or brought their Deels, and many of them were dressed up. They were all standing in a half circle and looked so beautiful! They imediately started putting Dad and I in one of them. This particular outfit is a Queen's dress, and the hat is put on correctly, I tried to turn it, they straightened it.

One thing you need to remember is that I am not 5' tall and 100 pounds! These are 2 of the Mongolian Elders, and one of the Sisters in Relief Society. They all seemed so happy to have us back and we got lots of hugs and kisses!

King and Queen for the Day!

The young people came over and visited. We had them coming over the night we got home and wanting to know when they could teach me how to make "buuz" (they pronounce them "bodes"). They all LOVE their buuz, even the little kids. And they all know how to make them, too! Notice that one rolling pin has only one handle, that is the kind they use, an American couple left the 2-handled one.

They are like a pasta-type shell with a meat-loaf-like center. They use beef, sheep (most common), horse and some other things (I'll spare the details!). I found out later that these had horse meat. Yes, I did eat some, they aren't too bad if done right, these were pretty good, catsup helps and Dad likes barbeque sauce or tabasco sauce on them. In the picture they are taking them out of the pan, eating them hot, he couldn't wait!

We are so grateful to you our family and friends! We love you and think of you often! Thankyou for keeping up with us!

Sights of Seoul, Korea

We went to a restored old Korean Village.

I would guess like Pioneer Park, they moved some of the old, original homes onto one location. It was fun to go and see how they lived.

They spent alot of their lives on the floors Their heat is under the floors, they built fires that sent steam and smoke under the houses. Maybe that is why they sit and sleep on the floors.

This is at the Gyeongbokgung Palace, originally build in 1395.

It was burned down a couple of times, during wars and finally completed here in 2007.

It was a huge area, with many buildings for the King, Queen, the mothers' and servants.

The Gate Guard Exchange, was interesting, we were lucky to see it. They were just starting. Notice the shoes, Mongolians still wear this same kind of boot, with the pointed toe.

We noticed some of the same traditions are in both culturals: Deels in Mongolia, and Kimonos in Korea. The way they give you something or take something from you is done with their right hand under the left elbow, to show respect.

And, of course, their looks, different but alike. It is all Asia!

They even have totem poles - called Wooden Spirit Poles.



There are 4 of these main gates, which use to be at the main entrances of the city.
The city is beyond them, but the are pretty and look nice.
They work to keep these looking nice and in good repair.

We have so many pictures, but you would get tired of seeing them and I would get tired of trying to think of something to say about them!
It was fun to go and see another culture, but we were ready to come back where we are needed and we can be of service to Heavenly Father and the people of Mongolia!

We love each of you and think of you all the time!

Seoul, Korea

There were 4 of us couples that had to leave. We flew out of Mongolia on March 3rd, our 90 day tourist permit were ready to expire. The Church sent us to Seoul, because there is a Mongolian Embassy there. We spent 10 days there trying to work out the details, and finally 4 of us were given our visas, the other two couples spent another 4 days there, but they are now in Mongolia.
Whoever thought - we are called on a mission to Mongolia, and get to spend 10 days in Seoul, Korea, attending the Temple and sight-seeing!
It is a small Temple, but very beautiful. The people were very kind and gracious. We attended 9 sessions, and heard the ceremony in English, Korean and Mongolian. It kind of makes you think when another language is spoken. We stayed in patron housing, mats on a heated floor.

The Temple grounds were beautiful! It is early spring, so no flowers. But, Dad loved the trees, he kept trying to figure out how to get one home!


About a week after we were there it snowed, only the second snow of the season, I guess the first one closed the city down! This one was beautiful, but Seoul is built on hills so the traffic was scary! But we learned how to navigate the subways, they were really nice. The city was clean and organized! People obeyed the traffic laws and there were no jay-walkers. (Mongolia doesn't have many traffic laws, the pedestrians cross where ever, a 3 land road becomes 4, and they all know how to use their horns, it really is scary at times!)

