James IN Mongolia

Hellooooooo from Mongolia! I made it here safely and i'm sitting in a PC cafe with a group of missionaries writing you. This is amazing. Like nothing I could have expected. The moment we could see the country from our plane i felt this overwhelming surge of love. As much as i tried to imagine it and prepare myself, there was no way to prepare myself for the sheer beauty of it all! The country is beautiful. Mountains, hills, lakes, clear skies. And I havent even seen the whole of it. So far I've done a terrible job of taking pictures here, but I'm going to repent of that and start takin more and then send them back home to you! I might be able to get on my blog from here, I'll have to check with the leaders in my area and the mission rules and all that.

President Andersen is awesome as well. Him and his wife are great and already I can tell how much they care about this work and this people.

So let me try and describe the atmosphere of this place. Right now its a cool...i don't know, maybe 65-75 degrees. Here in the city (Ulaanbaatar) there are people and cars everywhere. THe driving is crazy, anyone can do anything on the road pretty much. If someone decides to pull a U-turn in the middle of a road, everyone just pulls over and waits for him to finish. If someone needs to get into the lane next to them, they just honk and nose their way in. Its a very interesting thing to witness. Also, they definitely use the car horn like it was meant. I've started to realize that in America we hardly use it! Here, while it might appear to be rude to honk, its actually just like letting the other car know that you're there and you're going to be really close to them. I like it. Maybe you should start implementing that in your driving. Dont be afraid to honk. It's ok! Anyways, the people are all over the place as well, they cross the streets whenever they can but the cars have the right away. Uhm, they're all sorts of ages and sizes and it is so great to see them all out and about. Tomorrow we will be doing something called the Dan Jones box where we go out and just street contact. Im excited. Even though I can't speak Mongolian like they do yet, I am excited to try.

Oh, we had our first taste of Mongolian pizza! Its different thats for sure. Whether it's a good or bad difference is yet to be decided. Hmmm....what else...I love this place! I know this is where Im meant to be. I dont actually go to actually area until Saturday so from now till then we'll be doing various orientation activities.

Wow, so i don't really know what else to write. We were in Korea for 7 hours and it was interesting. I've got some Korean money now which I dont know what to do with. haha. We've met quite a few of the Elders here and they all seem great. i can echo the President in saying that this mission is the best mission and that it gets the best missionaries! Im pretty lucky to be able to learn from them all.

Well, I don't know what else to say, so I guess I'll start puttin a close to this E-mail. You should be getting an e-mail from me every week if conditions permit. DearElder.com letters and packages and e-mails and all sorts of stuff will get to me. I can only email family members and I dont know how i'll get a hold of other people but i'll do my best. No guarantees.

This church is so true! I absolutely know it. No long distances change it, nodifferent languages change it, nothing changes it. It is the Gospel, the same as it was with Christ and with Adam. And how grateful I am to share that precious and consistent Gospel with the people of Mongolia. Well ill be in touch, I love you all. Bye!