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 

I'm going back to...

Dear Family and Friends, 

I've always known our adventures in Darkhan would be ending soon. Yesterday we got the official text that informed us we're going to be serving together in Unur. I wasn't surprised at all. In fact, I was pretty sure that's where we were going to end up. For some reason Heavenly Father really needs me in Unur, and I hope this time I stay long enough to figure out why. I'm excited, but I know from experience that it's going to be a little challenging especially because once we arrive there will be six missionaries in the Unur area. However, Sister Royal and I have learned a lot here in Darkhan and we're getting good at finding new investigators. It's time to put our skills to good use, and Unur is going to be the best! 

There was one day this week where all of our plans and back up plans fell through. We didn't know what to do, so we walked for a little bit and then Sister Royal had the idea to go visit Narantsetseg, a new member. We went to her house and she wasn't there. As we were walking away from her apartment door, we saw her walking with a friend near her home. They came over to talk to us and we ended up sitting outside and sharing a message about missionary work which her friend understood perfectly. During our lesson another one of their friends walked over and also showed some interest in the church. We met with these two friends later during the week but they promised to come to church and didn't actually come. It was a little miracle though to find these two new investigators, and maybe the next set of sisters can help them progress. 

This week we've been meeting with members, asking for referrals, becoming friends with the people of Darkhan, and giving service. Darkhan is a little tricky because immigration rules are more strict. Even if people ask if we go to church we are not allowed to say yes. I try not to say no either, because we don't want them to think we're all a bunch of liars...Some of them probably think we are though. They also all think we live in the ger district because they always see us walking around there. Anyways, when I was with Sister Eskelsen we met a particular photo man who asked us to help us with his printer. We went there every once in awhile (this is a planting seeds effort) and try to help him. I guess we finally helped him enough because he volunteered to take our picture for free. So, we had a fun Mongolian photo shoot this week. He took a bunch of pictures, edited them, and printed them. He wouldn't take any money, but when we went back to pick them up we gave him a cute card and some good looking chocolate. He got a big smile on his face, so we like to think we were successful. He found out that we really are church people because when he put the pictures on my memory card he decided to look at some of my pictures and there we were wearing name tags with the name of the church... He said he didn't want to come to church but I have hope that one day he'll remember Magleby and Royal and be somewhat curious about what we really did in Mongolia.(We tried to sell him on some story about us being English teachers... :) 

Sometimes I get so frustrated that I can't straight up tell people about the church. I'm a missionary for heaven sakes! But, I'm learning to have patience and I'm also learning how to share the gospel in other ways. Sharing the gospel is so fun, too. If you have the opportunity to share the gospel with a random stranger on the street you are lucky. Share what you love with others! 

Love, Sister Magleby

I'm Mongolian!

We're both so Mongolian! :)

Last week we went to some famous places in Darkhan.
 This is at the "bridge."

We went to see this tall person made of metal.
You pass it on the way into Darkhan.

 Metal Man

Walking to an appointment

One of the highlights of my week was visiting with Hulan Egch, a member.
She's so kind and hilarious!

It's raining, it's pouring!

Dear Family and Friends, 

In the past year I have gained a strong testimony of the Book of Mormon. I know that it's true! Through reading the Book of Mormon our testimonies become strong. We learn about our Savior, Jesus Christ. If we read from the Book of Mormon we will choose righteousness and we can be happy. The Book of Mormon is essential to missionary work. I know it. Sister Royal knows it. Unfortunately, our investigators don't know it yet. 

This week almost all of our investigators told us that they don't want to meet, and two of them tried to return the Book of Mormon to us. Of course I told them to keep it. God is a God of miracles. Someday these people might  find the Book of Mormon on their shelf, start reading, and want to come to church. Anything is possible! 

