Mongolians, Iranians, Ukrainian politics, and I (August 22, 2007)

Hello again everyone!

Well, this has been a good week. Here's some highlights:

There were a few elders who went home in the middle of the transfer, and in order to get that all settled, some of them went into threesomes with other missionaries who were staying. We got a phone call last Tuesday saying that we'd be having an overnight threesome on Thursday(of last week). The elder we had with us was Elder Dorjsuren. You may notice that name's a little different sounding that most; that's because Elder Dorjsuren's from Mongolia. Actually, there's usually at least a few Mongolian missionaries here in our mission. Elder Dorjsuren spoke near-perfect English and is really cool, it was a lot of fun to serve with him (especially when our district leader called, and Elder Dorjsuren answered the phone in Mongolian...and our district leader, being half native american, talked back in Navajo).

I also had a chance to speak with someone from Iran the other day. His name is Mohsen, and he was really cool too. He taught me a few Iranian words ("hello" is "salam," "goodbye" is "khoda khafaz," and "my name is..." is "es meh man...", just in case you need a few Iranian phrases). Apparently, almost everyone in Iran knows English pretty well. My companion, who's not always the most well-informed person, said, "I'd like to visit Iran sometime. Are there cool things to see?" Mohsen kind of smiled and said, "This might not be the best time for you to visit Iran." From what I've heard, I'd probably side with Mohsen on this one.

Later that same night, I had a chance to give a "soft" baptismal commitment (that's where you ask, "When you know that these things are true, will you get baptized?" as opposed to, "Will you get baptized on the 15th of September?"), and it went fantastically. I was on exchanges that day with an elder who didn't really know what to do, so I basically taught the entire lesson myself, gave the commitment, testified, etc. The Spirit was really strong, especially when we taught about Joseph Smith. There's really power in Joseph Smith's account of the First Vision.

All in all, it's been a good week. We've been really busy, but it's been a good kind of busy. Have a good week yourselves, and I'll write again next Wednesday!

--Brett