Mongolia

In some ways we aren't sad that we aren't serving in the everyday branch any more but we don't think we could have brought ourselves to eat chicken feet that the sisters prepared the other day.  Elder Jensen is amazing and he will eat anything!

Here he is again on a photo he posted in Facebook right in the middle of our typhoon Hato that we had on Wednesday.  The water is usually several meters far below this area. We had sustained 100 mile an hour winds with gusts up to 130 miles an hour!  There was a lot of damage with trees coming down and lots of broken branches.  It was a category 10 which is the strongest that we have witnessed. Fortunately, we are in a typhoon proof apartment building but we watched the wind and went out later to see the damage.  Here's some of what went on in this video: TYPHOON

We also had a great time having lunch last week and seeing our dear friend from Japan, Seiko Maki.  She had her brother and his wife and daughter with her and also two of their friends. We got to know Seiko because she works in the Area Office there in Tokyo and she was also in our English class there.

Landing at Chinggiss Khaan International Airport in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

On the bus on the way to the conference.  The bus drive drove like a maniac on a highway full of holes but no one seemed to mind at all.

Entering the Gorki Terelj National Park

This is the "resort" several miles inside the Park where we held our young single adult self-reliance conference.

The park is full of rock formations like you see here.  Also lots of yaks, camels and horses.

We had a room inside the lodge.  The girls all slept in the "gers" or what we call yurts.

This is what it looks like inside the ger.  They are well insulated and quite cozy in the winter.  A whole family would live in one of these.

This is the normal size and you can see the door is very low.

Not just your ordinary camel--these are two hump camels.

Chinggis Khaan is the national hero of Mongolia.  This is a stainless steel statue about 30 minutes from our resort.  The statue is 130 feet tall.

This is our good friend Baatraa who drove us there.

An old lady could live in this shoe under the statue!

This is a view of the beautiful green grass of the Asian step as seen from the top of the Chinggis Khaan statue.

Baatraa again from the top of the horse's head.

About 150 young people attended the self-reliance conference and prepared PowerPoint presentations for business ideas.

The winning groups in each business category received T-shirts.

After the conference many of the girls put on traditional costumes for what came next--a church sponsored Mongolia wrestling tournament!  It's the national sport of Mongolia.

Before the wrestling tournament, Elder Meurs and his wife spoke to the young people about becoming more self-reliant.  He is from Australia and serves in the Area Presidency.

Here are the wrestlers in their traditional wrestling clothing (or lack thereof).  Perhaps a couple of hundred more members came from the city to watch.

Some of the girls performed dances and singing between wrestling bouts.  How do you like these beautiful costumes?  Here's a video: SINGING

This is how the wrestlers start after doing their eagle dance.  The first one to touch the floor with any part of the boy other than hands or feet loses.  You'll notice there are no mats. Here's a short video: WRESTLING

This cute little girl just came up and gave Gary a big hug.  Another of the little boys there kept calling us grandpa and grandma.

Getting ready to perform a traditional dance. Here's one more video of a different dancer: DANCER We had hoped to go back to our hotel in Ulaanbaatar after the conference.  We didn't know about the wrestling tournament.  But it was really cool to see some of  the local cultural activities so we got back about 10 pm.

Here is this year's winner.

These fellows might be short but they are stout and tough.  Gary was going to enter the tournament but he decided the newspaper headlines wouldn't look good: "Missionary killed in Mongolian wrestling tournament"

Sunday morning before church we walked over to a little park and government building near our hotel.  This is a new hotel in the center of the city but is not our hotel.

There were several wedding parties there in the morning even though it was cold and rainy.

We witnessed the changing of the guard at the capital building.

One of these is a ferocious guard and one is not.  Can you guess which one it is?  Here's a short video of the guards: Marching Guards

  

Ulaanbaatar is a fairly modern city if you don't look to closely.  There are perhaps 6 traffic lights in a city of 1.3 million so traffic is really crazy.

A 30-minute taxi ride costs the equivalent of $1.25 US. Here's a video of a mural about the Mongolians becoming friends with the Russians, or something like that: MURAL.     We had several people from Inner Mongolia which is part of China who wanted to have their photo taken with us there, too.

Not sure who this the cool statue is but it's worth a picture.

 This was our tour guide.  Her name is Uurtsaikh Nyamdeleg and she returned recently from serving as a missionary/tour guide at the Temple Square mission in Salt Lake City.  She is very sweet and beautiful and she reminds us of our very sweet oldest granddaughter. 

Anyone for a grass covered car?  I wonder how they mow it?

This is actually when we were taking off from Hong Kong on Air China.  We traveled through Beijing, China both ways.  We loved the people of Mongolia and didn't want to leave after only a few days with them.  However, we won't miss eating lamb every meal!

Regular days in Hong Kong

Do you like this display advertising the Cars 3 movie?

This display was at one of the malls.  We liked it so much that we went with many of the senior missionaries from the Area Office to the movie last Saturday.  We hadn't seen any of the other Cars movies but we thought this one was well done

The weather is so hot now that we aren't going out to do sightseeing. We're just doing the normal shopping for food, etc.  Here we are again at the outdoor wet market.  Do you see any meat you would like to buy?  It is really fresh but we can't bring ourselves to buy from the outdoor markets.

We do love the super-fresh vegetables and fruit and we buy lots of them.

After shopping, it's time to head home on the double-decker bus. There isn't much open space in Hong Kong Island; this is one of the very few basketball courts there. 

Here's a short video from the bus but there aren't very many people on the street because it is very early this day when we took this video.  Usually the streets are very crowded. with people.:traveling home

Here we are getting ready to go under the harbor in the Cross-Harbour Tunnel.

Here we are in the tunnel which is 1.8 kilometers or about 1.1 miles long.  There are no other ways to get across except for the ferries.

When we're too tired to cook, Gary likes to get dumplings at this place shown below.  It is usually the same lady that helps him and she is very quick but she never smiles.

Here's a park that is not far from our apartment.  We have seen this man several times writing with water on the sidewalk.  We wish we could read what he writes.

People are always here exercising, too, regardless of any kind of weather. (except maybe when there's a typhoon!)

Also, last Sunday we had another special temple opening for the Hong Kong Domestic Helpers, it was HOT Hot Hot outside!  The temperature was 37 degrees Celsius with at least 60 percent humidity which makes it feel like the temperature of 130 degrees Farenheit!!!! (However, this was after the session and we had all cooled down.)

To close our post, we love to see the temple and we love to be in the temple!(Actually, we served in the temple 3 different days this week!)
I Love to See the Temple
Here are some sweet Korean children singing the song, too: I Love to see the Temple
This is a sweet song, too:I will believe