Tuesday, July 26, 2016

July 25, 2016

Hello,


We did have our baptism :)and it was amazing! I seriously am so thankful for this family! We actually had a great lesson with them about two days before they were baptized and it helped show me that the work we do here, We may never be able to see the blessings that come from it but it doesn't mean that they won't come. This family is great but for me it was also my hardest family. Why? Well I felt like I wasn't really doing much to help them. Every lesson I taught I thought they can't understand me and I’m probably not even teaching or saying anything that will help them. Plus I also have a really hard time understanding this family. Most of our investigators I understand fairly well but for the life of me I could not understand them. I still have trouble understanding sometimes. haha. But after this lesson, I bore my testimony to them and I told them how proud I was of them and that they were following the right path and that they were going to be great members. Of course right after I started bearing my testimony I started crying and I shared with them how much I loved them and how great their family was and the wife started crying as well. The spirit was so strong, I will never forget this moment. I told them how much their father in heaven loved them and how much their savior did and that Heavenly Father only wants us to try our best. I told them that I know they probably don't understand me sometimes but I love them and have been glad to get to know them. 
It was funny, right after I said that, they were both like no! We understand you perfectly and you speak very well. They showed me that they did understand me and it made me realize that we never really know what we say will help someone. You don’t need to be fluent or anything in order to love someone. They will be able to feel it and the Lord has helped a lot in this work. We have both been edified as the D and C scripture says and we have both understood one another. Not always perfectly but it doesn't matter if it wasn't perfect. We were able to communicate just fine and love was there and that is most important. After the baptism, before we left, Bayrjawhlan came up to us and asked how much would a trip cost to go to America to go to the temple. We weren't sure but we told him that the closest one to them is Hong Kong and that we would find out for him and that our next meeting we can create a plan for them. They already want to start saving so that they can go to the temple as a family! They truly know the importance and their next goal! It is so exciting to see! They really were a prepared family! I am excited for them! It was a great day!




On the other hand a crazy funny story happened to me.... As we were teaching a lesson, at the end of it this man tried to kiss me!! Yea we were teaching our investigators and this grandmas son was there who isn't a member and he was a little drunk which I wasn't quite sure of at the time if he was but anyways at the end he asked for my hand and I gave it to him thinking he was shaking it goodbye.. NOPE! He pulled me down in front of him and then asked if he could kiss me. Of course I couldn't understand what he was saying at first but he kept getting closer to me and I had to back up each time. But he kept asking me. Everyone in the room was saying you can’t and I’m just like what the heck is going on! I don't understand anything except everyone is saying boloogvi! haha so of course I answer saying that and I finally look to my companion and I’m like what the heck is going on and she was like he is asking to kiss you. Finally understanding, I pull my hand away stood up, told him no and told my companion that we are leaving. hahah so yea that was fun..... Plenty of stories like that have happened to me but I’ll tell you about that later.... haha


I’m with sister Hawkins the group ahead of me for English. And the other two sisters helping with reviewing is sister Bollwinkel and sister Ulsen :) Communication with BYU is through skype when we discuss the English program and how it’s coming along. We only spend 12 hours a week for English and the rest is for teaching the gospel so we are busy like 24/7. We don’t have a lot of free time on our hands so we never have to ask okay what do we do now so that is nice.

Have a good week! Look for the blessings in your own life; you never know what you may find and how much to see you have been blessed!

                                                                                                Love, Sister Kerby

Thursday, July 21, 2016

July 18, 2016

July 11, 2016

Hello,

I hope that everyone has been able to have a good week! This week was pretty good! Elder Maynes asked me a couple weeks ago to help out with English during the summer and help review the BYU lessons that have been sent to us from them so I have been working on that along with meeting people. It has been fun and I enjoy being a part of it. We are reviewing these lessons to be taught not only in Mongolia but they will be used for the whole Asian Continent and will help in getting missionaries into areas that are not allowing them right now so it has been cool being a part of that work. We were able to skype with Jessica McGovern who is at BYU and works at the ELC the English learning center at BYU. Elder Maynes invited me to the meeting to share some of my ideas and thoughts that I stated in a previous meeting so he asked me to share them with her so that she could make some changes at BYU that will help the future missionaries coming here more. I am happy to be helping out with the lessons. Basically they are having a group, about 4 us review all of the lessons and make it nice and look good and that it makes sense to be prepared to teach this coming school year and then to be sent back to BYU to be prepared to use in other countries. Elder Maynes put me in charge of creating the booklet that will go along with the power points. It will be a book that explains all the activities and basically the teacher’s manual so yea that is what I have been working on! We were trying to figure out a more efficient way to train the missionaries and help prepare them more for what they will be doing here in Mongolia. They are making a lot of changes and keep improving it so it is really cool to already see how much it has changed since I came out here!

