Pine Cones and Missionaries

Dear Family and Friends, 

I can honestly say this was one of the longest weeks of my mission. We arrived to the traffic filled city on Tuesday evening and ever since then we've been trying to figure out our lives. 

Our home is nice and big. The Elders who lived there before us did a pretty good cleaning job before they left, but I still cleaned the whole place to make me feel better. I love our apartment, but unfortunately we don't live near our area or our English assignments so it requires good planning. 

In Darkhan we never rode on buses. I didn't think I missed buses, but since coming back to the city I've realized that buses provide us with great entertainment. There's never a dull moment, so I like it. This week the government completely changed the bus system over night. The routes and numbers changed which is a huge bummer, but we only have to pay for a ticket once a day instead of each time we ride a new bus. This is a miracle because we were running a little low on money due to a salsa purchase made earlier in the month. (Salsa has never tasted so good! I only wish we had some chips to go with it). 

I've never really wondered where pine nuts came from, but this week I figured it out. They come from pine cones! A few weeks ago I started noticing a few people walking around with pine cones in their hand. Now everyone walks around with pine cones in their hands, so of course we decided to try one too. Cracking the little seed and getting the nut out was difficult at first, but I've been practicing and I finally got the hang of it. It's a very time consuming snack though. If you have time give it a try otherwise it's not worth the effort. 

Today I went back to my favorite kindergarten in all of Mongolia. It was a mess, and people were running around cleaning and doing a variety of projects. This week I'm in planning mode. The first day of school will be on September 1st. Today Nara told me that my replacement will be an Elder which secretly made me happy because that means that she'll remember me for at least two years. 

Sister Royal teaches English to a eight year old boy. He was supposed to learn English in school, but didn't learn it very well. She's helping him review before school starts and then she'll continue to help him learn what he learns in school each day. They are a very wealthy family, and they have a crazy nice apartment. They are not members of the church, but they know about the church and mission rules. Maybe we can be good influences on them and someday they'll get baptized. Sister Royal teaches Tuesday-Saturday and I teach Monday-Friday. This means that every day of the week we teach 2-4 hours of English. Add in travel time, study, district meeting, big plan, and we have practically no time to meet with anyone--ever. It's been a rough realization, but I have faith that doing what we're supposed to do will result in miracles and better quality lessons.  

The other four missionaries in Unur kindly (maybe grudgingly) gave us a few people to meet with. However, most of them turned out to be the ones that they've never been able to contact. This week we visited with a few members when we had time. We randomly showed up at the visiting teaching supervisor's house and witnessed a miracle. The bishop's wife happened to show up right after we arrived. She asked about our work, and then gave us the name of her relative/potential investigator and volunteered to go with us to their house that evening. I was so happy! Unfortunately, the eight year old daughter, Nominerdene, is most interested. The mom and grandma aren't too interested in the church, but we're becoming their good friends. They give us ice cream, and the Grandma invited us over to learn how to make delicious Mongolian food. 

We live in the noisy, traffic filled city. We spend our days teaching English. We ride lots of buses. We don't have many people to meet with. However, when it all comes down to it, we're very blessed. We're missionaries in the greatest mission on Earth. Heavenly Father loves us. We're happy, and we have the opportunity to share that key to happiness with others. I'm trying to love every minute of it. 

Love, Sister Magleby