I can’t believe it’s been
almost three weeks since I sent a decent letter. The biggest problem now
is that I have no idea where I left off. I’m pretty sure I finished up Tsagaan
Sar and where my district went to 8 houses on the last day and probably ate
a solid 200+ buuz that day alone. The only problem with Tsagaan
Sar is that it really doesn’t end. You just keep counting the new 1st day,
2nd........13th. Fortunately, we were able to break the Tsagaan Sar slump
with a beautiful baptism on Friday (that was the new 5th
day if you’re keeping track). Again we had the hot and cold water
problems, but we weren’t expecting more or less. Because it was still
technically the holiday, we were severely worried about who
would turn up including the people who were assigned to give talks. By
the time we were about to start we were fortunate enough to have a
decent amount of people and the bishop. Then, coming straight
from school Maralmaa (the girl being baptized) showed up right on time with who
else then her mom who has been working in the Gobi desert for the past year or
so. Excited and a bit shocked we welcomed her in. Even with the few
people we had everything went very smoothly. Hats off to my companion who
performed the baptism in only about two feet of water. The talks were
great and then afterwards there were some refreshments set up. Maralmaa
is 12 and probably the most golden of investigators. And to
prove it she got up and bore the best testimony I've heard at a baptism.
She went into a story of how an incident at school reminded her of a
story from the Book of Mormon and then started quoting and citing scriptures
from the middle of Alma. The other youth in the ward have got
to watch out because she has been going to seminary more faithfully
then any of them and I’m pretty sure her and her sister have memorized all of
the seminary scriptures.
It’s amazing that Elder
Ganshagai and I are in our last two weeks together. Where has the time gone?
And on top of that has it really been 8 months in Songino!? I think
I’ve said it before but it bears repeating that the thing I’ll probably miss
the most from this ward is the returned missionaries. They are absolutely
incredible. Talk about never leaving your mission. Amazing! We'll see
what happens, but odds are I’m out of here on the next transfer.
I think yesterday was a bit of a microcosm
(don’t know that one in Mongolian) of the last couple of weeks.
We had a great meeting with our ward mission leader and then
a beautiful Sacrament meeting. Even our ward missionaries
were awake and alert for our meeting after church. Then the day was left
open. We had madea fantastic plan the night before, but one by one we
watched our appointments cancel. The hardest part being that we were taking
along our ward missionary who is on the fence about serving a mission.
After church let out we then helped the primary president with a song they
were learning using my limited
right hand piano skills. I then tried to
call probably ten people with no luck(somebody anybody). We resorted to
checking a few houses baihgui baihgui. But then as we were walking back
to the church a lady stopped us on the road from her car. She was yelling
a little bit so I was a bit confused. But she got out of the car and
introduced herself as a member who had just moved to the city and needed to
know how to change her records from her old branch. And also her 10 year
old daughter hadn't been baptized and is it possible that she
could meet with the missionaries. Yes and yes. I feel like at the
beginning of my mission I wouldn’t have taken it for much, but know and especially
on Sunday where it felt like nothing was working, the small exchange felt like
somewhat of a "thanks for trying, and keep going" from a loving
Heavenly Father. We did finally get a meeting in with
someone who lives behind the church and then as the CES broadcast was
about to start (yea we're kinda of behind) three guys of about 20-25 years of
age showed up and start asking questions about the Gospel. So we took
them aside and decided to take a quick moment to answer a
few questions. And hour and 20 minutes later we finished answering
some well thought out and profound questions from what are some very prepared
investigators (the fireside had begun and ended). This was a classic
example of how being a missionary is awesome because your defending something
that defends itself. It’s amazing to me that I can sit calmly
in a room teaching in a different language and know that there
is literary no question that they can ask that the Gospel doesn’t have an
answer for. In fact, more commonly then not people will ask questions that
are based on doctrines that we intended on teaching in the lesson.
There must have been three or four times that my companion and I stole
looks at each other and just smiled when questions were asked.
We had about an hour till it was time
to go home and we were able to feel that amazing thrill of pushing for one more
house at the day’s ending. We showed up to teach our new member Khasnavch
and her uncle ended up sitting in on the lesson. We taught an impromptu
lesson on charity and it went amazingly. After we read from Moroni 7 my companion
said something pretty profound and I think it’s where I’ll leave the letter
this week. You could bring in the intellects from every university,
institution or organization together and they could not produce a
better description or powerful understanding of what it means to be
charitable. And so it is with all the scriptures. There really is
no other source of such profound understanding and perfect knowledge.
Have a wonderful week,
ali bolokh ikheer bichsen shuu
Elder Neuberger
No comments:
Post a Comment