The Ulaanbaatar Mongolia Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was announced by President Russell M. Nelson on Oct. 1, 2023.
For Sister Mary N. Cook, who served in the Young Women general presidency from 2007 to 2013, and also served with her late husband, Elder Richard E. Cook, as the first mission leaders in Mongolia in 1995-1996, this announcement marked decades of challenges and miracles in this Central Asian country.
Sister Cook joins Church News reporter Mary Richards on this episode of the Church News podcast to talk about the Church’s miraculous start and growth in Mongolia, as the restored gospel of Jesus Christ “shall be taught unto all nations, kindreds, tongues and people” (Doctrine and Covenants 42:58).
Listen to this episode of the Church News podcast on Apple Podcasts, Amazon, Spotify, bookshelf PLUS, YouTube or wherever you get podcasts.
Transcript:
Sister Mary N. Cook: When I think of my 31 years of blessings, truly blessings, of Mongolia and its people, I recall this scripture: “And the Lord will surely prepare a way for his people” (1 Nephi 22:20). I’ve shared just some of the miracles and the people that the Lord has prepared years before, and since, in gathering these chosen Saints. I know His work will go forth, and it is going forth. And it’s been so wonderful for me to see the fulfillment of Elder Neal A. Maxwell’s prophetic words from that dedicatory prayer, “Mongolia will become a beacon light.” Mongolia truly is a beacon light, as are its members. And what is next for the Church? Well, I believe the gathering will continue. We’re seeing it, and I just think it’s just going to accelerate.
1:05
Mary Richards: This is Mary Richards, reporter at the Church News. Welcome to the Church News podcast. Today, we are taking you on a journey of connection as we discuss news and events of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Elder Richard E. Cook and Sister Mary N. Cook served as missionaries and then the first mission leaders in Mongolia, presiding over the Mongolia Ulaanbaatar Mission of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1994 to 1996. Their love and service for the people and the country continued for decades.
Mongolia, which is in Central Asia between Russia and China, is a land of mountains and rolling plateaus. The latest statistics from the Church show more than 12,600 Latter-day Saints organized in two stakes, and a temple was announced in October 2023 for Ulaanbaatar.
Sister Cook, who also served in the Young Women general presidency from 2007 to 2013, joins me on this episode of the Church News podcast to talk about what she and her late husband witnessed in Mongolia over the past 31 years as the Church has grown and the Lord has gathered Israel.
Welcome, Sister Cook, to the Church News podcast.
Sister Mary N. Cook: Thank you, Mary.
2:23
Mary Richards: How did you meet and marry Elder Cook?
Sister Mary N. Cook: I met Richard in July 1987, three years after his wife Clea passed away from cancer. At 36, I had just pursued an Education Specialist degree at BYU to improve my career, hoping to become an elementary school principal. That spring, my hopes were fulfilled when I was appointed an intern principal in Jordan District. Not long after I received my internship, a mutual friend introduced me to Richard, who was 20 years older, he had four children and eight grandchildren.
Concerned about that family dynamic, and with my parent’s encouragement, I agreed to one date with Richard Cook. Well, that meeting turned into a long-distance relationship, with nightly phone calls. He would visit Utah from Detroit, where he was working at Ford as the general assistant controller. And then I traveled around the U.S. to meet his children, that he always claimed was his most prized possession. Well, as you can imagine, our romance blossomed while training for my official position to become a principal.
I attended a board meeting the next April and received my principalship on a Tuesday. I flew to Detroit that weekend and returned to Utah to introduce myself to the new staff. As I left that school driving home in my Honda, I thought, “I don’t think I’m going to be a principal. I think I’m going to get married.” When I returned home, I found two dozen red roses with a card that said: “Will you marry me?” I immediately called him. Of course, we didn’t have cell phones in those days, and he was the Young Men’s president, and he was not home, and he wasn’t answering the phone, so every five minutes I was calling. He finally answered, and I said to him, “What do I do with my job?” He said, “Well, Mary, are you going to marry me?” I said, “Yes.” He said, “Well, resign.” I said, “When?” He said, “Tomorrow morning,” which I did.
