The Greatest Message in the Greatest Place

Hello everyone!
The time continues to fly by as preparation day has once again come and gone.

What a wonderful week in Mongolia!

A reoccurring theme in so many of our lessons this week was the fact that the blessings of the gospel are for this life as well as the life to come.  While it is true that many of the blessings, and surely the greatest blessing, of the gospel are reserved for the life after, our lives on earth can be indisputably better as we follow the example and the teachings of the Savior.  We taught  three less active members this principle this week.  Explaining that as we attend church and follow the counsels of modern day prophets we find greater meaning and purpose in our lives.  Our families are strengthened and our lives are just plain happier!

As I begin to understand Mongolian a little better each day I realize more and more how good of a teacher Elder Jolley is.  The ability as a missionary to learn from someone who has experienced so much creates a perpetuation of learning beyond what any other program could instill.  Its amazing to think that Elder Jolley and I only have five weeks left together.  It's been such an amazing experience to work with him.
Because we didn't have a baptism this week, on Friday we went to another building and Elder Jolley translated for the President.  The Elders there had 6 new members baptized, 5 from one companionship.  It was a white field experience for sure.  Making it sweeter was the fact that two of my English students were there!  One has been a member and the other was less active.  I sat with the less active member and he stayed for the rather lengthy hour and a half baptism.  It's neat to see my English teaching allowing for missionary work even if it is in just this small way.  I translated some hymns into English and talked to him about his conversion 6 years ago.

(as I write this the funniest little Mongolian boy is trying to talk to me and I haven't the slightest what he's saying,  but he did just give me candy lol)

Okay anyway, this brings us to the greatest day ever. Yesterday (Sunday to clarify the time difference lol)  we woke up and left early, around 7am for the church where we met with the President and his wife.  It was the foggiest/smokiest morning yet. and you couldn't see more them thirty yards in front of you.  We headed for Zuuhkharaa (about three hours away by car)  As we drove the sun rose and we finally broke free of the smoke of the city into the crystal clear country side air.  Vast snow filled valleys and rolling mountains.  Actual trees and the random ger on the hillside.  But that wasn't even the best part.  Not even close.  The best part was spending three hours with the mission president his wife and his right hand missionary listening to talks and discussing gospel topics.  It was amazing to realize what a remarkable and rare opportunity it was to be with all three of them.  To make it exciting we got a bit lost on the way to the church building.  Luckily there wasn't much to get lost in.  A small country town tucked in the mountains.  It was soooo beautiful.  All 30 of the members were there to great us as we pulled in (the only car in the parking lot).  Everyone wanted to talk and was so excited just to be at church.  It was amazing to see their faith in church attendance including a few 80+ year old grandmas and grandpas who walked a least a few miles to make it to church.  The sacrament meeting was so peaceful as half the ward got up to sing an intermediate hymn.  The most fun of the day came when I attended my first Young Women's meeting with Sister Clark as her translator. I was more of her general idea translator I would have to say.  Needless to say it was a humbling experience.  I struggled with the Mongolian to English, but when they asked Sister Clark to bear her testimony at the end of the meeting I was able to translate every word after a quick prayer for help.  We said good bye to everyone and made our way back to the city with more amazing spiritual discussion.  After the spiritual feasting of the day I felt like I was floating the rest of the evening.  I'm so grateful for the amazing opportunities given from a loving Heavenly Father as a missionary here in Mongolia.  As I carry my leg of the marathon, my turn with the baton (which comes in the form of a name tag) I look forward to every day.  I love Mongolia! I love the people! I love the Gospel!

Be safe and have a wonderful week!

Baka
Elder Neuberger

PS Someone tell John Olson that his letters are amazing and funny and awesome!!!!!!!

Busy With Transfers

Hello Everyone,

So this week was transfers so we stayed super busy; however, we were not able to teach as many lessons as we would have liked.  Still a great week though!

