Taxi! Taxi! - Choibalsan's Group Transportation

I haven't been out alot this week, because of a cold.

But, I've been wanting to put these pictures on the blog.

They call these vans "Meekers".

They run all over Choibalsan and the countryside.

It costs about T300 per person, which amounts to about 25 cents.

It's alot warmer than a horse and cart!

But there is no heat in the ones I have riden in.

On this day 3 missionaries were leaving, being transfered to another area, so we were taking them to the Airport, maybe a 20 minute ride.

All the young men and women wanted to go, so the missionaries hired 2 meekers.

They just keep stuffing and stuffing, there were 20 of us in this Meeker!
The missionaries say their personal record was 24!

Personal space doesn't seem to be an issue with Mongolian people.

The girls walk all around town, arm in arm, partly for support on the ice and partly because they are friends.

It reminds me of a story I heard of the pioneer girls walking across the plains, arm in arm, because they were friends and loved each other.

Aren't they cute!
Love all of you!

Kye and Josh

Last week Kye and I started watching Josh when Tracy went back to work. It has been going great. As you can see, Kye and Josh are getting along very well. Kye only scared Josh on the first few days. Kye and Josh are becoming very good friends.

Like Father, Like Sons and Daughter (D'oh!)

The Boys, Bronwyn Susan and I had a little party on Sunday.  We celebrated the anniversary of our favourite two-dimensional yellow family, the Simpsons.  This week marks the 20th year the Simpsons has been on television.  I remember watching them in High School and College.  I loved the social satire.  Now I watch them with my children, much to the dismay of Tama.  Hands down this is my favourite show, the only one I faithfully watch.  (I think it is now Ethan and Jonah's favourite as well.)  I thought I would share some of my favourite quotes from the show with the hopes that other Simpson-philists, like K.C. and Jody, Ovoo and Emaa will share some of theirs.  Heres also to hoping for twenty more enjoyable years.  And that Tama and I will make it as long, if not longer. 
•    Sideshow Bob: No children have ever meddled with the Republican Party and lived to tell about it.
•    Troy McClure: Don’t kid yourself, Jimmy. If a cow ever got the chance, he’d eat you and everyone you care about!
•    Lionel Hutz: Well, he’s kind of had it in for me ever since I accidentally ran over his dog. Actually, replace “accidentally” with “repeatedly” and replace “dog” with “son.”
•    Comic Book Guy: Oh, loneliness and cheeseburgers are a dangerous mix.
•    Homer: Books are useless! I only ever read one book, “To Kill A Mockingbird,” and it gave me absolutely no insight on how to kill mockingbirds!
•    Grandpa Simpson: Dear Mr. President, There are too many states nowadays. Please, eliminate three.
•    Homer: A woman is a lot like a refrigerator. Six feet tall, 300 pounds…makes ice.
•    Homer: You don’t win friends with salad.
•    Marge: Grandpa, are you sitting on the apple pie? Grandpa: I sure hope so...
•    Mr. Burns: I don’t like being outdoors, Smithers. For one thing, there’s too many fat children.
•    Homer: Donuts. Is there anything they can’t do?
•    Marge: Get ready, skanks! It’s time for the truth train!
•    Homer: I call the big one, Bitey.
•    Ralph: That's my swingset, and that's my sandbox. I'm not allowed to go in the deep end.
•    Grandpa Simpson: The last time the meteors came, we thought the sky was on fire. Naturally, we blamed the Irish. We hanged more 'n a few.
•    Marge: Homer, is this how you pictured married life? Homer: Yeah, pretty much, except we drove around in a van solving mysteries.

Kye's new bed

Yesterday we set up a twin mattress set for Kye's new bed. Lately he has been sleeping on a futon because he will not sleep in his crib any more. As soon as I finished making the bed, he pulled the covers back and climbed in. He slept all the way through the night in his new "big boy bed."

Home Sweet Home!

I thought you might enjoy seeing where and how we live. Our apartment is small, but for here is considered very nice. The kitchen is approximately 7'x10', just right for 2 of us. The stove is very small, we can fit a small cookie sheet in the oven. When I cook for the Elders and Sisters, we have them go single file to the stove, dish up their food and go back into the Living Room to eat. I have cooked soup, and also lots of rice, they seem to enjoy it.

