Tsagaan Sar, Day 3

NO VISITS!!!  Today, the Dean's only visited one family, but John and I did not go with them.  I slept in later than I have in a long time and talked to my parents in the morning.  After that, I was able to just stay in our hole-in-the-wall apartment, read my Bible, pray, and do a little cleaning.  Around seven o'clock in the evening, John and I went to an Indian restaurant since the Dean's were out visiting someone.  The food was great as usual!  So, that's my pretty uneventful day 3 of Tsagaan Sar.

Tsagaan Sar, Day 2

Today, the Dean's, Pattersons, John, and I visited two different Mongolian homes.  The first house we went to was that of Ganperuv and his family.  We had a pretty good time there.  After I took my coat off, the very first thing I saw was a big old cooked sheep- head, tongue, esophagus and all.  I was a little worried because it seemed like I saw more fat than meat.  Then there's the whole fact of this neckless head staring at me while I eat the rest of its body..... I really wasn't looking forward to eating that.  But fortuantely they brought out some buzz (I never though I'd be happy to see that) and potato salad.  So we ate and ate and ate.  Then after a few hours, we headed over to Bigay's family's house.  There we ate more buzz, but they had quite a few pastries that were very good.  So my first Tsagaan Sar visits weren't as bad as I was expecting them to be.  I guess I'll see in a few hours how my stomach held out...  I was able to take quite a few pictures today and I will be putting them on my shutterfly right after I finish this.  The address is on the right hand side of my blog.

Tsagaan Sar, Day 1

Today is the first day of the Mongolian New Year, Tsagaan Sar.  Traditionally, Mongolians will go and worship their gods or sacred trees early in the morning on the first day.  The church generally has a prayer meeting every Wednesday, so taking those two things into account, Pastor Dean decided to have the prayer meeting in the morning.  He set the time for 7:00 a.m. and announced it in church this past Sunday.  Well, John and I went to a missionary's house last night for dinner.  We had a great time, but didn't get to bed until just before 1:00 a.m.  I set my alarm and John set his at 6:20 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. respectively.  We woke up at 7:40.  So I haven't had a very good start to Tsagaan Sar, but I'm sure it'll get better... I hope.  Please pray for all of us.  We will be eating so much buzz and other Mongolian foods it's not even funny.  I really don't mind the food, but this holiday generally doesn't bode well for foreigners and their stomach health.  It's a really interesting holiday though, because more than any other time of the year, this is when the older Mongolian traditions come out in abundance.  I'm really anxiously looking forward to this next week!

Mongolian Culture

For the White Month celebration, our language school gave us tickets to a famous Mongolian opera.  This opera is the most famous opera written by the most famous Mongolian composer.  So yeah, it's kind of famous.  Well, I hate operas and I speak very little Mongolian.  Have you ever been listening to an opera, think it's in another language, tune it out, but then find out ten minutes later that it's actually English, but you just can't understand it?  Well, that's me.  So I really wasn't looking forward to going to this, but we figured that it would be an interesting experience so we went.  I was impressed.  I really enjoyed myself.  Granted, the theater was made for Mongolia sized people, not 6'5" Americans, so my legs were really squished.  Other than that though, it was well performed.  The singing was much better than I expected, and the instrumental pieces were very enjoyable.  So, I guess I like operas now.  I never though I'd say that.

Comments

Hey everybody.  I realized that  I accidentally had my blog set up that only registered blogger could comment.  I just changed it so that anyone can now.

Thank You Pattersons!

Yesterday, the Pattersons got home around six o'clock in the evening.  John and I came over to help them carry all their luggage up the stairs.  They were pulling some stuff out for Pastor Dean that he asked them to bring for him from the U.S.  Then came that wonderful moment.  He pulled out of his suit case a bag.  I couldn't believe it.  It was a McDonald's bag!  He had brought John and I back some cheeseburgers from the Korean aiport's McDonald's.  I was so excited.  I couldn't believe how good McDonald's could taste!