Mary Richards: A very short principalship.
Sister Mary N. Cook: A very short principalship. Eight days as a principal. All that education I thought was wasted. But I was in love, so I started planning a wedding and a move to Michigan.
4:33
Mary Richards: And then how long did you live in Detroit together?
Sister Mary N. Cook: We were there for four years. Richard finished his career there, but then he relocated to Park City. And it was a New Year’s Eve, I clearly remember it, and the phone rang. I answered it, and it was Elder Aldin Porter’s office from the Church, asking us if we’d be willing to meet with him on Jan. 4. We had no idea who Aldin Porter was. We found out he was the chairman of the Missionary Committee. As we sat down in his office, his first words were, “What I’m going to tell you will strike fear in your hearts, like Mongolia.”
Mary Richards: You’re thinking, “Mongolia?”
Sister Mary N. Cook: “Mongolia?” I wasn’t even sure where that was. Stunned, I said, “Now, where are you sending us?” He then confirmed, “Oh, Mongolia.” Richard, the Ford executive, then asked, “Well, what will I be doing?” And he turned to Richard and said, “Oh, I don’t know, Brother Cook. You’ll find your way.”
Mary Richards: “You’ll figure it out.”
Sister Mary N. Cook: “Somehow.” And that was a worry to Richard. He was not an educator. The model was for educators to go into Mongolia. That’s what they had set up. But Elder Porter explained to us that it was a hardship mission. They would allow us to take 2,000 pounds of food and supplies, and that we could take some time to think about it, that this was not an official call.
5:56
Mary Richards: Wow, that’s it. Just the 2,000 pounds. “Go for it.” But you did. I think about how you were prepared for that call with your background in education, and I want to ask you how the Lord began preparing Mongolia, paving the way for the gospel to be introduced in that country in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
6:18
Sister Mary N. Cook: Well, I think that’s one of the great miracles that I want to share with everyone, because Elder Monte Brough was a hunter, like my husband, and he had a lifelong dream of going to the western part of Mongolia, where they had the trophy-sized argali sheep. So he took his two sons — one was a 12-year-old son, Chris — and at that time, it was grueling. It was grueling when we were there in the ’90s, but it was a rough trip. But Elder Brough watched a herder who took such great care of his little son Chris, and he saw the love and the kindness that he showed him, fixing him boiled sugar water and helping him carry his pack when it was really steep and hard.
Well, Elder Brough decided that they would have a church service on top of a mountain, and they had a little prayer and a message. And his 12-year-old son, Chris, said, “Dad, it kind of makes you feel important, doesn’t it?” And Elder Brough reacted, saying, “What? To the south of us is China with its billion people, and to the north is Russia with 300 million, and you feel important?” Then Chris said these words: “Well, Dad, aren’t we the only ones that know about Joseph Smith, and aren’t we the only ones that know about the Book of Mormon?” It was there that, Elder Brough shared with us several times, that he realized the gospel needed to come to Mongolia, and he often said, “They needed to hear the words ‘Joseph Smith,’ ‘Book of Mormon’ and ‘Jesus Christ.’”
7:47
Mary Richards: I love that faith of that young man. You could be overwhelmed thinking there’s so much around us, so many people. And he thought, “How blessed are we to know this gospel,” and then now we know that it began to come to Mongolia.
But around this time, in 1990, the communist government was collapsing there. I’ve read about all of this. But in the United States, we have freedom of speech and press and religion, but they did not, did they?
Sister Mary N. Cook: They did not.
Mary Richards: Yeah, and so it feels like that needed to happen. Something needed to happen in Mongolia so that the gospel could come. And there’s a woman whose role was crucial in these efforts to have a free society. Can you tell me more about her?
8:29
Sister Mary N. Cook: Oh, yes. You’re talking about Oyun Altangerel. The Lord knew Oyun. The Lord had prepared her, as you mentioned, following that perestroika movement. The demonstrations in Mongolia were going on, and there was an election, and the communist government prevailed. There was a lot of dissension, and people were not happy, and they felt they did not want to go to those old, repressive attitudes. They wanted change.
