Missionary Dan Email #33 from Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

Presented here are portions of Elder Daniel Willoughby’s thirty third email from the Mongolia Ulaanbaatar Mission. If anyone wishes to send Daniel a message, write it in the comments and I will make sure he receives it.

Birthday

This week was great! My birthday was awesome. It was also my old companion’s birthday, Ganbileg. The whole zone came in the morning and we had cake. It was good. They sang happy birthday etc. Then I went on a split with Elder Warner (on the left in the photograph), he was in my MTC group. We went and taught English where they also sang to me. It was really fun to teach English that day because the class simply talked to us and we didn’t have to teach much. It was fun teaching lessons with Elder Warner as our language is close to the same. It made both of us happy to do more of the talking during the lessons.

Missionary Work

Sunday was even better. My companion called up a referral and invited him to church. He said, “Yeah, I’ll come and I’ll bring my two friends too.” So on Sunday he brought two friends. It was great. Also one of my investigators asked a lot of questions and then said the closing prayer in priesthood. The bishop mistook him to be a member.

My companion and I also had a special fast for one of our investigators that hasn’t been able to join the church for about 3 years. Complications with her marriage certificate caused the problems, she didn’t have one, and her husband refused to get another one. This Sunday though she said her husband is going to go with her to get it. My testimony of fasting and prayer grew a lot. It has great power. We were very grateful for what the Lord did for Sister Nyana.

Let Them Eat Fruit

Elder Romney had his birthday this Sunday. We talked about 2 months ago if we were still both in the area that we wanted to have a party together and eat fruit. We just both really wanted to eat fruit for some reason then. So we got some fruit and also a bunch of candy and celebrated our birthdays together. We at first were extremely excited to eat all of the good stuff we bought. Afterwards though our stomachs hurt bad. It was still worth it though. Fruit is kind of expensive so we don’t eat it very often, eating it was a real treat.

Cold Weather

Then today we went out to the country side. We made a snowman and played soccer. It was fun too. The weather got cold really fast. One day we had short sleeve shirts on the other day we had to get our medium size coats out. It is kind of funny that I have a medium size coat and a large coat. I guess that just means it is going to even colder. Right now it’s probably 30 degrees, just cold enough to start snowing.

To Mom

Yeah I got the package. Thanks for sending it. It came really fast it seems, but no I didn’t get a letter from any primary kids. I haven’t gotten a paper letter in so long I can’t even remember the last one I got. I really do enjoy reading the emails though. I get lots from all the family and I’m very grateful.

To Ada

Ha ha, yeah there is a ger inside the fence. If you look closely you can see the fire place pipe. We actually don’t do anything to get people to come to English. I teach at universities. Most of the people in the classes are my exact age. The only qualification I have to be a college professor is that I grew up learning English. It is fun when the classes are good at English and we can have a real conversation. They laugh really hard when I say some words in Mongolian and then I say in English I don’t know Mongolian. Thanks for the letters.

This week was awesome with everything that went on. It seems we had parties, but it also was one of the better missionary work weeks. Thanks for the support.

Love from Elder Willoughby