We went to one restaurant, it was owned and run by a Buddhist Monk. It was a "Temple- Cooking Resturant". The food was all vegetables and served Korean style with us sitting on little pillows on the floor.

This is a picture of the dishes, most unrecognizable, but there were potatoes, a lot of mushrooms, fried kelp, noodles, rice and other stuff I'm not sure about, There were menus, they serve the same food, depending on the season. We tried a taste of everything, the kelp I can live without! But, it was fun to go and to have a Korean-food experience.
We love each of you -

Take care and know that we know that the Gospel is true -

We are so grateful for that knowledge!!

Saying Goodbye & Trip to Ulaanbaatar

I want to keep things in order, to fit our mission. The Internet (turned out to be our modem), went down just before Tsagaan Sar. The city closed down for 10 days - that is how long the holiday lasts. Then we received word that we would have to leave, we weren't sure we would be able to come back. So the blog and the emails came to a halt. I was able to find a Internet cafe, and borrowed a computer some of the time, to do a little emailing. We had to clean out our apartment, take everything with us, so we packed up, once more and took everything to the city. That is why we mailed some packages home, we weren't sure we would be back.

We are now back in Choibalsan, computer up and running (I'm thrilled!!)

Now I can catch up with things!

At church we were asked to bear our testimonies and say good-bye, there were 4 of us, Elders' Naisbitt and Willoughby and us. When the members found out we were leaving, they quickly planned 3 little parties. I'll bet we took 50 pictures. Everybody, everybody, wanted their picture with us! It really was a compliment, but you can only cry so many tears and smile so many times. I think I was dazed by the time we crawled into bed that night!
This first picture is of the Branch Presidency - Bro. Bimbajaw (clerk and translator for us), Bro. Monkbyer (1st counselor), Branch Pres Erkenbaatar (he's 28 years old), he is a good President, and Dad.

These 4 young men are 4 of our favorite young men, Monktoshig, Batogsue, Monkchider and Bayersahen. (spelling I'm guessing) Three of them are new members and the 4th was baptized while we were gone to Korea. They come over to our house quite often, to eat some candy, try to talk to us, and just hang-out. They were over last night, when we got back. Bayersahen is the one who gave me the prayer shawl at Tsagaan Sar. They all 4, tell us all the time, "I am a future missionary".

The Primary had a little program for us, all 7 of them! They sang, "Book of Mormon Stories" for us, and we took pictures. The lady on the far right is the President - she is the cutest lady, and sings beautifully. The one in the back, in black, is in her late 60's or 70's, she just cried when she heard we were going, and hugged and hugged me.

This is what the road looked like most of the way, from Choibalsan to Ulaanbaatar, (2/3 of it is dirt road). It was a snowy day and hard to see where you are going. I only saw 2 road signs, until we got closer to the city. In this picture we had just done a 360! It was so scary, I saw my life flashing before my eyes for all 30 seconds! The driver was Pres. Batbold, he is the 2nd counselor in the Mission Presidency, and an amazing guy, we really like him. If he was on the wrong path, and there was several, he seemed to know and would back up (thank goodness for 4-wheel drive) and turn over to another path. If one path was filled with snowdrifts, which was quite often, he would just make a path, it's all pretty flat. He normally makes this drive in 9-10 hours, but this day it took 13! We were exhausted when we finally got to the Mission Offices!

When we saw these camels, Pres. Batbold shifted the car into 4-wheel drive and drove us over to them, so we could get some pictures, this is a "camel-car" he said!

These are for the grand kids, I tried to tell if they were smiling, I couldn't tell, but they sure stared at us!

It was snowing so the picture is a little hazy. All the camels in Mongolia are owned by somebody, there are no wild camels.

We are so grateful for each of you and want you to know that we felt of your prayers and thoughts!

WE LOVE EACH OF YOU!!