Well, Oyun was 42 at the time. She was married, and she was the department head at the state library. Well, she took some very, very bold steps toward these freedoms that she and other people wanted. And despite that official pressure, she formed a group called the Democratic Association Branch Council. It was a 12-member group, and it was the first of its kind. And they stood up for democracy, and they proposed that the state employees should have the right to worship and that they should be free to believe, they could express themselves and that they could belong to the political party of their choice. Well, Oyun and others were fired by the state for her actions. Then Oyun, on her own, started a hunger strike.
9:37
Mary Richards: She was so brave.
Sister Mary N. Cook: So brave. The implications were very, very serious. Within three hours of her hunger strike, 20 others — 17 of them were women — joined her. The hunger strike lasted five days, and I have this amazing picture of that in our home of that cold, freezing, subwinter day with people sitting out on Sukhbaatar Square in protest. Well, Oyun’s brave actions grew into a national anti-government movement that strongly supported human freedoms of speech and the press and religion.
Eventually, the government accepted the demands, and then it resulted in the adoption of a democratic constitution two years later. Things when we got there in ’94 were still a little bit tricky in an upheaval. There were times when the national paper wrote an article about Richard being a spy.
10:31
Mary Richards: Really?
Sister Mary N. Cook: Yes. And so, there were many tense moments politically, even in 1994. Well, let me tell you the rest of that story. In November of 1993, the first missionaries and converts were meeting in the state library, where Oyun worked. She told me when I was in Mongolia just a few years ago that she loved going just to listen to the hymns, and she would bring her little grandson over on Sunday to listen to them. Just a month later, after they started meeting there, she showed her courage again by being baptized into our Church, the newly arrived Christian church from America. That was dangerous.
Her son, Odgerel, was baptized shortly after we arrived in ’94. He had been studying for his PhD in forestry in Russia during all of this upheaval, and his mother had actually told him to go to Russia to become a communist leader. And she had changed her thinking while he was studying and was a bit shocked by the whole event of all that had been happening. Finally his mother a member, he started to investigate the Church and, like I said, was baptized. Years later, he was called as our first stake president in Mongolia, and he’s played a crucial role in the growth of the Church since that time.
11:46
Mary Richards: These are two pioneers of the gospel in Mongolia; Oyun with her brave actions and then really that bravery of learning about and accepting the gospel, and then that example for her son and all he did.
Tell me about the first senior missionary couples — those that she met in that library, others who went to Ulaanbaatar — and why they were there. And then, when did the young full-time teaching missionaries arrive?
12:10
Sister Mary N. Cook: Well, the first missionaries that went in were Kenneth and Donna Beesley. He was a former president of LDS Business College, and the Church approached him because he had the professional experience. And Elder Brough that I mentioned, during his time, he was called to the Seventy in the Asia Area in 1990, I believe. And at that time, because of his love of Mongolia, he did a lot to set up this humanitarian help with having university professors teach. So they contacted Elder and Sister Beesley, and it was tough. I think Elder Beesley lost 30 pounds, 20 or 30 pounds. Both of them lost a lot of weight because food was really hard to get. It was really rugged.
But then, shortly after the Beesleys arrived, they identified five other couples, who I call them our vanguard group. I call them our heroes, because they truly were the pioneers of missionary work, and they had a tough time. They were Richard and Anna Harper, Stanley and Marjorie Smith, DuWayne and Alice Schmidt — he was our doctor — Gary and Barbara Carlson, and Royce and Jane Flandro. Living was really hard. I remember going to our first dinner the night we arrived in Mongolia at the Carlsons. And so we walked into their apartment, there was a calendar right in front of us on the wall. Then Elder Carlson explained the codes. He said, “Well, this day we didn’t have water. This day we had hot water. This day we had electricity. This day we didn’t have heat.”