Sister Royal and I are trying to stay positive despite the fact that we have practically no one to meet with. We're also just a little confused because this whole thing spiraled out of control so quickly. Some of our investigators heard really bad things about the church. There is another church in our area that has been talking to people and passing out little books titled, "Jesus Loves You." Whenever I find these little books at people's homes I sneakily take them so that I can throw them away. We can't even talk about our church, so I'm trying to even the playing field!  I think there are a lot of factors playing into these people's decisions. Ultimately I have no choice but to respect these people's decisions even though I know they aren't choosing the truth. That is sometimes difficult because I love these people and I want them to come unto Christ by being baptized, but our agency is a great gift from God. One thing's for sure, I'm learning a lot from Darkhan. I have had very unique experiences here that I couldn't have had anywhere else. 

And this week wasn't all terrible. We found two new investigators! We're praying really hard that they continue to meet with us. On Tuesday we went to visit Altanchimeg. We had planned to teach the 2nd lesson and for a member to come with us; however, I woke up on Tuesday morning and I felt like we needed to change our plan. We asked a different member to come and prepared to teach the 1st lesson. The new member that we had asked was Hulan, and she ended up knowing Altanchimeg. It was such a good lesson! 

This week we found Uka's house, which means she can't run away from us very easily!  We set a new baptismal date, and we thought we were making progress. Unfortunately she didn't come to church yesterday. Sister Royal was so sad. I was sad too, but it's Uka. I'm used to it. 

It rained a lot this week so we were waking around in mud. Sister Royal doesn't have rain boots and her shoes kept getting stuck in the mud. We laughed a lot about that, but I felt bad for her. 

On Saturday we went to a ward picnic at the river. It was lots of fun. We played volleyball, played Uno (said with a Mongolian accent which cracked me up), ate huushuur, and we talked to a lot of people. 

We laughed a lot this week. Sometimes we have hard experiences but there are always things to laugh about, and ways to have fun. I love missionary work! I love Mongolia! 

Love, Sister Magleby

Sister Royal, Uka, me

These are Uka's relatives and a member who wanted to be our friend

We checked addresses in what used to be the tallest building in Mongolia.
It was also the creepiest building I've been in while in Mongolia

We walked all over looking for Hishigjargal's new house. 

They moved and now they aren't answering their phone. Her brother
told us 

the street name and that it had a green fence. We walked all the way to the end of

 the road without finding it and stopped to take this picture.

It's raining, it's pouring!

MONGOLIA

Meeting a Royal

Transfers. As usual, we were left in anticipation until Wednesday afternoon. Sister Eskelsen was 100% sure that the two of us would stay in Darkhan together so when she got the phone call telling her that she was being transferred to the city she thought it was a joke. Then I was left in anticipation for my phone call--I stayed in Darkhan and I'm training a new missionary. I thought for sure that I was going to be training a Mongolian, but I'm not. I'm training Sister Royal. She's already a really great missionary so as for now this whole experience is just very humbling. She is extremely lucky because she came to Mongolia and came straight to the Mongolian "countryside!"

Since I had to pick up my new companion in the city, I joined the other country missionaries on a train adventure. There were about 12 transferring missionaries that all ended up at the Darkhan train station in the middle of the night. They had SO much stuff! The train ladies were not very happy with us. "Why do you Jesus people always do this..?" That night sleeping was rough. We arrived at the city in the morning and had to haul all of the stuff through the train station to the waiting taxis and then make our journey to the Bayanzurkh. That day I sat in the meeting for trainers and then we had a meet your trainer meeting/pizza party. The American missionaries had another meeting scheduled for the following day so Sister Royal and I stayed at the dorms that night. Luckily, I came prepared for an extra day in the city if needed.

We had some time in the city, so we went to visit Lkhagva Egch, one of my old Sukhbaatar investigators. She was really excited to see me and said the cutest prayer about how thankful she was that I came to visit her. She is reading from the Book of Mormon so well, but she works on Sunday and can't come to church. Church is obviously important so we're trying to help her understand that.

