Mostly about Utah

Presented here are portions of Elder Daniel Willoughby’s thirtieth 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.

Daniel helping to construct a ger.

Zone Conference

So yesterday was Zone Conference so I wasn’t able to write. Zone Conference was about adversity. It was really good and I learned a lot. The Mission President explained that this life is like a testing center and like any testing center isn’t the funniest place to be in. But, after leaving the testing center you are relieved, depending how you did on the test. It was good to put things into perspective.

Conversion Story

Thanks so much for the conversion story, Dad! I read the whole thing, it was really interesting. It really is amazing how the Lord prepares people to hear the Gospel, just like he prepared you. Also thanks Mom for writing how you met Dad. I’ve actually never heard it before, so it was really fun to read. Now I can see where I inherited all my dating skills when I was in high school. :) ha ha.

Missionary Work

So this week was a good one. I had two experiences where I was talking to people on the street telling them about the church. The first one I was prompted to ask if he’d ever been to a Christian church before. He said he’d been attending one for about five years. That started a conversation and we talked for about five minutes. As usual I asked if we could come by later and meet with him to tell more about the church. To that he said he had time right now! I was surprised as that has never happened. We were able to meet with him, tell him about the church, give him a book of Mormon, and share our testimonies. It made us really excited.

Then another day just as similar someone was observing my companion and I talking to people. As it probably looks a little funny with us walking along side people talking to them for a minute or two then going straight to talk to someone else, the person asked me what we were doing. I said we were missionaries and told where, what time, and what my church is. I asked her if we could meet later and she said, “I can meet right now.” I was again surprised but very happy for the opportunity. We were able again share about the restoration and our testimonies.
I know for a fact the Lord helps His missionaries do His work. It is a great blessing to talk to someone who has a genuine interest and share what is so important to me. I know its true and can see the blessings that have come in my life and the lives of others.

My companion is great and his ear will be okay. We simply get to go the doctor everyday. Also school is starting up so I’ll be teaching more English. That will take quite a big chunk out of time to do missionary work. We’ll do the best we can with the time we have. Sorry no pictures again, I don’t have my camera. Hopefully next week I’ll have it with me. I’m still adjusting a bit to how my companion likes to spend Preparation Day.

To Adelaide

Wow you had some crazy dreams. Thanks for telling me. I’ll be honest I had a good laugh.

I’m not sure about the language, it could possibly be dialects. I do tend to understand people I’ve listened to a lot more than someone I just met. As for other areas they do have different dialects. One area a missionary said was like a southern accent, but they were speaking Mongolian. Keep up the great work! :)

Thanks for all the great letters and the support. I love you all!
Elder Willoughby

Presented here are portions of Elder Daniel Willoughby’s twenty ninth 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.

Daniel holding a pig on a prep day in March.

Surgery

Thanks for all the cool pictures and the cool updates. It is always fun to read them. This week was quite an adventure. My new companion has to attend the doctor almost every day for his ear that recently had surgery. So with the main road closed etc. it has taken quite a bit of time out of missionary work, but none the less we did what we could. In all reality he isn’t supposed to be working at all (the doctor said), but that doesn’t seem to stop him.

Missionary Work

We are working to find some new investigators. It is somewhat discouraging to have so many people say they are busy but in time we’ll find success. Also people always go to the countryside. It is way cool that they can move in one day their entire house and have no one know where they went, but when missionary work is concerned it isn’t that cool.

My companion and I get along very well. He speaks no English at all which allows me to speak a lot. I’m at the point in the language where some days I speak well and understand most all things, and others days I can’t hardly speak and I understand nothing.

We met a lot with our new members and less actives to strengthen them. I was happy when they came to church. We’ve also ran into a few old investigators that now have the opportunity to get baptized as before they weren’t able to. It is always fun to find out who their first missionaries were.

A Dream

I had a crazy dream last night, that I was home in America. Everyone asked me why I came home. All I could say was, “I don’t know — Arhhh!!” I was so upset that I started to call my mission president to send me back. I woke up right when I started to call him and was relieved to still be in Mongolia. Ha ha. That was exciting. Did that happen to anyone else when they were on their missions?

To Derek

Thanks for sharing that story. No worries about taking up my time, I like hearing from you. I haven’t had quite an investigator like that, but there have been a few that have made doing missionary work worth it. That is a sweet car. My companion likes it.

To Mom

The normal mail gets here perfectly fine. It doesn’t matter how much time it takes as I’ll be here for another year or so. :) I don’t really want anything so that is all good and well. Maybe some Gatorade powder. Can you also send me your side of the story of how you met dad. :) Thanks.

To Dad

Hey thanks for the awesome emails. I’ve been wanting to ask for awhile but keep forgetting. Lots of people find it fascinating that you are from England and are a convert and went to America etc. Could you send me your conversion story etc. and how you met mom? I have a basic idea but thats about it. Thanks!

Well that’s all for this week. Sorry no pictures this week as I forgot my camera. I didn’t really take any either.

Love, Elder Willoughby

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List of Daniel’s missionary posts.

Presented here are portions of Elder Daniel Willoughby’s twenty eighth 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.

Daniel (left) and companion in Ulaanbataar.