Food was so scarce in this landlocked country that they actually sent some food up from Beijing. Some of the members, the expats in Beijing, got on a train and brought food to the Beesleys during that rough, rough time. And they had to reestablish an import/export system, which meant people would buy an old Russian Jeep, they’d drive to the borders, which was a little tense with Russia and China. They did not have good relationships with either. They would find food, they would come back, and they would just sell it on the streets. And so Richard loved — he kind of thought it was a treasure hunt when he’d go out hunting for food. And let me tell you, he was not one to shop regularly, but this was kind of fun for him.
The main diet at the time for the Beesleys was mutton and rice and potatoes, with very, very few vegetables. I remember, I think it was about the summer after we got there, cabbage came. We were thrilled. I paid $10 for my first bunch of bananas. And I love summers because, I tell you, the tomatoes and cucumbers they grew there were some of the best I’ve ever eaten. I’m not sure if it was because I was hungry or if they really were the best that I think I’ve ever eaten in my life.
But these heroic couples carried on the work of the Lord. They organized a branch. They were preaching and teaching mostly their students. And by the spring of 1993, they had a pretty good group of students, not large, but they all met on April 15 with Elder Neal A. Maxwell at Zaisan Hill — it’s a beautiful place that overlooks Ulaanbaatar — and that’s where he offered the dedicatory prayer on Mongolia for the preaching of the gospel. And I want to read to you two promises that I’ve been able to watch be fulfilled in the past 31 years. As we talk more, I think you’ll start to recognize them.
He said — and listen to his eloquence. Do you just love Elder Maxwell? He has the most beautiful way to put words. So listen carefully — “Father, this is a windswept land. May it also be the case that the winds of freedom will never cease to blow in Mongolia. Preserve and protect the independence of Mongolia, regardless of the moves made on the great checkerboard of the nations. I dedicate the land of Mongolia and bless its leaders and people, its soil and its sky, all to the end that the nation may be blessed, that it will so respond to the gospel message, so that Thy work may be firmly established here. May Mongolia even be a beacon light to other nations.” Isn’t that beautiful? Well, with the announcement of the temple in October of 2023, I think we can safely say the gospel message has been firmly established in Mongolia.
Mary Richards: These prophecies and prayers fulfilled.
16:32
Sister Mary N. Cook: You asked me about the young elders. Well, shortly after the dedicatory prayer, Elder Maxwell returned to the United States and then went down to the MTC and identified six young elders who were called to Ukraine. He pulled them in personally and told them that their call was going to be changed to Mongolia. He let them know that they would have to teach English as a second language in order to qualify for their visa and that the only language training that they would have would be Russian, because the MTC didn’t have anyone that spoke Mongolia. And of course, everyone in Mongolia spoke Russian as well. They were bilingual. They arrived in August of ’93, and then six more elders came about a year later, about the time that we arrived in the summer of 1994.
17:19
Mary Richards: So, they come and they’re ready to teach and to serve. There were people who were learning about the gospel in Mongolia and learning from the missionaries and the couples and the elders.
But also there were people from Mongolia who were learning about the gospel while living in other countries. You have some examples of these pioneers, right?
17:35
Sister Mary N. Cook: Oh, well, Enkhtuvshin’s story is amazing. As these six elders were training at the MTC, a man by the name of Enkhtuvshin was being prepared to accept the gospel in Germany. He recalled that as a little boy, his grandmother taught him about God. She believed in Buddhism and always had a little Buddhist shrine in her ger and would talk about God to him. So he always felt that religion could help unite the Mongolian people, especially after this upheaval during the communist era and changing to democracy. And he felt that religion would help them.
He was a professor of Marxism. Well, with that, he didn’t have a job. So he went to Germany to really, I think, find out about the gospel, but also to prepare himself for another employment. He went to Germany for the specific reason to investigate Christian churches. He told me that he didn’t know what God he was praying to, but his parents had promised him that there was a God, that He would help him.