We came back to Darkhan on Friday night. Since Sister Eskelsen left we're now in charge of teaching her English every day for the next week. Luckily, it's not very difficult. There was almost no one at church on Sunday. Hopefully every one starts coming back to their home soon.

Yesterday we met with Uka. We taught her about enduring to the end and I think she finally understands that baptism is not the end goal. Of course baptism is important, but we can't just stop living the gospel after we get baptized when we get busy. She didn't understand the vision, but now she at least understands it better than she did before. We set a new baptismal date, and we'll see what happens. Luckily, we found her house so now she'll have to try a little harder to avoid us if that's really her plan.

Missionary work is so hard, fun, happy, sad, and mostly just rewarding.  This week in one of President Benson's new missionary training meetings he mentioned the fact that out of 80,000 missionaries only a few get called to Mongolia. I'm so lucky and extremely blessed. I'm so thankful for the opportunity that I have to be a missionary in Mongolia.

Love, Sister Magleby

Me and Hishigjargal, our investigator

 Our last district meeting before transfers

Our new member Davaanyam and her granddaughter

Sister Royal and Me

An Effort of Once and For All

Dear Family and Friends, 

I'm not sure, but Mongolia may be the only place where the church takes a summer vacation. Hardly anyone comes to church, and not many people do their callings. It's sad. The Mongolian people love to leave their homes and "go to the country." Even the people that live in the country leave their homes and "go to the country." When they return, they usually have a few neat pictures on their phone. Sister Eskelsen and I always ask people where they went, what they saw, etc. There's a beautiful waterfall somewhere out there that I'd love to see one day! This whole country phenomenon makes our missionary work a little difficult, but I try not to complain. We keep ourselves busy by meeting with the people that recently returned from the country that we haven't seen for a while or the people that are content to stay at home. 

This week we had a zone conference/activity. We met at the church at 8:30 and divided into two groups--Elders and Sisters. The sisters, all six of us, first met with President Benson. He taught us that our most important responsibility in this life is motherhood. Then Sister Benson (via Skype) told us the story of how sister missionaries came to be. I had never heard that story before so I was intrigued. Then we all headed outside to board the bus to our mysterious destination. Seriously, no one except the bus driver knew where we were going. We ended up at the banks of a river. It was so hot outside. We ate lunch and then went to a variety of stations where we learned about working with the members and church leaders to do missionary work. That is our goal and focus for the upcoming year. President Benson said that our focus of the past year was creating a culture of obedience. We've done that and now our focus is going to be creating a mission culture of working with the members. As we focus on this I know that the missionary work in Mongolia will be blessed. After our learning stations, we played for a bit and then headed back to Darkhan. 

This week a member invited us to her home for lunch. Her husband is less active. They have been to the temple multiple times, but he hasn't been coming to church for a while now. We had a good time talking to them and getting to know them better. Normally I would have asked him if he would come to church on Sunday, but this time as we were walking out the door I just said, "See you on Sunday." He started to say something, but I just kept walking out the door. Well, I didn't think anything of it, but yesterday he actually came to church! His wife was so happy. Unfortunately she wasn't happy enough to give up her chair in the front row that "she's been sitting in for the past ten years" to sit next to her husband who chose to sit in the back. We were happy to see him at church though, and I hope that it was a good experience so he chooses to come again next week.

We tried to meet with Bolormaa, a new member, this week, but it didn't go so well. Her two sisters were investigators, but they have made the decision to never come back to church. They wouldn't even talk to us while we were at their house. Bolormaa was the only one who would talk to us, but even she hardly said a word. All she said was that since her sisters won't come to church she won't come to church either. It was really sad. We talked to the Branch President about it and he said that he'll go over their at the end of August to talk to them. In his opinion, they went to a family reunion and got poisoned with shamanism information. He said that they'll forget about it soon and then they'll start coming to church again. But did they go to a family reunion? They won't talk to us, so we don't even know! What are we supposed to do until school starts and they forget? Sister Eskelsen and I enjoy being persistent missionaries, so we'll keep going to her house. One of these days she'll have to say something, I hope. 

