An English Conference in Mongolia - Week 20

Dear Family and Friends,

This week has been really great and the weather went from extremely nice, to very bad, back to really hot. I think that it heard me smack-talking it because Monday was AMAZING (especially with that call!), Tuesday was the day that I talked about the weather in my email because it was rainy that morning, and then Wednesday it snowed a wet, heavy blizzard; but I guess the repenting of it all worked because yesterday and today are hot! Like walk around in short sleeves hot. I love it! They finally turned the heater off in our apartment complex (you cannot control it too much in each room) and life is cooler and wonderful. I also live pretty high up, so even when it gets warm, all I have to do is open the window and the place instantly cools down. It is great!

Snow adventures from Wednesday! We got burned (stood up) by one of our members after we tracked through the snow for about an hour. We were right in front when she called and said that, because of the snow, she was in the city with a friend. Life of a missionary!

Enjoying the snow!

More from the snow adventures! 

This week, though, I spent Thursday-Saturday in an all-day English Conference for Mongolian natives. There were about 200 different English-language teachers who attended and we were able to host them around and demonstrate how we teach English in their schools. The food was delicious and the companies were amazing. The more sponsors that we have working with DIC (the charity that I am with for my visa sponsorship), the better the working situations will be and the more that we will be able to have more volunteer English teachers come into Mongolia. It is very important that we always perform our very best each week in the classrooms because we want to provide GREAT service. I really do love being a teacher and am thinking about ways on how to implement these skills at home. I did end up talking to one of the speakers, the ESL Director from BYU-Provo and talked about what it might take to seek a Master's Degree and he gave me his business card and said to get in contact with him after my mission. Lol, who knows, possibilities. I really like my job so much that I don't know if I would want to permanently change it. 

Some of the most exciting news is that we have an investigator and I was finally there to extend her a baptismal invitation! Oh my gosh, it was such an amazing Sunday. We have been meeting with this lady for about 3 weeks and at first, she seemed confused as to why we were there and we weren't really sure why she kept inviting us back. It was kind of strange, she was incredibly nice, but it didn't seem as though we were making progress and she continually rejected our invitation to come to church with us. We asked her a couple times and received the same response. However, yesterday about 10 minutes into the Sacrament Meeting, she popped up!!! Oh my goodness, she came to church and me and my companion almost jumped out of our seats we were so happy. Everything also lined up perfectly because the Sacrament meeting had a handful of youth speakers (about the age of her children) bear their testimony, the Sunday School lesson was about feeling the Holy Ghost, and then Relief Society was about the Plan of Salvation and the Three Kingdoms--this worked perfectly because we were going to meet with her an hour after church and go over the Plan of Salvation with her. When we were teaching her, I felt like she had such a clear understanding, and then at the end of the lesson, we asked her if she would prepare to be baptized when she knew the truth of the message by a member holding the Melchizedek Priesthood. She said of course!! I am so happy.

Going to church really helped because I think that the other members helped make everything make sense. This is the Lord's work and He will do it as He sees fit. I am so thankful to be a part of this. I love being a missionary and being able to teach English, both are hard, but they provide the best feelings in the entire world. 

I love you all!

Sister Olsen 

Spot the snowman! 

This is Puje, she is the English-Mongolian translator for us who helps us make good sentences. She reminds me of Tia Biatriz. :)

This is a little girl who moved here from Provo so she speaks perfect English. We are basically BFFs now.

Picture of my district (minus Elder Urness because he was busy and couldn't come)

These are all of the American Missionaries (or atleast most of them!)

Me and Sister Harker. She was borrowing an outfit :)  

Professor Evans from BYU

If I HAD to be part of a pack, I think I would pick this one.