Tomorrow we are hosting Canadian Thanksgiving at our apartment. They are coming from all over the city & we are expecting 40 people. In our 4 bedroom apartment we have 6 tables that can seat 38 people. The rest will have to be creative, but don't think they will mind. The coolest thing ever is that we found turkeys. We bought two 8kg turkeys we are cooking & friends are cooking a third 8kg turkey as well. The other families that are coming will be bringing a veggies to go with the meal or some drinks for us. We are so excited because some of these people are our friends & some we have not seen before. Some know & some don't know so it will be a great time for everyone.
Teresa last week went to the large "Sun Market" here in Ulaanbaatar & bought (very inexpensive) material & made/sewed beautiful fabric napkins & table runners. She also found some old fake Oak tree leaves that a missionary brought years ago & decorated our living room & dinning room. My wife is awesome. She can take inexpensive, new or old things & make our home look beautiful. There will be a table in every bedroom in our apartment except ours (Mom & Dad's.)
This week has been great, the kids are doing well in school & liking it a lot this year especially. My Mongolian instructors & everyone I met in a taxi, store cashier, people walking in the street told me that my Mongolian was amazing. They could not believe at how fast I am able to speak & how I speak as if I am a Mongolian. I am so thankful to God & thank him each day for being able to speak so well. I have also started studying a little Ukrainian on the side because they're many Russians that live in our building & want to be able to communicated with them also. Teresa is also doing awesome with her Mongolian & Has improved so much in the last month. She had a great talk with her instructor this week about our friend.
The fun thing about language is that everyone has great times, they finish & then for a time you can't think/talk well at all. That time came today as we have many things on our minds preparing for tomorrows turkey dinner. All you do is hope that the great times start lasting longer & the can't think times are shorter. I still have 6 months of language left & will be focusing on reading Mongolian Cyrillic. The spoken & written languages are totally different. Most foreigners say that they are 2 totally different languages. I want to try & bring my reading level close to my speaking level before I have totally finished studying full-time.