The work is going well! Bayrjawhlan and his family are doing great! We are actually meeting with them tonight and then we just have a few lessons left and their interview should be Saturday or Sunday and then they can be baptized next week! I am so excited for them. I just think about how their little boy is now going to have the chance to grow up in the gospel and to be able to receive blessings that he wouldn't have been able to have before. He is going to be able to have a father who holds the priesthood and as I thought about that, I thought about what a huge blessing that has been for me to have a worthy father who holds the priesthood and how important that is. Even though our other investigators are not doing so great right now, at least we are able to have this family who makes us be able to see that this is what our work is all about. It is about finding the one family who will listen and have their hearts changed. I am grateful for them and I love that family so much!

It was Naadam this week which is why I couldn't email yesterday. None of the internet places were open and so today we are at the mission home and they said we could email here which is nice because we don't have to pay this time:) haha. But yea you should look up Naadam if you are interested in learning more about it. It is just a really fun holiday celebrating Mongolia and their own freedom and that kind of thing. We were able to find tickets and go to the Stadium where we watched the opening ceremony and some Mongolian wrestling and then afterwards we went and did some shopping. They had little tents set up which kind of reminded me of the Del Mar fair a little. They had all this food and things to buy. I didn’t get any food though, my companion and I were way too sketched out about it and we had just gotten sick that Saturday night from a member feeding us so we didn't want a repeat of that! haha. But yea it was a lot of fun and we had a good time.






























July 18, 2016

Well this week has been great and we were able to get a lot of work done which is always good, right? haha

This week was really cool because I was able to experience a great blessing. So on Tuesday of this last week, my companion and I had a small disagreement and were going to teach a lesson in our farthest area and the lesson wasn't the best and didn't go well and so I was dreading the next lesson that we were heading towards but as we were walking to this next lesson, my companion was walking ahead of me and I was a little behind and we walked past this woman and her two little kids carrying water. Now they live in a ger district so there is no plumbing or anything like that. They have to go get their own water in these huge barrels and bring it home so I know that what they were trying to roll on this little cart thing was difficult for them and they kind of looked like they were struggling. I thought about helping but didn't say anything and we kept walking past them. I looked behind at them again and got the feeling, you need to help them. But me being me I was stubborn, not happy and didn't want too. Anyways, the second time I looked back I was like no we need to stop and help so I let go of what I was feeling and stopped my companion and told her that we need to help them. We walked back and asked them if they need help and they said yes. We started walking with them and helped them carry the heavy load and the mom asked us, "What kind of people are you?" and asked "Are you Church people?" My companion then said yes and we started talking a little and getting to know her. Then once we got to her house we explained how we were missionaries and asked if she was interested in learning about our church and guess what! She said YES! So the next day we set up an appointment with her and we taught her family. She has two daughters that are 9 and 13. Her husband was at work but our next lesson we plan to teach him as well. We were able to get another family just by helping with this act of service. At the end of the lesson we invited her to come to church and guess what! They all came to church! This was such a huge blessing and made me realize what can come when you let go of yourself, stop focusing on your own problems and turn to others in love and service. Even if this family doesn't get baptized (I hope they do) but if they don't, I am happy knowing that I made the decision to let go of pride and to serve them. We wouldn't have been able to meet them and they wouldn't have heard this gospel if we didn't take the moment to step out of ourselves and serve. I am glad that I listened to the prompting that the holy ghost was giving me and for the loud voice in my head that told me to stop and go help them. It was a voice of quiet urgency and to me this lets me know that this family is ready. We were able to teach them a great lesson and it was really cool to see the mom be so excited and think that everything we shared with them was so cool!

But yea that is the miracle for this week :)

One more thing! I have a baptism this coming Saturday!!! Bayrjawhlan and his wife will be getting baptized! their baptismal interview was yesterday and it went well! So yay!!!

Anyways that is all! Have an awesome week!

Sister Kerby


This picture shows what these past 3 days have been like! We have had to walk everywhere because the roads were closed for this special conference going on! It was annoying because it made working hard and a lot of people were told to go to the countryside because of it so a lot of people were gone! but yea sorry I didn't take a lot of pics this week! Nothing to cool to really see this week! haha