Just a country boy

Its kinda funny. I am seriously a novelty here. Being a white American is like wearing a clown suit and walking around speaking to clickity language. I'm out in the countryside where there are really no Americans and everyone things its the weirdest thing to see me here. The strangest thing about getting home will be not having everyone stare at me!

My missions going good though. I have a great companion, I feel like im learning a lot about the language, people, and the gospel. I love my new area (way out in the countryside, im in the boonies guys), and everything is going right. This week hasn't been too cold, about the same as utah probably, but the smoke was really bad. The people here burn coal and so at night or on cold days there is just a thick layer or black smoke. We have been given masks so its ok, but its really ugly and dirty.

Alright not much happened this week but I want to share an experience that happened. First of all Mongolians are great, caring, and loving people who will give you everything they have and more, but many also have big tempers. We had a Zone Conference where our two Zone Leaders were  teaching us how to be better missionaries. One of our Zone Leaders is American, and he was clarifying something some missionaries were confused about. Completely out of the blue a missionary started yelling and and angrily asking a bunch of questions. Then his companion piped up too, everyone is completely shocked and frozen because of how unexpected this is. They get to the point that the American Zone Leader asks them both to leave. Everyone I've talked to believes that this was the correct move on the zone leaders part, but it made the two angry missionaries even more mad. Long story short, it got very heated very fast.

What I learned most from that day was not that message that these two Zone Leaders shared, its how the Zone Leader acted that taught me the most. While he was being yelled at, criticized, ridiculed, and told by other missionaries that he needs to repent (all in front of 30+ missionaries), he remained totally calm and collected. His voice was not raised, he didn't call anyone names, or say anything mean at all. He was the perfect example of Christ-Like love, and charity. After the conference I saw him meet with each person, and I watched his face while he did that. A calm, peaceful look never left his face. This is how we should, and Christ would, face difficulties.

Alrighty, I read this scripture this week and I wanted to share it. Its Helman 10:5

"And now, because thou hast done this with such unwearyingness, behold, I will bless thee forever; and I will make thee mighty in word and in deed, in faith and in works; yea, even that all things shall be done unto thee according to thy word, for thou shalt not ask that which is contrary to my will".

God gave this manpower to do anything, and then He said this man wouldn't do anything that is contrary to the commandments of God. We should live our lives so that God doens't need to give us a commandment about every little thing, "it is not meet that I should command in all things", but instead we should try and make our lives something that God knows will be righteous.

-Elder Clement