Update on September 27, 2009

Last week was a busy week. I created 10 farewell books for the missionaries who left the mission. Then 18 new Mongolian missionaries arrived in the mission from the Philippines MTC. We still have American missionaries waiting to come because they can’t get visas. The American missionaries have been temporarily reassigned to other missions. Last week was also a Big Transfer as well as time to send all of the missionaries’ allotments to their debit cards.



Friday Sep. 25th we decided to take a trip before winter sets in. A week before the temperature went down to 28° F. and there was snow on the ground. Friday we went to Terelj National Park, the birth place of Chinggis Khan. The pictures will give you an idea of what we did. The weather was overcast, but it was still a nice day. We rode camels and Wes rode a horse. I was able to get on the camel because it came down for me, but I decided I wouldn’t be able to get on a horse; it was too high even if Mongolian horses are shorter than American horses.

We saw Turtle Rock, a rock formation that looks like a turtle, Then we went on to the Meditation Temple. I think the Buddhists chose locations with impressive views for their temples. We climbed 115 steps. On the way back we saw the 100 Lamas Cave. The opening looks small, but 100 Buddhist monks were saved from Stalin’s purges by hiding in the cave.

On Sunday at Church we told a couple of missionaries we were going to go home and have tuna noodle casserole. That sounded good to them so Elder Whittle and Elder Byambadorj joined us for Sunday dinner where we had tuna noodle casserole, green beans, jello, cornbread, and apple crisp with ice cream. This is not our normal eating. Often we just have a bowl of soup for dinner.

Elder Whittle took the recipe home so he could made tuna noodle casserole himself. When he had been at dinner the previous Sunday with all 10 of the Sukhbaatar missionaries, he liked Dad’s rolls so he took home the roll recipe and made rolls. With all 10 of the missionaries we had roast, mashed potatoes, green beans, raspberry jello with cherries, and cake and ice cream.