Climbing a Mountain. Hill.

Mongolia is similar to other slow-paced countries where people mostly travel by public transportation--nothing happens at an exact time.  You just show up whenever you can.

I thought I was going to Bible study with Anya at 9:00, but since she didn't wake up until five minutes after that, I figured that was off the table.  We ended up going to church at 10:45.  We took a cab and saw a military escort of tanks, showing off for Naadam.  Anya is pretty cool.  I think it'll be fun to live with her.

The church service was unique today because they were having a rededication service for their development building.  A team from the Australian Samaritan's Purse (which helped fund it) was here.  The kids from the orphanage performed some songs,  Scripture memorization, and acrobatics.  The teen whose idea it was to start helping local kids was commissioned and prayed over.  It was all very cool.

Afterward, I got out of my anti-social bubble and talked to some of the other team in UB from Virginia and some of the Mongolian youth.  When Gany was still singing with the youth elsewhere, I went to find a quiet place to play with my iPad.  A boy who is my favorite, Galaa, came and said, "Give me your iPad," and he promptly did more with it than I knew was possible.  A few minutes later, the instruments were put away, and ten of us headed to the bus stop.

We rode to the end of town, where we got 'Mongolian McDonalds,' which is a hot meat pastry thing called khuushuur.  Youth are the same everywhere, apparently, because we played hand games and pushing games and the human knot while waiting for the food.  We walked to a park to eat it, then hiked a tourist mountain.  It is a tourist mountain because there are steps.  And tourists.

Most of them know a little English, and as we became friends, they were more comfortable trying it out on me.  One girl named Enkhtuya sang praise songs with me and taught me some Mongolian vocabulary.  At the top we took jumping pictures, famous the world over.  Then we sat on a step and sang "I'm Yours" and "Rolling in the Deep" while The Handsome One (self-proclaimed, his real name is Chinguun) accompanied us on guitar.  Some tourists took videos of us, hahahaha.

By the time we walked back to the bus stop, it was 7:30, and I had made some really fun friends.