My Time in Mongolia: The Weather is Bipolar

Dear family and friends,

Thinking about it, I am pretty sure that you had already received a letter with this exact same title before, but it is still the same. Mongolia has my heart, but Mongolia likes to be bipolar with the weather. To illustrate, last P-day, it kept kind of snowing all day and the weather dived for the first half of the week. I was back in fur-lined tights, my winter boots, but not quite back in mittens or a hat (that was due to pure stubbornness alone), but I was pretty convinced that I would never be warm again, then it heated up for the ending half of the week. I am back to the tights-free life and running around without a jacket again because it is too warm for that.

I love Spring. It is exhausting, though.

It is funny how often we let other parts of our life do the exact same thing: it will swing from one end to the complete opposite. I was talking with my companion this morning about how much we love Seat T (the best workout video in the world) and how much he breaks my heart. My body is always a little on the fatigued side of life. We have been working out pretty regularly for the past 7 weeks and while we are becoming better at following the moves, my body is becoming more fatigued because we are able to better keep up and more perfectly follow his instruction; we start to mimic the people working out with him in the background just a smidgen more, then you feel like you were hit by a bus because you become sore in the most random spots (my poor hip-flexers).

So for just a moment, you want to give up. You want to go from completely engaged to not working out at all and just laying semi-comatose on the floor instead.

Don't do it! There are times that you just have to fight through the moment where you want to disengage completely. You need to keep focusing and become the stabilizing force within your own life--you don't need to live like a Mongolian spring. You can make yourself become consistent through constant effort. It is going to be fatiguing as my morning workouts are demonstrating, but while you feel like your body is going to break, the exact opposite is happening and your are becoming stronger. You are capable of accomplishing great things.

I have a new investigator that I wish I could say the same thing to. She is amazing, her husband is a great support to her, and she has 3 adorable little children. Her husband is a member that had been inactive for a few years, but brought himself back into activity and now she herself has the desire to join him at church. She had come for a few weeks and I thought that she was just a newly moved-in member, I had no idea that she was an investigator. Then when we found out, we arranged a meeting and had a great lesson with other members of the ward who are also their friend. They said one thing that kind of broke my heart: their extended family was completely opposed to them joining the church. They had no idea that they were meeting with the missionaries. Oh man, that is never good.They have a determination and a desire right now that will pull them through, I hope and believe.

So as they start to try to come to church, it is going to become harder. The good news, though, is that they are not alone in their efforts. Neither are you. We have the opportunity to become pillars of strength and accomplish much good, but we need to have the faith to accompany our works. My new investigator needs to keep progressing, we need to keep our faith strong. It all takes effort.

I guess my overarching message of the email is to just be consistent. Good things will come, I promise.

I love you all!

Sister Jessica Olsen

A progression of the week: the weather started to turn, then one of my really good friends just finished her mini mission and was going to go home (I served in her ward earlier in my mission) and I ran out to say good-bye to her without tights, but now life is wonderful again and it is so warm and lovely outside.

New District(ish), new language goals, new pizza (delicious), and then just a little bit of rest. Hahahahaha, picture not included, but I had fallen asleep on the hardwood floor and looked like a dead person because I was just sprawled out!

This is from our ward Start the Fast Together. Oh my gosh, they made my favorite food: tomstoi khuushuur. It is so good, this is something that I will make at home!