April 24th, 2017 - Week 37

Here is what we got from Griffin this week.

So this week wasn't super exciting :( but we still cool stuff!!!!!! So to start Elder Udall has been teaching at the hospital with Elder Salvesen until may, and I've been teaching with Elder Ames at his school. They did this because they wanted to start with an experienced teacher, and then I would go. But this week immigration officers came and Elder Udall didn't have his alien card with himself, so the immigration officers yelled at him and told him to go to the immigration office and pay a fine. But that same day Elder Udall was on exchanges with a different elder and the officers yelled them because I'm registered to work there. So now the mission is freaked out and now I'm working at the hospital just in case. And a new rule came out saying that all missionaries must teach at their school and with their teaching companion. So that was crazy, but it's all good! 

This week was really good because I focused a lot during personal study on developing faith to grow and progress as a missionary. Also I've started focusing on how I can bring the Spirit with myself when we're in the lessons. Also it shows with our investigators that faith is important in growing spiritually. Baatarjav and Boloroo have been doing really good in praying with faith and trying their hardest on reading the Book of Mormon and developing testimonies. 

Mongolia's a super awesome place with super awesome people!!!!

Elder Griffin Hansen

April 17th, 2017 - Week 36

This is what we received from Griffin this week and some pictures we received last week:

​This is my email for the week. It was a kind of slower week so I'll just focus on the really important stuff.

This week focused a lot on obeying the morning schedule, and it's definitely been a blessing. I'm never feel super during the day and I never take naps during the day. I've definitely seen blessings from obeying it. 

This weekend was Easter, and it was SUPER awesome. We focused a lot on Christ's Atonement. One thing that I felt over the weekend was the value of people. Now I know that sounds really cheesy, but hear me out. Sometimes we are our own worst enemies, and life sometimes goes after us, but we have to always remeber that Christ did hios Atonement for us, which allows us to have joy here in life and the life to come. So by that logic we are super valuable. And beyond that we think way to much of life, but we have life to learn joy. 

Also this week we met with our main investigators, Boloroo and Baatarjav, they're married and both are bards. They showed their pictures from traveling around the world singing and dance in traditional Mongolian clothes. These people have been to Europe, America, China, Russia, and Japan multiple times. So we got Baatarjav to sing for us! Then we're meeting with Baikal (skype lseseons) and now she's in Turkey so hopefully she'll contact missionaries there, keep your fingers crossed! Then I also got this awesome scripture case!

Here Baatarjav singing.

Elder Griffin Hansen

April 10th, 2017 - Week 35

Here is what we got from Griffin:

Monday- Taught english from 10 to 1. Right I'm not teaching at the hospital, instead I'm teaching at my companions school with him until I get moved to the hospital.

Tuesday- This was p-day and we chilled out most of the day. But then we went the circus, and oh my gosh its was awesome. They go hard on circus stuff here and it was awesome! They had tons of stuff, and at first it seemed a little lame cause they just jugglers and hula-hoopers, but then they came out with a shaman who was singing and dancing with smoke around him and they did air acrobatics. There was a point when the two people doing it suspended each other by ropes in the mouths!

Wednesday- We taught english again. Then we met with a family of investigators and the husband, baatarjoiv, is what's called a bard. He travels out to the countryside and writes music, poetry, stories, you name it! We sat there, talked about the church, and then he throat sang to us, and it was amazing! 

Thursday- We had a zone conference and it was really fun. We just talked and listened to our zone leaders talk. 

Friday- Taught english again and just chilled. 

Saturday- We watched conference. Since they have to translate it into Mongolian they do it a week late here. It was super cool and super spiritual.  After that we hung out with other missionaries.

Sunday- was conference again (super awesome!!!!!). Then we met with an investigator and got him on date for Baptism!!!!!!!!!!!!

Monday- We taught english and tried to meet with some people, but we ended up chilling.

Tuesday(today)- We played soccer this morning and smashed the Mongolian team practicing on the field. And later we're going to go on a hike it's going to be sweet!

Well time for my spiritual part. Over these last few weeks I've been having a hard time with the language, it's just so different that it's hard to use. But during conference I was listening the Elder Renlunds talk and I've realized that worrying about the language isn't as important as focusing on having the spirit as a missionary. And that's definitely true, if we don't have the spirit then can only help people as a missionary so much.

Well that's this week. Love you!!!!!! khairtai shvv!!!!!!!

right now I'm not able to send photos but soon I will............ 

I just realized that I never explained my new sponsor to everybody. To start off in order for us to come to Mongolia we need to have a sponsor who permits our visas. Originally I was church sponsored, but the government recently had a regime change (the Communist party) and no longer allowed church sponsorship. So eventually I got new sponsor, at Nomun Hospital which is one of the nicest hospitals in the country. Normally the mission pays about 100$ a year to a sponsor for English teachers, they pay Nomun hospital 150$ a month, so me and Elder Udall are the most expensive missionaries in the mission right now. The pressures on! Then I went with elder Udall to visit the hospitaland it's super nice, the staff is nice, the building's nice. They give us lunch and dinner for free, hospital scrubs, and other equipment. The staff all wants to learn english a ton so they treat us way nice! Then our actual sponsor is a 21 year old girl who is a 1000 x more succussful than I'll ever be, her family owns the hospital, but owns it now.

Elder Griffin Hansen

April 3rd, 2017 - Week 34

Here is what we got from Griffin and all of the pictures that he tried to send last week:

Hey everyone! This week was awesome. First last p-day we went on a school field trip and chilled a lot. So we go out to this place out in the mountains that's a really big tourist get away here in Mongolia. On the way there we basically went up the side of a mountain in a tour bus type thing. On the way there a bunch of the students got hammered! But they were pretty chill (it's okay they're college students). We went up there and they had slides made of ice, good food (khoshor, the best food ever!), and we played some games. The night before we and elder Udall lost in a card game, so we had to drink a gross mixture of stuff we found in our house, but it's all good.

So later this week we got a new investigator named Baikal (it means nature) and she lives in Bulgaria! So then what happened is we got a call from the APs telling us that we had to skype a lesson, and we though, "okay it's someone in the country side or something." then they told us that the person is in Bulgaria! We set up a time and gave her and the missionaries with her a call and we translated what they said, put her on date for baptism, and now she's getting baptized in Bulgaria on the 26th. We still have to keep meeting with her so we can teach her everything!

Then We had dinner with our stake president, and he's awesome! So it turns out that he in the first two months of his mission, the Saratov approach really happened! Him and all the other missionaries had to meet up and stay inside this big house for safety during it. Then he got moved to the same apartment that the missionaries in the Saratov approach lived in! So I know someone famous...almost.

Also last week I don't think I send a picture of jijig brown so here it is...

And sorry the computer was acting weird, it send part of my email. So this is the real deal B)​

Elder Griffin Hansen