One day on a street in Germany, he ran into our missionaries. They gave him a Russian and a German Book of Mormon. He told me, “Sister Cook, I read that book in one day and one night. I just love this book.” Two days later, he attended church, and during the summer of ’93 he was baptized. He said he was so excited because he thought he might be the first Mongolian member, but he was so concerned about returning home and not having the Church there to grow and to learn. He was unaware of the Church’s growth in Mongolia, and so he returned the same month that those six elders arrived.
He was shopping at the State Department Store, it was the only really big store in Mongolia, and there was that familiar sight: two elders with name tags. So he ran up and pulled on Elder Hansen’s backpack, which Elder Hansen was very nervous of what was happening, and he turned around and started speaking in German. Well, Elder Brett Hansen was the only of the six elders who had taken high school German, and he started to talk to him. He understood a little bit of what he said, but he knew enough to say, “Church, 10 o’clock, state library.”
So, Enkhtuvshin was able to join the congregation there. He was so thrilled that he had found the gospel there, and he said he knew then that God was aware of him and that he was not alone. Enkhtuvshin has played a key role, especially during those times that we were there, and helped us to gain official recognition. He was also the first Mongolian branch president, the first patriarch, and he and his sweet wife, Dashgerel, are now serving their mission in Mongolia as a senior couple.
20:18
Mary Richards: Wow. Look at the miracles in his life. That story about the missionaries, the Lord was preparing him, and it makes me think too about how the Lord prepared you for your role.
And tell me again a little bit more about what it was like to receive that assignment to go to Mongolia.
20:35
Sister Mary N. Cook: Well, I told you about how shocked we were, and we hadn’t turned in our papers, and we had been approached to be a host and hostess on Temple Square, so that’s really what we thought we were going in for. So to hear this, we had no idea of what we were doing, what to expect. The hardship mission, frankly, scared me to death. We thought about those two weeks, and Elder Porter said, “You can call John Carmack, talk to him about it, see if you really want to do this, and then get back with me,” he said. Well, when we walked out that door, I’ll never forget, Richard turned to me and said, “I don’t need two weeks, Mary. I turned the Lord down when I was 19 because I was engaged to Clea and I don’t want to let the Lord down again.” I, too, had turned my bishop down when I was in my mid ’20s and teaching, and I said I did not want to serve a mission, so that wasn’t a hard decision for me. We didn’t need the two weeks.
I mentioned about Richard having to find his way. Well, he surely did. He immediately contacted BYU and asked what’s going on financially. He was a CPA, and he said, “What could I do there?” And they helped him to find out that Arthur Andersen was there, and they had to convert all the businesses from the Russian accounting systems to Western accounting principles. And so when he got there, he arranged to meet with Arthur Andersen and said, “I’ll volunteer my services.” And he worked at the Ulaanbaatar Hotel, helping them, worked with two young men who eventually joined the Church, and they were outstanding young men from Mongolian National University. But in that situation, he was able to meet the president of Parliament, he was able to meet the minister of finance and other really key people that when Richard was called to be the mission leader later played a very important role in helping us to get officially recognized and to get help with visas and things like that. So, he did indeed find his way.
And then you know that wasted education of mine? Well, not so wasted. As that preparation to become a principal, I had to do a lot of supervision. Well, we had a whole core now of young elders and sisters that were teaching in universities, and it was very important that we kept the quality up. So I would do a lot with training, teaching, observing and helping them with that. So President Hinckley always said, “Education is important.” We always thought it was important to our family. And I can say no education is ever wasted, even learning how to cook mutton.
23:08
Mary Richards: Yes, when you arrived, you had these different foods and different things, like mutton, to cook. And how bad was the culture shock, and what were some of those challenges? But then also, let’s talk about some of those joys and miracles you saw in missionary work and the growth of the Church at that time, including the translating of the Book of Mormon.
23:27
Sister Mary N. Cook: Well, when we arrived, there were about 70 members at the time. But honestly, I went through all phases of culture shock, and it was very, very hard for me. I was unable to communicate. I had my little member that would come and try to teach me Mongolian and those hard sounds. It’s a very difficult language, and the syntax has nothing to do with English; it’s completely different. Their customs were different. We already talked about the food situation. Richard, he was the mighty hunter, he thought it was a great outing. It was this high adventure.
