Glorious Vacation

Today was our first of ten days off of school.  It was great!  This morning John and I came over to the Dean's, ate breakfast, then started some projects for Pastor Dean.  The current church hymnals we have are rather small and the notes are hard to read.  Pastor Dean has a copier that can enlarge pages to various sizes, so this morning I stood in front of a copy machine for a little over an hour enlarging pages.  I thought that I would get tired of it, but I was very thankful for the brainless, yet productive activity.  I think that if I kept at this language without a break at the rate I was going, my brain would have exploded.  After my "secretarial" work, John, Pastor Dean and I went off to the Monday prayer meeting with Bro. Patterson.  The Pattersons are leaving for the States for two months on the 24th of this month, and John and I are staying at there house while they are gone.  Their apartment has three bedrooms, and the girls bedroom is bigger than our entire apartment.  Needless to say, we're very excited!  So after prayer, we went over the Patterson's house for the walk through and final instructions.  Over all, I had a great first day off, and I'm looking forward to many more.

Deal of a Lifetime

Last Thursday, the temperature dropped down to about -25 Farenheit for most of the day.  After school, John and I had to run  to the "Black Market" to get some rugs for the church.  The "Black Market" is probably the largest market in Ulan Bator, but most of it is outside.  Well, John and I first tried to take the bus, but it took twenty minutes for the right bus to come, and when it finally came, it was so completely packed, that not one more person could squeeze into it.  So, we finally gave up and decided to walk.  Needless to say, after spending all that time outside in -25 degree weather, we were both pretty cold.  We both bought nice warm jackets back in the states before we left, but for whatever reason, mine just wasn't keeping me warm enough, so I decided that while we were at the "Black Market" I'd look around a little and try to find something a little warmer.  There are probably ten to fifteen leather jacket vendors just inside the main gate.  I stopped at the first one and was looking around a little.  I tried one on, but it was way to small.  As I turned around to take it off, I saw almost a dozen Mongolians standing outside the booth I was in looking at me.  We found at that they were all leather coat vendors.  The moment they saw that the jacket I tried on was too small, they all dispersed.  Moments later, most of them came back with what was apparently the largest coats they could find in their booths.  They all wanted me to try theirs on and as I tried a few on, the began to haggle each other down for the lowest price.  It was great!  I ended up with a big warm leather jacket for way less than I would ever have found in the States and I didn't even have to haggle the price, they did it for me.