Mr. Clean

Wow, what a day! Today is the day that the Patterson's get back, so John and I took the day off of school. I woke up this morning around six and was cleaning there house by 7:20. No, we didn't procrastinate until the day of, but we still had some last minute things to do before we moved out of there. So I did some cleaning and washed the rest of the dishes. Pastor Dean got to our house at 8:30 to pick us up and help us move back to our old apartment. I went downstairs to open up the garage for him to pick up Bro. Patterson's car. We got into the garage, and the front left tire was totally and completely flat. So, we tried to change the tire, but couldn't find the jack. After about twenty minutes of searching, we finally found it, but then it took a while longer to figure out how it works. We finally got the tire changed, but by then Pastor Dean had another appointment, so we went to the Dean's house to wash the sheets to the Patterson's bed. After he dropped us off there, we went grocery shopping for the Dean's. Immediately after our return, I went to our apartment to clean it and unpack my stuff. It was a pit of despair. It took me about two hours to clean and unpack. Then back to the Dean's I went. Which brings me up to right now. I'm blogging, waiting for Mrs. Dean to finish making dinner for the Patterson's dinner. After it's done, John and i are going back over to the Patterson's to drop off dinner and help them bring all there luggage up the four flights of stairs. After that, we'll go back to the Dean's for dinner and then I'll sleep like a baby tonight. Wow, what a day!

The Three Dollar Rolex

Pastor Dean, John, and I were walking to the Black Market last Thursday to pick up some things, but on our way, we noticed that a large department store had opened. We stopped by to check it out, and it had everything we were looking for, but inside. That meant less time in the cold, so we were pretty happy about that. As we were wondering about, we noticed a watch vendor. We were looking at some of the watches when Pastor Dean found a Rolex. It was 4,000...... tugrugs. That's about three dollars and fifteen cents. Apparently with the economy the way it is, Rolex has finally dropped its prices. I knew it was fake, but it was just too tempting, so I bought it. When I got home and was looking at it, I noticed something pretty interesting. It has three smaller dials on the bottom for various things, but the hands on those don't move. So every day I've had the watch, it's told me that it's September the18th. But I'm not too disappointed since it was only three bucks. The fun part will be getting it back into the U.S. United States Customs Office, please be kind to me.

House Fires and Such

It's quite the title I know. But since John updates his blog so much more often than I, you've probably already heard the story... but I'm going to tell it anyway. Last Tuesday, Mr. and Mrs. Dean went to another missionary's house to have a meeting, so it was just the kids, John, and I. Pastor Dean told us that Charissa could handle everything if we wanted to go home, so around seven thirty, we were going to head out. But for whatever reason, we decided to stay a little longer. Early that night, Elsie (their youngest daughter) was playing around in the kitchen. Neither John nor I thought anything of it, and we just kept on doing whatever it was we were doing. Well, she stopped playing and got in the bath. She got out a while later and we were all sitting around in the living room, when John asked if there was steam from the bath floating in the kitchen. That's when we saw the orange, flickering glow on the kitchen wall behind the counter. Just as John was asking who lit a candle over there, we realized what it was. Elsie had plugged in a heating coil and left it there getting hotter and hotter. Eventually it lit a large box of stickers on fire and we had ourselves a good one and a half square foot fire.... in the kitchen. That was a little exciting to say the least. We didn't know of any fire extinguishers, so I began to fill up a pitcher with water. Meanwhile, John was contemplating trying to pat it out with his hands. Fortunately, before that idea came to fruition, he found an already full pitcher of water and put it out. So that was quite the Tuesday night. Praise the Lord that John and I didn't leave earlier, because poor Charissa wouldn't have had any idea what to do. Then the very next morning, God showed Himself just as strong in a very different, but equally amazing way. At school during the break, Alfredo (our Italian classmate), John, and I started talking about religion. He doesn't really know what he believes other than that everyone should accept what everyone else believes. We had a great opportunity to share the Gospel with him, but as we were just getting started, the break ended. Alfredo knows English very well, so that's what we were talking in. Once the break ended though, I knew that if we didn't start talking in Mongolian, she'd move on to the lesson. So I started trying to talk to him in Mongolian. Now, I struggle with this language. No doubt about it. But God was so good! Words were coming out of my mouth that I didn't even know I knew! He gave me an incredible opportunity to witness and and incredible ability with the language. And another great thing is that the teacher was listening intently to the whole conversation, looking for any mistakes in our speaking, so she heard it too. God really provides when we just look to Him instead of relying on our own strength.