Week 13 Nativity and Potluck

Sister Leavitt's vision of a Nativity silhouette came to fruition this week.  I had met a gentleman several weeks ago, our new friend Batsukh, and found out that he had a wood shop.  When she brought up the idea, I reached out to him with a picture, and he told me he could help.  When he returned to the city after his 14 days at the mine, we met up to get him the pattern and he went right to work.  The first picture was sent to me the next day at 9:00 pm and the second was sent at 2:00 am the following morning.  I guess he was used to working the night shift, so he was up and going.  He painted it, assembled it, delivered it and fought the traffic to and from to return the following day to help me install it.  He is an amazing human, and Heavenly Father is smiling down upon him.  Thank you, my friend.  We finished the week with his family and the sisters and enjoyed a wonderful evening of food and fun with them.

As a district we set a goal to get to know our ward members better and decided to ask the bishop if we could have a small potluck dinner after church.  He agreed, so we went to work on our end.  The sisters and elders printed and handed out several invitations around the ward.  We were expecting around 50 and never having experienced one in Mongolia didn't really know what to expect in terms of others bringing food to share.  We were not disappointed.  The food, and the people kept coming.  We fed nearly 90 people and there was food to spare.  The horse meat was awesome too.  What an amazing day.

(A bit of a back story would be appropriate here.  Elder and Sister Rose arrived the day before from the MTC, so we solicited their help in the preparations.  We cooked 7 whole chickens, ((no turkey here)) in keeping with a Thanksgiving theme.  We put them in to cook prior to church starting, fully expecting them to be done when needed.  As we exited the Chapel the smoke alarm went off.  We rushed to the oven and found that the juice in one of the pans had overflowed and was dripping onto the bottom of the oven.  It took them about 20 minutes to turn the alarm off as we fanned the alarm, opened the windows and quickly cleaned the drippings up.  In the end the chickens were delicious, and the leaders learned a lesson on how to turn the smoke alarm off.)

These young elders and sisters never cease to amaze us either.  This is a situation of a sister that can't come very often because it's too difficult to get around in her wheelchair.  Unless, of course, someone goes and gets her.  The more remarkable part of this story is that she lives on the 4th floor and there is no elevator.  Yes, they are the elevator to get her up and down her stairs.  Lump in your throat?  There is hope in humanity.

Oh, and when you thought you have seen about everything, they transform the little trucks into a food stand for amazing cuts of meat.  You get to choose; you can even cut your own.  The cool thing (no pun intended), with the temperatures here, no refrigeration needed.  It appears that someone already purchased the head.  Unless of course the owner kept it for himself.  They keep telling me they a really good.  Still waiting. 

I ran across this post, and it really struck a chord.  We are learning to be comfortable with being uncomfortable.  They really go together.

Thank you all once again for your love and unwavering support.  We love you.

khairtai shuu