Our mission theme is 3 Nephi 5:13, "Behold, I am a disciple of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I have been called of him to declare his words among his people that they might have everlasting life." We say this everyday in companionship study (or if you live at our house--sing), and at all of our meetings. This week I was reading from a conference talk and found this quote by President Ucthdorf, " Being a disciple of Jesus Christ is not an effort of once a week or once a day. It is an effort of once and for all." I'm not just a disciple of Jesus Christ while I'm a missionary in Mongolia. I am a disciple of Jesus Christ for the rest of my life. We're all disciples of Jesus Christ. Becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ is a continual process, and we can never stop progressing. As we become disciples of Jesus Christ we will become more like him and we can do so much good in the world. I'm grateful for the opportunity I have to serve my mission in Mongolia and for the experiences I have that help me learn how to become a better disciple of my Savior Jesus Christ. 

Have a wonderful week! 

Love, Sister Magleby

Sister Eskelsen and I at the river

Sister Zaya (my STL companion), and Sister Lonjidpil

Maybe We Didn't Eat Enough Stomach

Dear Family and Friends, 

This week our hearts were broken. Multiple times. I love that we all have agency, but sometimes it makes things so difficult. 

On my first day in Darkhan an old investigator called us and wanted to meet immediately. Her name is Uka. We met that day, set a baptismal date, and then we've had a hard time getting in touch with her ever since. She rarely answers her phone, and when she does talk to us and agree to meet she never shows up. Heavenly Father is not giving up on her though--we run into her all of the time!! On Thursday we finished teaching English and then set out to check some addresses. We walked around the corner of a building right as Uka was walking out of a store. We talked for a bit while we continued searching for our address. She lies sometimes which makes me mad, but I tried to control my frustration during the conversation. We set up a time to meet the following evening, and guess what? She didn't come. Yesterday we were in the area near her home and our appointments fell through. Sister Eskelsen jokingly suggested that we could meet with Uka, but when we called her phone didn't work. We decided to head back to an area near our home and the church. We got out of the taxi, looked across the street, and Uka was waving at us. This time we took her to the church with us and taught a lesson. I remember Sister Largin once told me, "I don't believe in luck." And Sister Eskelsen is always exclaiming, "These things don't just happen!" It's taken me a while, but I'm beginning to really understand what they mean. Heavenly Father is doing his best to place Uka in our path because he knows that she needs our help. Quite honestly, we don't know what she needs, but I know that Heavenly Father will help us with that too. 

The address that we checked was the home of a less active member who happens to be deaf. I was kicking myself for not knowing more sign language! I used a little, but then in the end we just had a nice "conversation" on paper. I wrote the questions, passed her the paper, and she wrote the answers. Not that effective, but it was a fun experience. 

This week we started teaching our garden friend, Davaadulam, the gospel. We started with a message about family which she loved. Yesterday we started teaching about the restoration, and I think she loved that too. She asked when church was which seemed like a step in the right direction. Yesterday she gave us delicious home grown cucumbers and nasty fake ham--Mongolian salad. The funny thing was that right before we went to her house Sister Eskelsen and I were talking about how much we hate the fake ham. I ate some only to make Davaadulam happy. 

This week we met with two investigators, Doljinsuren (mom, Grandma) and Davaanyam (son). On Tuesday we had a wonderful lesson about faith and baptism. They both agreed to get baptized and they seemed so happy! At the end of the lesson they fed us stomach, intestine...it was all there boiled in the pot. We ate it, but we weren't too happy about it. On Fridaywe went back to their house expecting to have another great lesson. Davaanyam immediately left the house and Doljinsuren tried to give her Book of Mormon back to us. Her family is absolutely Buddhist and they apparently started giving her a really hard time so she won't meet with us. My first thought was that maybe we didn't eat enough stomach the last time. Maybe they got offended... :) We talked to her though, and she invited us to come back this week. 

