Jingle Bell Rock

*Riding home on the bus Sunday night about 21:00*
♫Jingle bell, jingle bell, jingle bell rock....♫
Sister Lichtenberg and I just looked at each other, laughed, then started to sing along. Asia is silly.

I know I'm pretty bad at keeping you updated on people that we teach. It's just hard to adequately describe the experiences and journeys that these people go though. But this week please keep a woman, "H" in your prayers. For a quick overview, she is a homeless drunk who has had missionaries placed in her path before us, and we are now taking baby steps of faith to try to save her life. But we really have no idea how to handle this situation and are completely relying on the spirit to know what to do next.

In other news, we had a meeting with my school yesterday, which was really good. We discussed a lot of things, and came to a few agreements on things that will hopefully make this year better. Crazy thing, Sister Koefoed and I will only be teaching 6th grade and 11th grade this year. So that will hopefully make it easier to only have to learn like 30 names instead of like 200+.


Tomorrow is our mission tour with President Funk coming from the Asia Area. I hope that the music we have put together will invite the spirit and will add to the conference! I'm really excited! I have also been asked by President Funk to have an interview with him directly following the conference, which I have no idea what about, but that will be really cool.

Thank you for all the prayers and love. Mongolia really needs it. I love being a missionary. It is really hard sometimes and usually have to drag myself into bed because we're so exhausted by the end of the day, but I wouldn't have it any other way. I'm grateful for the plan of salvation. I'm grateful for the atonement, and I'm grateful for the Book of Mormon. This gospel is the only way to gain real, true happiness, and the ONLY way for us to enjoy eternal life with our Father in heaven.

Have a good week everyone! Find someone to serve this week, za yu?

Sister Hansen

Tesreg Bumbug (Bomb)

I can't count the miracles from this week. I'm sorry I can't write all of them either, you'll just have to read my journal when I get home to get all the good stuff.

But we've been meeting with this one amazing girl, Zaya. She is so special. I'm just in love with her. She is only 16 but she is so intelligent and asks such deep, genuine questions. She really wants to know the truth and also gain as much knowledge about it as she can. She's awesome.

So, here's a cool language story:
Several weeks ago, I learned the word "tesreg bumbug" (bomb). For no particular reason, just cause I thought it was a fun word. Anyways, time goes on, I never used that word. Then we were having a meeting with Zaya, and she started asking a question about some kind of sacrifice, but my companion and I had NO idea what she was talking about, and we asked her to describe it simpler, and still didn't understand, then all of a sudden I heard her say "tesreg bumbug" and I knew that word!!! So I asked her to repeat the question, then all of a sudden I understood the entire thing. It was so cool. Gift of tongues. If I wouldn't have learned that word however long ago, we never would have been able to answer her question. Blessin's

It was Sister Lichtenberg's 1 year mark, so we kinda splurged and made tortillas so we could have tacos, and bought CORN!!! WOW! 

Oh man, then there was this awesome thing where we went to visit someone, but she wasn't there so we went to try to find the house of an old LA, and got lost, then we saw a lady in the street trying to roll this giant metal garbage bin, so we ran over to help, then started talking to her, and turns out she had met missionaries before (Elder Hatton!) and had been kind of lost and forgotten about, and we "happened" to be in the road right when she needed help, and then we set up an appointment and met with her and her husband and it was awesome! I'm always just so amazed at how the Lord will just put us exactly where we need to be, when we need to be there. Blows my mind. It's so awesome.

Lots of other awesome stuff happened this week. Like being stuck in a thunder storm in a ger on top of a mountain. That was sweet. And going to the first day of school opening ceremonies. And meeting random kids on the street and blowing their mind cause we can speak Mongolian. It's just so fun to be a missionary.

Have a great week ya'll!
Sister Hansen

[Some P.S.s from Jen]

We just had to go find a new internet place cause our place just had a power outage :)

OH! Also I got your package!!! It got here really fast! THANK YOU!

We're probably going to have Sister Bottorff and Guild over to make the cake and have a little birthday party :) This transfer's so cool cause I'll hit my 6 months in country, birthday, conference, and half way all during this transfer! WOW!

We will always have P-day on Tuesday from now on, because we teach English MWF

Because our area is kinda the booneys, there's not really any apartment complexes, so we still live in the city, which makes for a bit more travel time every day to get out to Jargalant. So it won't be too much of a hassle to get to school. I don't start teaching till the 15th, but Sister Lichtenberg started yesterday (why we didn't email) and she doesn't have a teaching companion, so I'll be going with her for a couple weeks until I start, then we'll have to figure out some crazy splits to get somebody to school with her. It's a mad house here when school starts!!

Also, will you send me recipes for banana bread and also the zucchini chocolate chip muffins? That would be awesome. I didn't realize until this last fast sunday how much I miss American food. Today's 8 months! 1 more month till it's half way gone. How did that happen?

Ooooh another really awesome thing!!! If you ever want to be a huge blessing to Mongolia, we can send you Mongolian names to take to the temple. There are lots of members that have been so diligent and faithful in their family history work, and have some special one's that they want to save and take to the temple themselves, but there are SO many that won't ever have the chance. So we can send them straight to you and you can do temple work for Mongolians :) I'll get you hooked up.

Transferred to Jargalant

Miracles have happened and I have been transferred from Selbe to Jargalant, with Sister Lichtenberg!!!! I cannot even begin to describe to you how amazing the last 3 days have been. Sister Lichtenberg and I have just hit the ground running with the work, and are already best friends. We've made goals for the next 9 weeks to become seriously kick-butt missionaries, and I've already felt the power of God so much in our companionship. I'm out of the city as well, and that has definitely helped boost my spirits.

