September 28, 2009

Hello everyone!!
thanks for the e-mails, you all sound good and busy, and settling into California and byu :) love you all and Jake congrats on blessing the sacrament! how tall are you now? ;)
Things are good. it was an interesting transfer, the Lord and my mission president know how to push us ;) I am in an area called sukbaatar, it is in the city in an area that is only ger districts. we live in another area that has buildings and "commute" to our area (30 minute walk or a shorter bus ride), there is a great church building and our branch is really strong!! President made me a senior companion, I am in a co-senior companionship right now luckily, the desire to serve is there but many skills are lacking, (especially language) and I feel a little inadequate (okay, a lot, ;) but I know the Lord helps us, and this is good because it makes me depend on Him more, and He is the one that does the work anyways :) We were also "whitewashed" as we call it, meaning both my companion and I are new to the area. My companion is amazing, 29 year old amazing missionary, her leg has been hurting so she has been in the office for a while but the president put her in the area because it needs some help. It has been a hard area for quite a while so president wants us to start over. It is interesting neither of us know the area, people, etc and the info in the apartment about the area is several months old, but it will be good!! we are excited and yesterday at church we met tons of people and already found a new investigator so hopefully things will all go up from here :) My companion finishes her mission in about a month, so I need to learn the area and people well because after she leaves; I might get what we call a "minnie missionary", a branch missionary who works like a missionary for a few weeks. My language also really needs to improve this next month..... boy.... this will be interesting, but good. The Lord helps us do things we don't think we can do :)
Badamgarav's baptism was great, she was so cute when she was in her baptism clothes she said she felt like an angel and was prancing around a bit :) it is so great to see the change and to hear her testimony! the baptism was also a little dramatic, her mother is a church member and has pretty bad health, she has had several strokes and gets these sudden intense pains in her head that are incredibly crippling, and she can't walk very well but as we were bringing a taxi to pick them up, we saw her walking down the street with her cane, and a huge smile on her face. we stopped and asked where she was going and she said she was going to the church :) (way far;) so cute!! but at the church her head really hurt, we gave a blessing to her in the elevator, she couldn't come into the meeting but she was able to wait in the baptismal room and see the baptism :)
And the bishop had all the missionaries over before the transfer and we ate some interesting food, they boil all the insides of a sheep, and cut it up and hand pieces to you and you eat what they hand you. I’ve now eaten stomach, intestine, heart, liver, kidney, spleen, fat (omentum I think?) rectum (yep, I didn't know what it was till I was chewing it ;), and maybe some other things I didn't recognize ;) for the most part it is do able, but you know how we always pray before we eat? I learned it can also be helpful to pray while you eat sometimes ;)
So that is all for now, I will keep you updated on this new area and how things go, I appreciate everything and all your prayers, love you all!!! sister mansfield