We Received an e-mail from Raymond and Mary Jane Anderson Who Are Serving in Mongolia

Hello Elder Lasson,
Welcome to Mongolia!! We last saw you at the High School Reunion. We have been serving here since then. We love it here. We are in a small town called Choibalsan near the Russian, China, Mongolia border. You will be right in the capital and will have a great time. You will be in a small, but nice apartment that will be nice and warm, sometimes to warm, all winter. It is a block from your office which is in a beautiful five story building that is also to warm at times. Air-conditioned in the summer. You will have the use of a car, SUV, when you need it or you can have a driver take you places. What a nice mission for the two of you. People, friends and family, will think that you are really having it hard, serving in Mongolia and all. Let them think that and you will be serving in a wonderful place having it so very nice. You will fly out to visit us in a very nice airplane and stay in a very modern motel here when you come to train us and do the needed church work here. We will so very much enjoy serving here when you are here to visit with at times. Look forward to seeing you in August.

Elder and Sister Anderson

Richard responded:

Dear Elder and Sister Anderson (Raymond and Mary Jane),

It is so nice to hear from you and to learn that you are serving in Mongolia.  Thanks for the valuable and comforting information.  We have been busy learning about Mongolia and our assignment.  We have had many Mongolia connections just appear out of nowhere.  Before we received our call we hardly ever heard of Mongolia, but now everywhere we go someone knows of someone who has served or is serving there and that's great.  We have had three couples over to our house for dinner who have served in Mongolia--perhaps you know some or all of them.  They are the Soderbergs, who served in Ulaanbaatar as employment couple and returned last December, the Borans, who had our calling before the Clarks, who we are replacing, and the Nelsons, who had our calling before the Borans.  We are so excited!

We are also driving down to the MTC three days a week for language training (2 hour classes).   Our trainer is sister Sarah Batbold, who is Mongolian.  She converted to the Church several years ago in Mongolia, then served a mission in Ohio, then returned to Mongolia and served as the mission secretary.  She is now attending BYU and studying accounting.  She is getting married on May 9th in the St. George temple to a nice young man from St. George who she met at BYU.   He graduated in accouting and is now getting his Masters and CPA.  She has really been blessed since she joined the Church.

I don't know how much traveling we will be doing, but we hope to see you--either in Choibalsan or in Ulaanbaatar.  How long have you been out and when do you return home?  Are you serving 18 months or 23?  We will arrive in Mongolia on August 2nd.

We are looking forward to our 50th class reunion in 2012.  I'm trying to get a meeting scheduled before we leave so the committee can be working on it while we are away.

Again, thanks for the note and we can't wait to see  you.

Richard and Carol Lasson