Embracing the Redneck Within

So a very popular event in Idaho is the Monster Truck Jam. Shocking, I know. Ethan and Jonah, or "Wiggles" and "E" as Brownyn has started to call them, decided we have to partake of this cultural experience. For a special daddy-sons outing, after a long few weeks of anticipation and hard work to earn the opportunity, this past weekend the boys finally got their wish. They attended the Monster Truck Jam. Thankfully we all survived, probably with a few less brain cells, but we survived. Monster Jam 2010 pretty much met my expectations. And the way the crowd was yelling and screaming and spilling their beer all over their heavy metal t-shirts partially covering their beer bellies and dribbling it down their beards (and those were just the women), I think it met their expectations as well. The idea of a larger-than-life truck smashing smaller probably foreign vehicles is what it is all about. And to do it with the gas pedal to the floor, an oversized muffler while popping wheelies, is all the better. We thought the show was just for fun, but appearently it's a competition.  The boys loved it.  For days afterwards we had to watch YouTube videos about massive trucks named Robosaurus, Captain USA, the Gravedigger, the Kirstie Alley and El Toro Loco. All joking aside, we had a lot of fun. Ethan and Jonah were very excited about going to Monster Truck Jam in person. I just liked being out with my sons. E and Wiggles worked hard to earn it. They are now eagerly anticipating the opportunity to see a crash-up derby, preferably one that doesn't involve Mommy.

Dinner - Yum! Yum!

This is proof that the Elders will eat anything!

I just had to put in one more thing about the customs and eating. Before us and the Elders left Choibalsan, not knowing if we were coming back, they wanted to have a Sheep's Head. Yes, a real sheep's head! The Elders had had it before and knew what it was like. The Mongolian Elders really them. They bought it at the Zaa, all cooked and ready to eat, thank goodness, I wouldn't have cooked it! They called and ask if they could come to our house to eat it. They bought 3 of them!
I just had to try it for their sakes and to make Loren and the Grand kids proud of me for trying a new thing! I tried a really small part of the cheek. It tasted OK, like regular meat. But notice the face I'm pulling!

Dad was braver than I was, he tried some of the cheek and also the tongue! They had to peel away some of the tough parts and the middle of the tongue was quite tender, he said!

Here Elder Willoughby is taking out the eyeball, it has to be done very carefully, so it doesn't break open! They all ate one! I don't know what it would taste like and really don't want to know!

Left-Overs!

They cleaned them up pretty good! Not any left-overs for the next day! Thank goodness. They bundled it up and took it with them. I did make a cake, actually that was the best part! Dad did take a tooth out with a pair of pliers, we will keep it to prove we really did eat a sheep head!

Hope we didn't ruin your dinner!

Love You, Ovoo and Emaa

So Much for Tummy Time

Joshua has never liked lying on his stomach for some reason, and he has expressed that to us in no uncertain terms whenever we try to do tummy time. As his parents, we hope that we will always do what’s best for him whether he likes it or not. So, despite how noisy and tear-jerking it has been, we’ve insisted on twenty to twenty-five minutes of tummy time daily. Well, Joshua outsmarted us. He’s learned that if he doesn’t want to lie on his stomach, rolling over will get him out of it. The first few times were an accident, but now he’s learned to roll over at will. For better or worse, Joshua will now stay on his stomach no longer than four or five seconds at a time. So much for tummy time.

A Threat or a Promise?

As you can probably guess, this delightful group of sister missionaries holds the record for having the fewest number of baptisms during the years of 1900 through 1920.  Most never married.  Many became horders of cats and empty Kerr canning jars.  BTW, although we know their views on the Word of Wisdom; don't even think about asking them what they think of Hillary Clinton.

Tsagaan Sar - 2

Every table at Tsagaan Sar has a center piece something like this, this was a colorful one. There is always an odd number of layers, representing "happy - not happy - happy" always ending with "happy". These stay on the table until the last 2-3 days and then they are eaten with hot milk, to soak the pieces in. We grew up with hot milk and toast! It is a staple here. You could eat the candy or sugar lumps or the curds from them, but not the bread itself. They are very pretty. Some are all white and some very large and some small. The layers have to do with the age of the people, the higher the bread, the older you are. I saw some 7 layers high.

