Help for the Hearing and Vision Impaired

Those with hearing problems

As we were meeting with an older member we asked why he was not coming to Church any more. He said we can't hear the speakers anymore.  I told him that there must be a way to hook up some earphones to our sound system and I would get back to him. I called a number of people and finally talked with the head of Physical Facilities for all of Mongolia.  He told me all the buildings in Mongolia have a wireless system for the hearing impaired. He said we just need to order the headphones and chargers.  We ordered six sets and a 10 head set charger. We had hoped to have all in place by the Christmas Program today.  The equipment arrived a couple of weeks ago, but the charger didn't work, so we are waiting for a replacement.  We will be so happy when we see their faces light up to hear the sacrament prayers and the speakers.  What a wonderful blessing it will be.


Those with vision problems

In late October Mission President Benson issued a challenge to all Mongolian members to read the Book of Mormon in 90 days beginning November 1st and ending January 31st. There was a Mission-wide broadcast kicking off the event, large posters for recording names and progress of all participants were placed in all buildings, a nice bookmark with the daily reading schedule was given to everyone. 

Debbie thought about a few people in our Branch and then we thought about a number of people in all the units we work with that are vision impaired.  She had the idea that we could record the Book of Mormon in Mongolian and make CD's so they could participate in the challenge.  We called the Mission President and he loved the idea and checked on resources. He called back and asked us to do it locally.  The Sister Missionaries and another couple took the project on and recorded the entire Book of Mormon in 5 days working day and night. We then started burning CD's for each unit for them to make copies in addition to the copies for all the people we knew who would love to participate. They were a big hit. They are thirsting for resources like this.  So many Mongolian members want to learn English so they can read other LDS books written by General Authorities.

We also received quite a few pairs of reading glasses provided through an Eagle Scout project!  As we are visiting members throughout the District we take the box with us.  If we find anyone that has difficulty reading we have them try on different strengths of glasses to find one that might help them. We were visiting one sister in the hospital we knew had vision problems but none of them helped her. Her roommate asked if she could try them on and she found one that worked for her. She was so thankful.

Other

An Eagle candidate in our Ward in Utah chose a project to supply winter coats for the 40 children in the orphanage where we teach.  We will be presenting them to the kids at their Christmas Party coming up.  The logistics to gather them and also to earn the money to pay for the shipping was quite a task.  We were excited to find out he was willing to take this on for his Eagle project. We will create a new post after the event and include some pictures with the kids and their coats.

We are thankful for so many people that have donated time, effort and resources to help those in need here in Mongolia.