March 27th, 2017 - Week 33

Here is what Griffin sent us this week:

Hey everybody! This is my official 2nd email from the beautiful county of Mongolia! This week was really awesome. It was my first time going to the black market, which is the best place ever, you can get anything that you want there all the way from eagle heads to your favorite knock off nike brand, Kobes'. But this country is seriously beautiful! the people here are super awesome. Right I haven't finished my full English treacher training, so I'm teaching middle school for the next couple weeks, then I'll go out to Nomun hospital to be a translator for the doctors there. I'm also seeing a lot of cool stuff from the members here. Thr memberd here are sooooooo stong and super cool, and ultra chill. But most Mongolians are ultra chill! Here are some pictures and videos of us in KFC, a ger district, some stuff our students left on the board, brown and jijig(little) brown, the church build/mission headquarters, and other cool stuff! I have a ton of pictures so a bunch are on google drive.

Elder Griffin Hansen

Griffin hasn't given me access to the pictures on his Google Drive, but once I figure out how to get them I will post them. He sent these 4 not on his Drive.

March 20th, 2017 - Weeks 31 and 32

On Griffin's 31st week he was traveling to Mongolia. Here is the short email he sent us:

Hey everyone I don't have a lot of time today, I'm finally going go Mongolia 🇲🇳!!!!!! First I'm going to Salt lake then I'm going to fly to LA, then Beijing, and then to улаанбатаар! Love you all, I'll call you mom! Love you mom!

This is what he sent us this week:

Hey everyone! I finally made here..... to Mongolia! It's been really interesting. I've been having a super good time! :D This week I arrived, I went through LA and then to Beijing, my first day was pretty slow I just went to a really small hospital and did a blood test, that was crazy. I couldn't understand anything that was being said to me, still really don't. It's like super different over here, our apartment has filters over the sink, so the water stays clean. The people are super nice and the cities super awesome! we mostly go around missionaries teaching schedules to structure our days here, so the daily schedule can be really hectic! So Friday  was my first real day doing stuff, my companion had to teach english, so I was on exchanges all day, then later that night we went to a member named Doshdorj, there we ate some sheep, noodles, and potatoes, it was way good! Then the next day was tseregiin bayar, happy soliders day (similar to veterans day), so everyone partied hard that day. On Tseregiin bayar we had to go to the bus stop, on the way there Elder Udall stepped on a man hole cover and almost fell in. He fell to the side and drunk guy across the street started yelling at him, while the other people there just laughed.That was pretty funny because the day before we were given a safety training and we were told to avoid man holes, and we joked around about it all day. Then we got to the bus got on, and there in Mongolia you have bus card that you swipe to get on and then off, well I couldn't find mine, so I'm standing there and my companion just tells me to go ahead with out swiping it. So I tried to go through the door but it closed right on me! The bus started to go with me hanging halfway out the bus, my companion (elder Ames) yelled for the bus to stop. It stops and I like slide myself through the door and get out, then the door opened and Elder Ames came. All the people on the bus laughed, I laughed, my companion laughed, it was a good time! Then we took another bus to a ger district, we met in a ger with a super cool member, he fed us goat and noodles and really good berry juice (it was boiling hot). After that me and my companion were standing at a bus stop when this older drunk man with a crutchwalked up to us and this is how it the conversation went,

Guy, "Are you Russian?"

Us, "No."

Guy, "Do you speak Mongolian?"

Us, "Yes." (we were speaking Mongolian to him)

Guy, "Okay, I'm going to fight you!"

And then he took a swing at us, but we got away. 

The next day was Sunday and had to give a talk, note my Mongolian sounds like a dying rat,on Joseph Smith! It went pretty well though, the Gift of Tongues is definitely real! Then we were back with the Bayanzurkh elders, Elder Udall and Salvesen. We chilled with them and we ended up eating buuz at this awesome investigators! Then on the way back we got a taxi. First to explain, in Mongolia real taxis are way expensive so if you really want a ride you just stick your hand out when walking down the road and random cars will stop to offer you a ride, and then you pay them for the ride! (that's what I mean by taxi) So this guys picks us up and he is listening to super chill music, and Elder Ames starts dancing and asks if he dances, so he does! 

The rest of the week was really chill I went and saw a monument to the Soviet union. 

Elder Griffin Hansen

March 6th, 2016 - Week 30

Here is what we got from Griffin this week:

Hey everyone! This week has been really good, I'm not in Mongolia yet, darn it. Right now I'm working in Logan youth stake, I'm with elder Udall for right now. It's pretty crazy cause we don't have an area we technically work in because all of our mission records got transferred over to Mongolia, so on paper we don't exist in this mission anymore! It's kind of hard because our ipads have been resetting themselves because they've lost our accounts and records. It's been a pretty interesting week so far, me and elder Udall have been tracting this area, trying to find people for the zone leaders to teach, we're pretty much nomads, so we're basically Mongolians already🇲🇳! This was pretty eventful though, we knocked on his door at one point and this voice came from within the house that said in an old British accent, “who be at my front door?" We responded with the "the elders!" Then he said even louder, "who be ye!" Then we said were the missionaries, then he groaned for about 2 minutes and ditched the accent and said that now wasn't a good time so we left. Then the other night we were walking down the street when a car passed by, a teenager looked out and asked if we were  missionaries, we said yes. The car then pulled into a inter section and the kid popped his head and said "so i heard your guys church-" then as he was turning he crashed his car into a snow bank, and it got stuck. The kids, all 3 of them, get out of the car, they were all juniors in high school and were not members. We helped them get their car out. A cop rolled by, turned his lights on, helped out, and then chastised them for about 10 minutes then were all on our way. We figured that the kids wanted to pull a joke on us or mess with us, and that night was kind of a hard night already, but I like to think that the holy ghost was protecting us from having an even poopier night, so we wouldn't be discouraged! But overall it was a really slow week. Sorry I don't have any pictures yet, my ipad camera is locked right now😥

Elder Griffin Hansen