Sain baitsgaana uu! Sonin saihan yu bn daa??
This week went by so fast and it was such a blur haha. In my last email, I mentioned that I was being transferred to Darkhan to finish up my training. And I got a new companion! Her name is Sister Otgontsetseg (Отгонцэцэг) and she is awesome! She doesn't speak very much English at all, so we've only been speaking in Mongolian, which has helped me sooooo much with my language learning. I think I have learned more Mongolian this week than I ever have so far on my mission. She is so sweet and so patient with me and she helps me understand when I ask her 100,000 questions every second. And she is so cute too! She's been on her mission for almost a year now so she has lots of experience as well.
So, we took off from the mission home early last Thursday and got to ride a cool train all the way to Darkhan. Darkhan is a very small city in the countryside of Mongolia (about an 8 hour train ride from Ulaanbaatar). The train ride was so fun despite the lack of space and difficulties with getting our luggage on and off the train. Each train cart had 4 beds in it, so we piled our suitcases on two of them and used the other two for the ride. The cart was so small that we basically couldn't walk on the floor of the cart haha. But we finally arrived that night and found out that our apartment was the newest mission apartment in Mongolia! The downside of that was that we had absolutely no utilities, kitchenware, or cleaning supplies in our apartment. So we went shopping with the elders for everything we needed. We also had to figure out how to install a water filter on our sink so we could drink water haha. But we got it figured out and got all moved in then crashed that night.
Now, we are still getting into the swing of things in our area so far, but it's been fun. I am in the Old Darkhan ward which we share with two Mongolian Elders. So I am the only American in our ward. This means I also run all the English classes in our area all by myself (which is lowkey really stressful sometimes). And I teach a lot more English than I thought I would. I teach every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and then run English Connect classes on Saturday. Once school starts back up again, I will teach every wednesday at a college in the city as well. It's a lot but English classes are also helping me learn and understand Mongolian so much better as well. Overall I am learning sooooo much and it's so hard but so good!
We have one really awesome new investigator who's been coming to English class for some time and just started showing interest in the Church! She came to sacrament last Sunday and joined us for our YSA family home evening last night as well. She seems super excited and happy to be involved in church activities and loves to learn in our lessons.
Speaking of YSA FHE, the missionaries here run FHE and mutual every week. It's been super fun being involved with the younger groups in our area but there is a lot of room for improvement. We are trying to slowly build up our member attendance by coming up with fun activities to do. If any of you have any fun game ideas, please send them my way because we could never have too many activity ideas!
The ward here is great! It is really really small too which is really sad because the records say we are supposed to have about 600 people in the ward. Last Sunday, only 25 people showed up (including the 4 missionaries and children). This area has so much potential for growth so I am so excited to build it up the best that we can! I also gave a short talk and shared my testimony in sacrament. I was so nervous but afterwards, so many people told me they understood me and were impressed with my language. This was a drastic difference from last week when I gave a talk in the Unur ward. This week, I have seen so many instances of the Gift of Tongues and I am so grateful for this opportunity to learn and grow so much! I feel truly blessed.
Overall, this area has so much potential for growth and I am so excited to get to work. I also forgot to mention that my comp and I have been called to be social sisters, so we run the 30th Anniversary for the Mongolia Ulaanbaatar Mission Facebook Page now. We have been doing training on how to make posts and ads for the page and it has added a lot more responsibility to our schedule haha. But it has been a great blessing and learning opportunity so far. Getting thrown into the deep end with all these new responsibilities has been challenging and there have been moments where I wanted to give up and cry, either from lack of understanding or stress. But just looking back on the past week and seeing all the growth that has happened makes me so excited for what's to come in the future here. I have felt Heavenly Father comforting and pushing me forward every second. I have felt the Holy Ghost lift my burdens and help me understand people a little more every day. I have felt so blessed with them on my side cheering me on. I know that Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost are on all of our sides cheering us on every second of every day. I know that they are looking out for you and I know that if you turn to them in faith, they will not hesitate to comfort, lift, and bless you. I know this gospel is true and that this work is great! Have a wonderful week everyone!
Love,
Sister Potter
P.S. I've noticed a lot of my photos are centered around food haha. We get together a lot to eat so it's fun
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