It was a lovely week, but I hope that this week we can have a bit more success with our used to be progressing investigators. That would be nice. I hope that you all have a great week, too! 

Love, Sister Magleby

An Adventure Filled Holiday Week

Dear Family and Friends, 

This week we celebrated Nadaam. Everyone that we met with on Tuesday told us that the opening ceremony was on Wednesday. We went to the Nadaam stadium on Wednesday at 10 o'clock and no one was there. It may appear to be a translation problem, but it wasn't. They were simply confused. The real opening ceremony was the following day. We went back on Thursday and enjoyed some Mongolian songs, dancing, wrestling, and huushuur. We love Mongolian holidays. 

Last Sunday our Branch President asked us if we would sing a song the following week in Sacrament Meeting. From our limited selection of music we chose, "This is the Christ." Sister Eskelsen is good at singing, and I am not. I've been walking around with the recorded alto part on my camera all week, and I still couldn't sing it that well. Everyone said that they liked it though, so I guess it's okay that I pretty much made up the notes. 

Yesterday in Relief Society we talked about home teaching. The teacher started out with the question, "Who are home teachers?" No one knew! Well, the teacher knew. She gave all of them the assignment to go ask the branch president for home teachers. At the end of the lesson she asked Sister Eskelsen and I to share an experience about home teaching. I realized that I don't really remember anything I ever learned from my home teachers, but I remember that they always came. I'm learning a lot about the gospel and our responsibilities on my mission. The simple things are so important. 

We found the promised land. There's a little street where practically all of our investigators live. We find one person, they lead us to another person. It's magical. Last week we were walking down this particular road looking for the home of a new investigator. While we were talking to people and looking for her address we found a cute old woman with the most beautiful yard/garden I've ever seen in Mongolia. We talked to her for a few minutes and asked if we could come back and help her one day. We planned to go this week, but we ran out of time. We went back to that street last night and we talked to her again. This time she invited us in and gave us some delicious juice and pastry. She ended up asking about the church so we talked about it. We're going back on Wednesday to work in the garden and teach her a lesson. I'm praying it goes as well as we hope. 

This week we visited Hishigjargal and Erdenzorigt. They are progressing well, but were out of town this weekend for the holiday so they didn't come to church. We always take a taxi to their house and all of the taxi drivers think we're crazy when we tell them where we're going. They live behind some sort of cement factory. I don't really know. We showed up this week and Erdenzorigt was outside with some other people working on his car. The other people asked who we were and he replied, "Those are my missionaries." That made us happy because sometimes he seems a little less interested than his wife. We taught a great lesson, and then it was time to leave. They usually give us a ride back, but since they were working on the car we were stuck. We ended up having to walk back because their are no people out there. It wasn't a bad walk, just very hot. We took a little detour/shortcut and climbed a mountain. It was fun!  

Mongolian funnies. Our taxi stopped behind another car at a red light, and I saw one of the funniest things I've ever seen. The driver of the car stuck his upper body out the window and I thought he was just looking at the ground. Then the man behind him sticks his upper body out the back window, and... starts peeling a hard boiled egg. I looked a little closer and the driver was also peeling a hard boiled egg. They were creative, because seriously who wants those little white shells all over the inside of their car? We laughed so hard. Also, yesterday we were waiting for a taxi to pick us up and we heard some music playing. The music kept getting closer and closer and I thought a car was going to come around the corner at any moment. But it wasn't a car. No, it was a bike. A teenage boy rode around the corner (so slowly it was practically in slow motion) and he had a CD player, battery, and speakers attached to his bike. He looked at us briefly and then kept riding down the road. Once again, we laughed so hard. 

Love, Sister Magleby

Our district at the Nadaam stadium

We took a pictures every time we got any Huushuur

One of our new friends.
This was the stand where we ate our first holiday Huushuur

We climbed this mountain on the way home from Hishigjargal's house