But I remember our first night in Mongolia. We lived in a Russian apartment that had bright orange floors that had just been freshly painted. There was even an orange hand on the wall; I guess as they went out, they hit the paint and then hit our wall. And our entryway, the door frame was a repurposed hockey stick, a little bit different from what we’re used to. But they had put two twin beds together, which was a nice idea. The only problem was mine was 3 inches higher, and I kept rolling over onto Richard. Well, we were away from jet lag, and we just started laughing. And Richard said, “Mary, we’re going to make this the best apartment in Ulaanbaatar.”
Well, he went to work. And he took those wooden crates that our 2,000 pounds came in, turned them on their side, took the lid, sawed up some shelves, made shelves for our food storage, took twine and knotted it up and down between the shells so he could put his files in. And it was home. It became home. My large loads of laundry, due to the winter layering that we had to do because it was so cold, was done by lifting a small washer into a tub. I would fill it with boiling water from a kettle and then cool it down with a little cold water from the spigot. We felt that we were really privileged to have this state-of-the-art machine, because it did agitate, it did drain, it did rinse, and it did spin.
I have the best photo of Richard sitting in his office with ropes that were hanging crosswise in the room, our laundry hanging with it on his head, and he was on the phone — which took, by the way, seven months for us to get. But it’s one of my classics, because he is so engaged in his work with laundry on his head.
25:43
Mary Richards: Trying to do his best.
Sister Mary N. Cook: Trying to do his best. Really, we did just get used to things. You just got used to things. But months later, I remember sitting in our living room, and we had a chair that you fell into it, and you almost hit the floor with it, and he was sitting in that chair and looked at me, and he said, “Mary, we will never be happier than we are right now.”
Mary Richards: Oh, I love that thought.
26:07
Sister Mary N. Cook: It was a joy that neither of us had experienced. And we read about it in Doctrine and Covenants 18:15. It says, “And if it so be that you should labor all your days in crying repentance unto this people, and bring, save it be one soul unto me, how great shall be your joy.” And we found that joy in those beautiful people.
And the missionary work was really amazing. Typically, we’d have 10 to 20 baptisms every two weeks, sometimes even more, and it took place in spas or swimming pools. Most of our members wanted to attend the meetings. They were so on fire with the gospel. But we’d have to go, this one spa, we had to walk through a bar, and then we had to weave our way to a hot tub that was in very small room, and people would just squeeze in to be able to witness the baptism. But they were so thrilled to see new members come into the Church.
We tried to expand leadership roles with the new Mongolian members. We started girls camp, we did city service projects, and we introduced members to Christmas traditions that they had never even heard of. I remember the only sign of Christmas, our first, was in the State Department Store. There was one counter, and they had flashing lights playing “Jingle Bells.” It was the only sign of Christmas in the country that we could find. Sometimes members would have to wait two to three weeks to be taught by the elders because they were so busy.
And then they had to come to Church first, then they were required to watch the “Jesu Keeno,” which is the “Jesus Movie” that some evangelicals had produced and had translated into Mongolian, just to learn the life of the Savior. People would knock on our doors and say, “Will you teach me about Jesus Christ?” We had no Church publications in Mongolian, so they would receive either a Russian or an English Book of Mormon for them to try to learn a little bit about the gospel. But indeed, you can see the field was ripe already to harvest.
Well, we modeled family home evening as one of our ways to train, because most of our members were these university students. They were not families being baptized into the Church. A woman named Munkhtsetseg attended one of our first family home evenings, and I remember that night so clearly. She sat on the end of our sofa, and she had just come from one of her discussions.
She was grumpy, and she had just come from a discussion, and her objective of the discussion is she’d have a discussion, then she’d run to the state library, read all the anti-Church literature that she could find, then she would go back and debate with the elders, making one of our elders even cry. But I watched that change. The second week, she started to smile a little more, engage a little bit more. The third week, she asked if she could lead the lesson, and as she taught that lesson, her radiance grew. She became our first Primary president. She brought many, many children to church. We had a huge Primary. She was so intelligent and generous and so caring. We just loved her.