Some tables were very simple and some very elaborate. This table was very nice, but simple. The food tasted very good. Their rice is very good, with butter and raisins. The buuz are in the front, they always had buuz, some very interesting, with all parts of the sheep, all parts!

This is Shinnbaatar, he is the Elders Quorum President in the Branch. He has a daughter in Australia, very nice people! He invited all the Branch youth and the missionaries over for the afternoon. They love coming here, he is very kind. There is a nice center piece and he is carving a piece of meat, it may have been antelope. Custom says that everyone has a piece of the meat and the oldest one first - yep, us!

This is the meat he was carving. They like every bit of the meat, there will be nothing but bones, when they are done! After everyone has had the meat then they serve the salads and relish and Salomone and rice. Their salads and rice are very good. I had a hard time with Salomone at home.

This is a picture of Damdanjorg and his family. They all dressed up in their deels and notice the little boys hat, it is a traditional Mongolian wrestling hat. There are some very fancy hats and deels! I have been very impressed!

Most of the homes we were in are very small - as big as our living room and kitchen - that is the whole house. This family live all together in that kind of house. One corner is the kitchen with a metal stove and an outhouse and they roll out their beds at night. They have no privacy or other rooms. But this house was neat and clean.

We love all of you and I sure appreciate America and our home and our family! I have truly been spoiled and we have so much to be grateful for!

Right now we are in Korea, waiting for our visa's. It will be another few days, we went and bought some groceries. We think of you often and love you all!

Where in the World are Ovoo and Emaa?

As if Mongolia weren't an exciting enough place to be, Ovoo and Emaa have decided to throw a little twist into the story and head to Seoul, Korea (and hopefully back to Mongolia!)  We all hope you enjoy your time there, and we are all hoping the situation resolves soon so you can get back to Mongolia.  I am sure you already have quite a love for the people there.  Enjoy the sights!

Tsagaan Sar - 1

We want to keep these in order so I'll start at the beginning. Tsagaan Sar is Mongolia's Thanksgiving. And very family and friend oriented. Two or three days before the holiday starts they clean their homes. They beat the rugs, clean their houses and we noticed some getting new furniture - New couches and chairs on a horse cart. These rugs are hung over fences the weather is maybe -10 or -15 c. Another thing they do before is to make Buuz (pronounced bodes). Many of the women will make several hundred! Also, all the businesses close for the 10 days of the holiday. (That is why I had no internet, and then found out we had to leave)

These young kids are in our home alot. When they found out Dad bought a Deel (pronounced dell) they wanted to see it on him so they dresses up Dad. Tieing the sash was so funny. The men wear the sash around their hips and pull the Deel up, so it hangs over, he looked kind of fat! But, they thought he looked so good! That is a traditional Mongolian hat. The young man in the white shirt, Bayarsaikhan, is being baptized this Saturday, March 5th, we will miss it. I'm sad! He is a cute young man. I will talk about his later.

This is a picture of us in our Deels. This is the first day of the holiday and we are getting ready to go out and visit. The Deels are made the same, the women wear more color and wear their sashes aroung their waist. One of the Mongolian Elders taught us a song and we sang it a few times, about a mother and the different Deels she had through her life, one of them was a green deel. The Mongloian music is very pretty and they sing alot about their mother's, father's and families.

Elder's Willoughby and Naisbitt in their Mongolian Shirts

It is a Buddist Prayer Tradition.

They find the hight place around where they live and tie a prayer shawl. It was very windy and cold,but a fun place to see. They also use these shawl to greet and show respect at Tsagaan Sar. We were the oldest at several of the homes so they would respect us first. The young man in the first picture (in the white shirt). Wanted to honor me and then gave me the shawl! I was so touched!