Mongolians, Mormons, and Missionaries: Celebrating Tsagaan Sar

Tsagaan Sar is one of the two biggest holidays in Mongolia. It is the Mongolian New Year. People celebrate by visiting family, giving gifts, and eating  (a lot). People here have compared it to Christmas in the western world because of the emphasis on family, gift giving, and preparation that goes into it. I admit that I don’t know the symbolism of any of the traditions or why everyone eats exactly the same thing. I thought about researching it for this blog post, but since I would just be regurgitating Wikipedia anyway, here is a link to the Wikipedia page for anyone who is interested: Tsagaan Sar

From my own experience with it, during Tsagaan Sar, people go visit family and friends; they sit around the table and eat mutton, potato salad, milk curds, candy, and most importantly buuz (pronounced boatz). Buuz are basically meat dumplings. One of the preparations for this holiday are making all the buuz; some families make as few as 400, others make several thousands, depending on how many people they expect to come by. Typically younger relatives go visit older relatives, so the older relatives have to make more buuz. Other traditions that I experienced included some specific greetings you give to people as you enter each house, starting with the oldest person and working your way down. At some point there was a bottle of some drug that we all passed around that we sniffed (being Mormons we all only pretended to sniff it). And the host family gives gifts to everyone when they leave.

The whole sheep that is on every family's table.

This bread tower is also an essential part of the holiday traditions. On top are dairy products and sometimes candy. 

This year Tsagaan Sar started on Wednesday (something to do with the lunar calendar) so pretty much everyone in Mongolia had Tuesday afternoon through Sunday off. On Wednesday I didn’t do anything; I stayed at home and vegged all day, which was really nice. On Thursday I had a couple of invitations from people from church. My first invite was at 2pm at an older woman in my ward’s house. I was meeting some missionaries so they could show me where to go. When we arrived there were lots of people there: 10 missionaries, the bishop and his wife, and a few other people. It was really fun. I’m super glad that the missionaries were there because not only are they able to translate, 4 of them were American and so could explain things to me in a context I would understand. All the missionaries and a few of the Mongolians were wearing traditional clothes which was fun. So I stayed there for a couple of hours eating and chatting away. It was a really nice and festive atmosphere. Apparently the missionaries all count how many buuz they eat to keep score. At this house Elder Haas was in the lead with 130 total over the past day and a half (I only ate about 12 at this house because I am not a 19 year old boy and therefore not a garbage disposal). I was able to get to know the bishop a little better and found he actually understands a lot more English than he lets on. His daughter is also at BYU right now.

Me with the host and some of the guests. The host is the 4th from the left and is an incredibly nice woman.

Some of the missionaries.

Other random guests.

Me with the bishop and his wife.

The whole group while I was there. Notice the missionaries in their full traditional clothing, you could tell that they were loving it.

After I left this house I went home for about an hour to lay down (eating takes a lot of energy) and then headed to Flower and Gerelee’s house. They are sisters who I’m getting to know from church. They both served their missions in the US and so speak great English. Flower is the one in charge of the music lessons that I help out with on Saturdays and Gerelee is the YW’s president, so I work with them both at church. The missionaries were coming to this house as well, but I knew they would be late so I opted for finding the house on my own instead of meeting them somewhere and going to together. This gathering was basically the same as the one before. We sat around a table and ate and talked. It was a little smaller and I really enjoy talking to our hosts so it was fun and relaxed. The missionaries by this point were looking at the buuz with more disgust (they having been to at least 6 houses just that day), it made it a lot funnier. I had a great time at this house and got to know the Mongolian missionaries a little better too.

The table of food at the second house.

Some of the elders dealing with the aftermath of eating so many buuz.

Group shot of second house (minus me and Flower).

On Friday I was invited to the 1st conselor in the bishipbric’s house. He doesn’t speak any English so he had a guy who served his mission in New York call me and invite me for him. I met the NY RM and his wife at the church and we drove over for lunch. It was much smaller just me, the couple, the 1st counselor, and his sister who I’ve talked with at church before and like very much. It was nice because it was causal and not a lot of pressure. Later that day I went to the German bakery and sat on my computer for a couple of hours (and got to talk to my mom).

The English speaking couple that I went with to the 1st counselor's house.

The sheep and the bread tower.

Me and Durelee, the first counselor's sister. She was the first person I met at church.

The first counselor and his guest. He has always reminded me of the cute hedgehog toy for Toy Story 3.

Saturday was another more relaxed day for me, though I met a girl from work at her office for a couple of hours to get a jumpstart on a grant proposal we’re writing this week. Then I headed to another café for the internet.  Sunday was good, I just went to church and taught my first Young Women’s lesson. I think the lesson went pretty well, the girls and leaders were pretty responsive to questions, which is always good.

Overall it was an excellent holiday. I felt so welcomed to every house I visited; Mongolians are really hospitable people. I didn’t go to all that many houses compared with normal Mongolians, but it was perfect for me. I’m so grateful that I know so many nice people through church. And it was really fun to spend some time with the missionaries, being that I am quite immature, me and the 19 year old boys had quite a bit to talk about.