29:18
Well, after serving one year, we received an early morning call from President Gordon B. Hinckley informing us that on July 1, 1995, the Mongolia Ulaanbaatar Mission was to be organized, and at that time, he called us as mission leaders. After we organized the mission, we were able to improve our complement to over 30 missionaries, and we had four sisters arrive, which was wonderful. We also expanded the Church. We formed two branches in Ulaanbaatar, and then we opened two cities, Erdenet and Darkhan, which were quite a ways away from us. Erdenet is up on the Russian border.
Well, the Translation Department came to us and said, “We want to start the translation of the Book of Mormon, and we need some quality people that know Mongolian.” Mongolians, as important or more important, that they understand English. So Richard identified several people, one of whom was Munkhtsetseg, and asked them to prepare papers in Mongolian, and we took them to the Mongolian National University for professional evaluations of them. And the university came back and identified Munkhtsetseg as gifted. We found out that she had really made Mongolian language one of her avocations and as a young girl had started to write poetry, and they even said, “Some of this ought to be published.”
Well. Shortly after that, after they identified Munkhtsetseg, she was called to serve here in Salt Lake City. Half the time she was a missionary on Temple Square, and then half the time she would work on the translation of the Book of Mormon, and it was printed with a team. She was the initial translator, and it’s actually Oyun’s mother was the final translator, because she was a teacher of Mongolian and understood the formal Mongolian. And so this marked a beginning of a miraculous life for her, with the beginning of the Book of Mormon being translated by 2002, and she continues to be an instrument in the Lord’s hands.
31:11
Mary Richards: I love that story. How do themes of religious freedom and humanitarian work and educational efforts all weave through the history of the Church in Mongolia?
Sister Mary N. Cook: Well, actually, the Lord has continued to use Munkhtsetseg in all of these areas. After completing her mission, she attended BYU and then worked for the Church for several years. She married an American who had some addiction problems, and eventually she divorced him. It was a very difficult decision for her, because she is such a caring person. But a year or two after her divorce, she opened up to me about her desire to remarry. Having supported her through so much, I was very protective of her, and I advised her to find a good man that was committed to the gospel.
Well, she saved her vacation days and traveled to Mongolia to visit her family in August of 2018. Typical of her giving nature, she contacted the Sorenson Foundation here and asked if she could take medical equipment to some hospitals. Well, when she arrived, she was stopped at customs and told to pay duty on them. And she’s feisty. She said, “This is charity. I’m not going to pay custom duty on this.” And they said, “Well, how do we know you’re not going to sell it?” She said, “This is going to this hospital and that hospital, and I’m not going to be selling them.”
Well, a phone call led to Turbat Mikhlai, the chief of staff of the Mongolian Immigration Agency, descending the escalator to discuss this issue with Munkhtsetseg. She told him that this was medical equipment that she was going to be taking to Dornod and a few other places. “When are you taking them?” he said, and she told him. He said, “Let her through.” So, a couple of days later, she fulfilled her commitment, went to Dornod, where she delivered the medical equipment, and who should be there but the man in uniform. And she said to him in her feisty manner, “Oh, so you’re here checking up on me, are you?” He said, “Yes, I am. I’ve been finding out about a few things. I just wanted to make sure you were doing what you were doing.”
Well, that went well, but he contacted her after she returned to Ulaanbaatar, revealing that his half sister was a member of our Church. Two days later, they met at a dinner that was hosted by her half sister, and their love story began. During their quick romance in Ulaanbaatar, Turbat agreed to investigate the Church. He kept his word. This was a high government official, and to attend church, he would drive three hours to Darkhan because he did not want to be seen as favoring one religion over another in that position.