Transfers

Sorry for the delayed email. Yesterday when we went to the Internet it wasn’t working. We went to three places and they all weren’t working. So I have a few minutes right now. Elder Henson, my companion got transferred Saturday. I stayed in the area and Od Bayar is my new companion. He is in the same group, which is cool. We get along great, he likes to exercise so I’ll start doing that again. As for the first transfer in a mission, mine was great. Some people think it’s hard. It’s different for everyone.

Happy Anniversary

The fair looked like it was tons of fun. The pictures are awesome to look at too. Thanks for sending them. That’s a big TV too, by the way. Happy anniversary! [Rickety note: Jill wanted a big screen TV for our anniversary]

Secret American Store

There is plenty of clothes here to buy and traditional Mongolian clothing. I think the shipping cost is enormously high though. I’ll ask some other missionaries to see what they have done to see what’s best. Elder Henson showed me a secret American store, so we bought a big thing of pancake mix. That is really good. We eat lamb a lot still though. It isn’t my first choice of meat to eat but I can’t complain.

Well. Got to go. I’ll hopefully get to write a good response next week.

Love, Elder Willoughby

Related Articles

Presented here are portions of Elder Daniel Willoughby’s twenty seventh 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.

Daniel (right) on a mount overlooking Ulaanbataar.

The Difference In Derek

Thanks for all the awesome pictures. I really enjoyed them. The only difference I can see in Derek is that… his bow tie is cricked…. Oh wait that’s a tie. Ummm… he shaved that day? He started eating baby food? He isn’t wearing a missionary tag? I don’t know looks the same to me.

Missionary Work

This week felt like it was a month. It was a really strange feeling. Our part-member’s husband, Tortogdokh, got baptized this week. He was an awesome investigator the whole time we taught him. He had a great baptismal day as well. His wife was excited for him to become a member and so were some other missionaries that had tried to get him baptized for months.

Baptism of Tortogdokh

While we were waiting for our ALA family to get home on Thursday we decided to climb up the mountain near their house. We raced to the top, took a few pictures and then headed back down. When we got to the bottom another member that lived in that area called after us. We at first ignored him because it isn’t unusual for people to call after us. We decided to stop and see what he wanted. He turned out to be a member of the Church who was baptized about 8 years ago. He invited us in and fed us really fast as we listened to what he had to say. He had a son that served a mission as well. He hadn’t been going to church lately because he had moved so we invited him back. It was great that our little hike turned out to be really productive.

We also were able to go on an exchange Friday to double our efforts with the work. My companion went with the new senior couple missionaries and I went with a mini missionary. The day was great and we accomplished a lot. The senior couple also really enjoyed themselves and impressively could bear their testimonies quite well.

Our recently baptized member invited us over to dinner yesterday. We went with some missionaries that are going home this week. His wife was their new member about a year ago and the missionaries came to say good bye. The food was good but my companion and I unfortunately got food poisoning. So last night was quite the adventure with our stomach’s discarding the food as it felt it needed to. We originally planned to go to the country side today, but instead did our best to recover. We are both doing good now, just a little tired.

The youth right now go to mutual and things like that. They had youth conference about 2 months ago. They seem to do similar things as we do in America. Most of them are starting up school here soon.
Love, Elder Willoughby

Presented here are portions of Elder Daniel Willoughby’s twenty sixth 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.

Daniel ready to baptize Anojin in Ulaanbataar.

Wedding

Those pictures of the wedding turned out great. Congratulations Alex! I also really like the picture of Sarah and Derek with the sun. It looks professionally done. Thanks for all the emails they are always fun to read.

Missionary Work

So this week we had one of our less-active member’s daughters baptized. She gave a talk at her daughter’s baptism so it was a good experience for the family. It was neat as we traveled to her baptism. We started with just Anojin, the one being baptized, and left her house. We gathered two of her friends shortly after and continued on. Her brother was walking home so we picked him up as well. When we got off the bus we met one investigator and member and headed towards the church. We helped a car that was stuck out of the mud and by then two of our less active members had joined us. It was really neat to walk the rest of the way to church with so many people to go to the baptism.

Sunday was similar, many of our less actives came and over half of the new members in our area came as well. It was a great fast and testimony meeting and I was glad that so many of the people we’d been serving were able to be there. The Lord has greatly blessed us in our efforts and I know He always gives us help when we ask.

Other exciting news is that we walked down a street and a member that just recently got out of prison came up to us and said he wanted to go back to church. That doesn’t happy very often. :) We will continue to do the best we can. Enjoy the awesome pictures!

To Adelaide

Its really cool you read my emails to Aurora. It’d be sweet to have her know my name. That reminds me of a little kid in the old ward I was in. We visited his house a lot and played with him. He was just barely starting to talk. After I was transferred and I saw him at church, he ran up to me and said, “My older brother, my older brother, my older brother.” It was way cool and he continues to do it every time I see him. It is way cute (I usually don’t say the word cute but it describes it well). Thanks for the great email!

To Kelsey S.

Hey! How are you? So it seems like they discontinued the pouch system here in Mongolia and the only mail they now send is strictly church business. I think my companion knows how to send letters through the Mongolian mail system so I’ll see if I can do that today. Thanks for your continued support. Until then, keep smiling and tell Jake (my brother) to calm down. Oh and tell Paul to take a nap. :)

Love, Elder Willoughby