Vestel, Abigail T

Hello Everyone! This week we had the Darkhan Zone conference and a mission tour all in the same week! A mission tour is when a member of the Seventy or one of the Twelve Apostles talks to all of the missionaries in a mission. This week we got to hear from Elder and Sister Esplin. Elder Esplin is in the Seventy and oversees the missions in Korea, Japan, Mongolia, and China. Wednesday through Friday, we had morning Zoom meetings, and we ended the week with a zone conference where they spoke to us about church history, charity, grace, and many other things! One of the coolest things was the analogy that Elder Esplin used to describe grace and mercy. He described this scenario: You are driving in a car with your friends, and you go sailing over a speed bump that you did not see. It was an honest mistake, but you lose control of the car for just a moment and hit a car that was in front of you. You both pull over to assess the damage to each car. The driver gets out, and unexpectedly, he tel...

Сайн байцгаана уу? Welcome back to our weekly email about the adventures here in the Selenge Area, in the small town of Sükhbaatar. I'm your host, Sister Vestel, and I will be taking you through the highlights of this week. We had an exchange planned for Wednesday night to Thursday night, but our STL dislocated and relocated her knee and had to have an emergency transfer to the city. RIP Sister Shepard, you will be missed. We rescheduled our exchange to Friday night to Saturday night! I got to go with Sister Beghetti, and we experienced a ton of little miracles while walking around. One of those small miracles was being able to talk to a girl who was crying and give her a treat. Then we got to attend the elders' baptism. It was a 10/10 exchange. We were able to visit members and less active members living in Shamar, and we got to visit a wonderful old grandma who was super drunk on milk vodka. Needless to say, our visit with her was unforgettable. We also reconnected with a pas...

Hello Everyone, this week I have a lot to talk about, so I'll just jump right in. Last Friday, Sister Egnew and I found out that all of our American senior missionaries will be leaving the country. This is due to a tax law that was passed in 2023 but is just starting to be put into effect. This tax law requires any organization or other foreign adults staying in Mongolia between 6–12 months to pay an income tax. Because of this, church officials and lawyers have reached out to the senior couples and have advised them to be reassigned to another mission. My dear friends Elder and Sister Price are getting sent to Guam. While I'm really sad about this new development, I'm excited for the senior missionaries to see more of the world and bless the lives of other missionaries. Right now, we have four American senior couples and two Mongolian senior couples. But as soon as next week, the American senior couples will fly out. This is also pretty devastating because, as the church h...

Hi all! We have had some really rainy weather up here near the Russian border. This week was a little repetitive, but we have had some really good miracles. We have an investigator. This is awesome because we are not allowed to proselyte, and we don't have any Mongolian missionaries in our area. We mainly have to rely on the ward members finding friends and our referrals. But luckily, our member took her friend's daughter to church, and we were able to teach her the first lesson. The weather is starting to cool off, which has been amazing. It is starting to feel like autumn, and I'm 100% here for it. I can't wait for spooky season! Our gerch was able to drive us to Shamar (a 20-minute drive) instead of us taking a taxi. These were super cool things I noticed this week! I just want to talk about one really quick spiritual thought. One scripture I shared with our members this week comes from 2 Nephi 31:3, which says: "For my soul delighteth in plainness; for after th...