This is our washing machine. Notice the silver hose into the washing machine - we fill it with the bathroom sink water. The hose is also our shower head in the bathtub. The tub is about 2 1/2' high, the actual tub is probably sits 1' higher than the floor. Also, notice the drain for the washer - yep it drains into the bathtub! I haven't actually brought myself to take a bath yet, the shower works well! Also the water is a pale yellow in color, which doesn't lend itself to a bath! Also, the washer doesn't agitate, it twirls, goes one way, stops, then twirls the other way! As you can imagine our clothes are one big knot when finished!

These are how eggs are sold, you buy them individually. We carry them very carefully from the store! They do have flats of 2 1/2 dozen, but I don't know if that would be any safer to carry an open flat of eggs!

When we first got to Choibalsan, there was a funeral, the food was very interesting! They take a lot of pride in how it looks, which is really very pretty. At the bottom is a plate of meat, like salami, with pickle relish in the center. The bigger plate up on the left is rice and raisins, it actually tasted pretty good. The smaller plate on the right, is potato salad, a lot like our salads. The smaller plate above, on the right, is dill pickles and relish. The bigger plate on the left, above the rice is fruit, grapes and mandarin oranges. The long rectangles are bread, they decorate the bread with different kinds of candy.

They use this same kind of bread with their holidays, they have meaning and notice some are stacked higher than others, I will have to find out more about them. In February they have their New Year's, Tsagaan Sar Holiday, I'm sure I will find out a lot at that time.

Another interesting custom is that they each have a fork, and they all eat off the main plates.

We are learning and still getting use to things.

We are keeping busy though,

with the Elders and Sisters bringing their contacts to our home to teach,

with teaching English Lessons,

and with the activities at the Church.
We love you All!

Our First Baptism!

This is Ounbelick, she is 15 years old. The Elders brought her to our home a couple of times to teach her. She is a cute girl, and bears such a sweet and humble testimony! These are 5 of our 8 missionaries. Elder Willoughby is baptizing her and Elder Naisbitt is the District Leader and the one who helps us alot. They have a baptism almost every week. They just schedule it in - every Saturday at 6:00pm at Church.

The young people love their picture taken! They always ask me to take pictures, which translates - will you give me a copy, too! So I need to find a place to get copies for everyone! None of them, that I know of have a camara and they love pictures. Each one, even the boys have a photo album of their family and friends. I think most of their pictures are given to them by missionaries. The Young Women President is in Ulaanbaatar so the program is being run by her counselors, until she returns, no one know when. Her counselors are in the picture, they are 16 years old. They take charge and everything.

The Young Men do have a President, center in front. He is preparing to go on a mission, which means he is 18 or 19 years old. Some of the Young Women and Young Men are Branch Missionaries, they teach and get referrals for the full time Missionaries, they sometimes teach the investigators class on Sundays. The young people are amazing and very active in the programs of the Church!

Thanks for blogging and putting in information!

It helps to read and see pictures of you!

We Love and Miss all of You!

Oh, and by the way - The Church is true and God loves each of Us!

Why We Love Aunt Trisha!

This Christmas and New Years were awesome.  The Andersons had so much fun.  The boys loved being out of school for two weeks and I even had a couple of days off from work.  Everything was almost perfect.  This will definately go down as one of our favourite Christmas/ New Years thus far.  It is now kind of sad to get back to real life.  One of the best parts of the holidays was having Aunt Trisha come and visit us.  She is a lot of fun to have around.  (And she even does the dishes!)  Trisha traveled up to Boise from Springville to spend New Years with us.  The boys were so excited for her to come.  On the day she was supposed to arrive Jonah wanted me to call her every ten minutes to find out where she was and when she would be here.  The boys sat upstairs by the window hoping to see her vehicle turn into our neighbourhood.  Once Jonah ran downstairs and excitedly yelled "Trisha's here".  She really wasn't but he said he needed to "practice" for when she really did arrive.  Aunt Trisha definately has a couple of admirers in our family.  Even little Bronwyn Sue talked to Trisha and let Trisha hold her.  That is a major event.  The visit probably wasn't very relaxing for Trisha as her attention and time were in high demand.  Trisha played legos with the boys.  She taught then lots of card and board games.  The boys love Mille Bourne.  She went bowling with us on New Years Eve.  We even went snowshoeing and sledding with her in the beautiful mountains surrounding Boise.  When we went snowshoeing we saw a lot of bald eagles and a couple of golden eagles.   The sledding hill was probably the best I have been on.  As you can see we caught a lot of air.  Ethan and Jonah think that Trisha is good luck, and I have to agree.  Thanks for visiting Trisha and we hope you come back soon.