Yes, I'm Still Alive!

Dear Tami (and others who are wondering if we're still alive in Mongolia, since I have slowed down on my blogging!):  I can't totally pinpoint why I haven't been blogging as much as usual.  I think partially because I'm more busy with people (a good thing), and because sometimes things happen that are fabulous, and good, but I don't know if I should blog about them since they are the result of personal conversations, ya' know?  English teaching is going great, and we love our students.  I'll blog about that soon!

A fun relationship that is developing:

Our daughter had a car accident in Rochester.  The car was in our name, and it had to be totalled-out (nobody was hurt...just one of those things that would cost more to fix than the car was worth).  Since the car title held our names, the title had to be sent to us in Mongolia.  We took care of the necessary paperwork (that in itself is a full blog, but it would be quite boring; suffice it to say that it's interesting looking for a notary and then to find one on the first floor of our apartment building once we found out how to spell and say the word in Mongolian, and then to communicate with her as to what we needed).

Once the paperwork was all in order, I had to hunt down the best way to ship the title, etc., back to the U.S. safely.  I decided on UPS (yep, you've got it--the big, brown trucks which are also in the U.S.!).  Papers in hand, I went to the office which I had "accidentally" run across about four days earlier while shopping in our area--so the office is only about a 15-minute walk from our apartment.  While working on the transaction, I struck up a conversation (in English!) with the two Mongolian women behind the counter.  They were very business-like and distant until I complimented both of them on their use of English.  The conversation turned into a social event for them.  More talking continued.  (Don't worry, I was the only customer in the office).  There seemed to be an interest in improving their English, and I offered to get together with them on a casual basis (not lessons...just conversation and discuss new words and culture).  They both brightened and gave me their "name cards" (business cards) and put my phone number into their phones. 

Since then, Nara and I have gotten together three times.  Mongolians have trouble with pronouncing "p", "v", "f" and "w".  We work on that together and end up laughing.  She teaches me a new Mongolian word or two when we get together, and we usually laugh at my pronunciation, too! 

Yesterday, we had our third time together.  She invited me to a "black tie" event that she's been planning...the 10th Anniversary of UPS in Mongolia.  So, the three of us are going to this fancy event in a couple weeks.  I'm so excited!

What's more exciting is the conversations we have.  May this relationship, a result of a car accident, be one of those things that show He works "all things together for good."