Sister Sarah Bottorff: Week 39 - The snow flies

So now the weather is getting colder. It snowed today during personal study. And the wind is bitter. Already. It's not even October. Seasons change overnight here. And last night it turned to winter. I'm going shopping today for some winter stuff. Wish me luck!

Monday was so fun! We decorated our apartment (I'll send those pictures next week...) and went to eMart (the best thing to happen to UB! It's like Target! AKA America!) and then ate brownies at this cute little cafe everyone recommended to us. It was so fun! Then we had a fun family home evening with a family in the ward. We taught a lesson and ate chicken noodle soup.

On Tuesday we taught English all day. The students are really eager to learn! The lab is a new concept for them, but I think they will ultimately end up liking it a lot. We finished English a little early because they had a University-wide sporting event, so that was kinda nice. Tomorrow we will have our first full 8 hour day. After English we visited a wonderful grandma and taught her about the Plan of Salvation. It was a successful and fun day!

Wednesday we met another fun grandma. She has family who lives in America, and she showed us all of her pictures. She's so awesome! The pictures were so cute! They love showing pictures here. They all have photo albums and they always pull them out. We love exchanging pictures! I show them my pictures and they show theirs. They are always amazed at everyone's hair color in my pictures. haha Then we had a district meeting and then we taught our family of investigators. They are doing awesome! They are praying every day now and starting to read scriptures! :)

Thursday we went to Sister Hansen's apartment for her BIRTHDAY!!! They had cake and spaghetti!! And the cake was from America (thank you, Hansens!!!) and I just loved seeing Sister Hansen and eating good food! We went home to do weekly planning and then had the craziest day. To start, our phone skills are less than great. Mongolian is hard enough to understand, but when you mix the language with cracking phones, busy streets, and fast speakers, it makes an interesting combo. So let's just say we ended up at 3 wrong bus stops and asked random passers-by on the street to talk and we got really confused for a couple hours. But then we got it all worked out and ended up meeting with a new investigator. She is so nice and interested in learning about the Gospel. The meeting went really well! And she doesn't hate us, even despite our sad phone skills!

On Friday we went to the countryside part of our area. It's about an hour out of town. It's beautiful! And while we were in our first meeting, the rain came. And poured. And poured. And we stayed inside their ger and waited for the rain to stop! And then we forged our way through rivers on our way out of the ger district. But it was beautiful! And I didn't get wet!! I just got a little muddy when I stepped in a pile of mud that I thought was compacted enough to carry me. So ultimately my feet got wet, but it was ok. We had 2 really good meetings out there and then met with an investigator in town. That day was really good! And they played 2 American songs on the bus. And I LIKED it. Don't judge me.

Saturday was another adventure. I went out with Sister Bollwinkel a few weeks ago and found the ger of a family we need to meet with. But that was a few weeks ago. We went back to the area, but after an hour and a half of looking, we ended up at the next bus stop. We were searching so hard on that mountain that we just walked too far! Oops. Those ger districts are confusing. The end. Then we went out to the countryside again, but the family forgot about our appointment. We ended up playing basketball for about 5 minutes with some kids before setting a new appointment in the city. It was really fun! We played til one team reached 5 points. I was on a team with a 10 year old boy and Sister Guild was with a 12 year old girl. Haha We were tied at 4-4 and then we scored the winning point! Yay!! I'm a winner! :) Then we taught a new member. I love my life!!

Yesterday was more like winter than fall, but I was in denial. And after church, when our appointment was cancelled, we ended up searching for that ger again. The wind was biting, but it calmed down and we met a lady who helped us. We didn't actually find the ger, but the lady was so nice and we came MUCH closer than we did the other day. I will find this ger if it's the last thing I do.

Today it was snowing. But life is good! It's so good! We write down 5 blessings from the day and it's been amazing to see how many I have!! It's hard to narrow it down! So you should all do that! Life is a blessing! I'm so grateful to be here!

Love,

Sister Bottorff