The week started out with excitement as I flooded the bathroom.  The washing machines are pretty much a box with a spinner at the bottom.  So you fill it up with the hose from the shower and then let your clothes spin around for awhile.  Attempting to multi-task, I started filling that while helping clean elsewhere in the apartment.   About twenty minutes later I realized that I had neglected to turn it off when I was greeted by about two centimeters of water on the floor and rising.  Awesome!  We quickly threw every towel that we had on the floor and started wringing them out in the tub to empty the floor.  Luckily the bathroom is all tile so nothing leaked else where.  Elder Jolley was a great sport about the entire thing and even found time to film a short video.  It made us a bit late to our appointment, but at least everyone got a good laugh and an even better memory.  Needless to say it wasn't my best moment.

The week was such a blur that I'm not really sure of the order of the rest of the events.  During transfers Elder Jolley basically becomes  responsible for the transporting of 60 missionaries and all of there things. There were missionaries in and out of the office all day, everyday needing things sent and picking up other things. Five new missionaries came this week.  They spent the last three weeks at the Phillipines' MTC.

The new missionaries that came in were all oriented on Saturday and I was privileged to take part.  I manned the "how to have proper dental hygiene station" which was a lot of fun.  I also was forced to learn a lot of new vocabulary which is always a bonus.  All of the new missionaries promised me they would brush twice a day so I'm going to count that as a success.

Wednesday we were leaving for my English class when the mission doctor came around the corner and told us that they were having trouble keeping a sister missionary conscious and she needed to go to the hospital right away.  Fighting midday traffic, aka parking lot, we made our way to the hospital and then quickly to my English teaching.  Fortunately, the sister has since made a full recovery and has happily returned to work.

At one point during the week Elder Boyd and I went on a split together to teach a lesson.  Unfortunately, the investigator was a no-show, but a young man in the building wanted to meet with us.  He spoke very good English.  He began to tell us about some troubles that he has been having with his family.  They ridiculed him for his faith.  He felt alone and without friends.  As he told us these things I had never wanted the calming power of the spirit for someone else, so strongly ever before in my life.  Elder Boyd and I were able to share a few scriptures and some thoughts from our own lives.  I shared a section out of President Monson's priesthood talk "Dare to Stand Alone"  and reminded him that he is never alone.  The Savior stands along side us when we bear with courage the trials and temptations that befall all of us in this mortal probation. When we come to realize the blessings that the Lord gives and has in store for us we realize the non-importance of worldly cares.  Elder Jolley's Bishop sent him a letter this week which included this quote....."We must always remember that we are not just mortals having spiritual experience, but also spiritual beings having a mortal experience."  It's better to look up.

On Friday and Saturday we had the opportunity to make several trips to the airport.  We went and came back on Friday night at 11:00ish and then returned around 6am the next morning.  I'm fighting to stay awake, but Elder Jolley is still going strong.  He's fielding phone calls, helping a thousand missionaries like its child's play.  What up?  We got to go one more time to the airport Saturday evening where we picked up two missionaries flying in from Khovd.  Just so that transfers were a little more exciting, as we left the airport we were suddenly pulled over by a cop.  He started talking about some rules of the road. I wasn't really sure what was going on.  He took Elder Jolley and one of the missionaries over to the cop car and I was getting a little worried.  I was trying to read the emotions of the missionary that was still sitting in the car with me.  Elder Jolley talked with the policeman for about ten minutes in the -20 degree Fahrenheit air and then finally the policeman let us go.  In summary the policeman wanted some money and decided to pull us over for hardly a reason.  We paid some fine and we were on our way.

Tonight we are meeting with a less active member and we hope that it springboards us into a great week of teaching fabulous lessons with as many investigators as possible.  Every time we teach lessons my testimony of the gospel grows.  There's no greater feeling than putting my name tag on in the morning and realizing that we are here representing the Lord.
  

I love all of you,

Elder Neuberger

PS Mrs Kramer don't worry about putting anything together. I've found a book to use for English.  But thanks for all of your insights.  English teaching has been quite the "hit the ground running" experience.