Feb 9

This last week has been full of ups and downs. I appreciate all the emails/letters and the packages from all you guys it really means a lot. This last Saturday we decided as elders in our district to do a language fast. It’s where we don’t speak English for an entire day, we only communicate in Mongolian. Even if random people talked to us we had to speak Mongolian. I got a lot of weird looks!!! But it was amazing. It really opened my eyes to see how far we have come in the language. We carried around our pocket dictionaries and we looked up words we didn’t know. I thought I would go a whole day without talking. I didn't know I knew that much conversation phrases in Mongolian. I mean I can teach a super awesome lesson in Mongolian right off the bat, but just conversation phrases I don’t know much of. But I learned a lot and we had a lot of fun. We are going to do it twice a week and the rest of the days we are going to SYL as hard as we can. I know that if we keep doing this we will be a little more prepared out in the field. We won’t be total scrubs. 

Just last night we had another lesson with билгүүн (Bithgoon) and every time we meet with him his body language tells me that something is bugging him. He has a problem and as a companionship we just can’t figure it out. We want to help him so much but we just don’t know what to do. And when I’m in a lesson with him, I don’t know what it is but I just feel so unprepared. I work hard to prepare for the lesson but it’s just with билгүүн where I just blank. Last night I was studying my scriptures and I came across a scripture in D&C 127 verse 4. It’s the last half of the verse that stuck out to me. 

"....and let your diligence, and your perseverance, and patience, and your works be redoubled. And you shall in nowise lose your reward."

Pondering on this scripture I came to realize that earlier that morning during personal study, I fell asleep. When I do that I become drowsy and not focused in companion study. I came to see personal study as seminary. When I’m focused and willing to learn during personal study my day goes a lot better. I told myself that I will work hard to not sleep during personal study and that I will spend every minute I can during the day to get more familiar with the language. That means in lines waiting for food, when I’m done eating and waiting for my companions, when I’m walking to and from class. I can always improve in the language. I’m really focusing on my testimony in Mongolian. Because I know if I blank again, I can share my testimony with power. I have come to know my testimony in English and as I’m translating it in Mongolian I come to know it even more. 

Бурхан бидний баруун талдь бас бидний Зүүн талд сахиусан тэнгээр ихээр амлалсан бидний дээшээ оргох бас бурхан түүний сахисан амлалт дандаа гэдгээг би мэднэ 

This is just a part of my testimony that I’ve been working on translating. This is from memory so hopefully I didn’t spell any words wrong or miss any words even though I probably did. Anyway life is good here. The teachers are awesome, food still stinks but I can’t complain. Boyd Ax, one of our teachers showed us some traditional Mongolian food and after that I was humbled. They have this mystery meat jello thing and it looks disgusting. But i have 5 more weeks until I have to worry about that. Hopefully all of u guys are well peace!

Elder Heacock