Transferred to my new area, Jargalant. 

It's so beautifully humble here. We literally climb mountains every day. Whereas in Selbe, we would get fed full meals at every house, here it's rare to get a small bowl of soup because they just don't have anything to give.

We find so many opportunities to serve people around here, and it's an amazing feeling when you offer to carry somebody's water jug, and they ask if you're "Jesus people".

Helping an old emee patch up her ger. 

We may not wear name tags, but we're always representing Jesus Christ.

It's gonna be an awesome 9 weeks. I can feel it.

I have worn my boots every day because the other ones just don't cut it in Mongolia. They've held up pretty well so far, so we'll see how they do hiking the mountains every day.

With my new companion, Sister Lichtenberg. For p-day we went on a hike and didn't even have to get permission because literally all of these mountains are our area. I love my life. 

Sister Bottorff and Sister Guild are back from the country side and came to my choir practice today!!! Sister Olsen came too! It was so awesome to be reunited!

The choir is awesome. We're doing 2 numbers- Jesus Savior Pilot Me, and a really nice arrangement of I Know Heavenly Father Loves Me. Mission tour is on Sept 13 so we only have 2 practices left! But it's been going well so I think it will sound good and bring the spirit.

My MTC companion, Sister Bottorff and me!

Love,
Sister Hansen

Ward activity TO THE COUNTRYSIDE!!!!

The highlight of this week was that we got to go with the Selbe ward to their ward activity TO THE COUNTRYSIDE!!!! WOOO!!! Not super crazy far, but we were about an hour outside of the city, and it was AMAZING!!!

So remember that time I was awesome and held an eagle? Well. I just one-upped myself, and held A VULTURE. There is a vulture on my arm, ya'll, and it is not light! I know I should have looked at the camera to get a good picture, but I was too distracted by the VULTURE ON MY ARM! 

A traditional meal in Mongolia is called Horhog, which directly translates to "poisonous garbage". It's cooked on a giant flaming pile of poop! So here's us with our tasty chunks of mutton :) Pretty dang yummy. 

Horhog

Tasty chunks of mutton

Also, where else are you going to drive down the road and see 2 humped camels, just, there

So this computer is super slow, and I spent a lot of time sending pictures, so this will probably be pretty short. But the ward activity was so incredibly fun and to leave the city is just a dream come true.

Jump roping champs! We won juice :)

Transfers are on Thursday so we're all getting pretty anxious around here. We have 3 new sisters coming so we're all excited to see who will train and also who will be our new STL's and AP's and what-not.

I was informed this week that school starts on September 15, so just a few weeks away. Sister Olsen, Bollwinkle, Koefoed and I will all still be teaching at New Generation.

Last district meeting before transfers

So cool to see Allison all moved in! Feels like that was me just a few weeks ago. And now I've been in Mongolia for 5 months. Crazy how time passes.

Sister Jensen and I

Here's a quick scripture for ya:

Mosiah 23:21-22 Nevertheless the Lord seeth fit to chasten his people; yea, he trieth their patience and their faith. Nevertheless—whosoever putteth his trust in him the same shall be lifted up at the last day. Yea, and thus it was with this people.

Sometimes we make plans for ourselves, and they're really good plans. And we work diligently and obediently, and somehow things still don't work out, and we still have really hard stuff. Like pain, or fear, or any other trial. That's because the Lord has to test our patience and faith to see what we are willing to endure for Him. How much are we willing to endure for Him? Are we going to show Him that we'll give up everything to follow Him? If the Lord were to come to you today and say "Lovest thou me more than these?" what would your "these" be? What would He be asking you to give up to prove your love? Let's think about it.


Have a wonderful week!

Sister Hansen

The choir Jen is directing (see last week's post)

We don't really teach- we just tell people the truth

Drunk man quote of the week: 

"Let me put on my pants, then we'll talk."

Jen & her companion, Sister Jensen

This week we had a zone training and we were split into groups and I got to skype with Sister Bottorff! It was super fun. She and Sister Guild will be coming back to the city in the next week or so for transfers, and I'm so excited! I love my groupies. 

So probably my favorite thing that happened this week was my little missionary choir practice on Monday! We made 20 cookies, hoping that maybe 10 people would come- then they could each have 2 cookies! Well, to my complete surprise, over 30 missionaries came to sing!! It was so amazing. I have never directed a choir before, only played the piano, so it was definitely a different experience to be the one in charge, but I'm really happy with how it went, and I think that the spirit will be very strong when they sing at the mission training! 

Another music thing that happened this week, was to help wrap up all the BYU English lessons, I got to help record all the English songs for the lessons, so that was pretty fun too!

So we're coming to a close of this transfer, and I have an inkling that I might be staying in Selbe and Bayangol for the next 9 weeks. I don't know why. I just wouldn't be surprised if I don't move anywhere. In which case, that would be a total of 8 months in Selbe! Woo! Haha hopefully I don't go mad in the city. There's A LOT of work that needs to be done here, and if I do stay, I'll have to work even harder. They need help. So if the Lord needs me for that, bring it. 

Yeah, a mission is hard. But in a way it's also so easy. But you can't be in it for you. You gotta take your life in your hand, then give it to the Lord. Then it's easy. Teaching isn't hard. We don't even really teach- we just tell people the truth. The spirit does the teaching. If it were the other way around, nothing would get done. 1) Because Mongolian. 2) Because 18 year old boys. 3) Because Jen. Those three things.... it blows my mind at the work we're doing, with those 3 things as the circumstances. Truly a miracle. 

Move forward with faith, be happy, and utilize the atonement. Dig your roots. Prune your branches. See the fruits. 

Love, 

Sister Hansen