33:51
Well, Munkhtsetseg returned home, and they continued to communicate through texting. And then in December, we were asked if we would like to come and host a man from Ulaanbaatarr that was over immigration. We said, “Sure.” And so Turbat visited Salt Lake City in December of 2018, right after that, and Church Hosting helped Munkhtsetseg with that. We were invited to it, where Elder Gerrit W. Gong was in attendance, and that’s where we first met Turbat. Well, that long-distance relationship went on until May, and he decided that he could not go on with the conflict with his position and the Church. So he, in May, he came to Utah to continue studying about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
And you know, Mary, I believe Turbat was prepared by the Lord many years before his baptism. Let me tell you a little bit more about him. In ’92 after law school, he was asked by his university professor, who was on the Mongolian constitution-writing committee, to help him with the area of human rights, which launched his legal career. Turbat actually tried a case for the Buddhist religion in the Supreme Court, which sparked his political career. And in that position, he met a lot of high officials, but he also was well acquainted in military school with the current president of Mongolia, minister of defense and brigadier general. But as a new member, he saw a lot of struggles, and he could see that there was a problem.
Now, we had a new stake center, the Ulaanbaatar west stake center, that was finished in 2017 that the city of Ulaanbaatar city council would not allow us to meet in. We could have FamilySearch, we could have basketball, we could do English classes, because anyone could attend, but no religious services. And that was very concerning to Turbat. Well, in the October 2022 conference, Elder Ronald A. Rasband gave a talk on religious freedom, and he mentioned that we need to all be aware that there are places that need religious freedom that we need to be responsible for that.
Turbat, during that week before, had written an article for the Archeen Erch, which is their USA Today, if you will, and had mentioned that — we got a knock on our door on Monday saying, “My article is almost like what Elder Rasband said.” He then said to my husband, he called him President Cook, “President Cook, I think you need to go to Mongolia. You need to meet my friends in office. It can’t be about religion, but let’s talk about BYU–Hawaii, let’s talk about humanitarian service, and let’s make them aware of all the good we’re doing.”
So we started planning that trip, and Asia North got involved, a little bit nervous. “This was not a Church assignment. What’s going to happen?” But we went, and when we got there, we were able to meet a lot of those people. And at that time, Richard was to be given the Order of the Polar Star. Now, do you know about the Order of the Polar Star?
36:49
Mary Richards: This is, I’m understanding, it’s one of the highest awards in Mongolia, right?
Sister Mary N. Cook: It is; for a non-Mongolian citizen, it is the highest award. Barack Obama has it, Hillary Clinton, John McCain. And Turbat had arranged that and had told all about the work we had done at BYU–Hawaii. Well, after we were called as mission presidents, we came home, were trained, we went back. And on our way, we stopped at Hawaii, where we investigated the possibility of getting some students, some members, to go to BYU–Hawaii, where they could see the Church in its fullness, where they could attend the temple, where they could see leadership, and they could also learn English, because it was critical at that time.
So, Richard started to raise money for the Mongolian Education Endowment Fund. And that would have been in 1995. And since that time, over 600 students have graduated from BYU–Hawaii, Mongolians. And the purpose was for leadership. And coincidentally, the new Ulaanbaatar west stake presidency are all BYU–Hawaii graduates, as were their wives. They were called in 2022.
So that was the purpose of the Order of the Polar Star. Unfortunately, a Mongolian guard was killed by a Chinese guard, and there was a dustup, and the president was detained. The award was not given, and so we came home. But in the meantime, during that trip, we were able to be interviewed by four television stations Richard was on, and we were also able to be on a 30-minute show called “DeFacto With Jargalsaikhan” — their “Larry King Live,” if you will — and tell about humanitarian services, BYU–Hawaii and such.
Well, Asia North was just so concerned about it, and Turbat assured them, “I know him. He’ll be fine. Don’t worry about him.” Well, another miracle, Jargalsaikhan walks in and says, “Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Cook. We have friends in common. I’m the young man that found Kenneth and Donna Beesley their first apartment.” It was a miracle. He knew all about the Church. He knew about humanitarian aid. He asked all the right questions. And Asian North was thrilled with the media coverage. And I believe 1.8 million people, it’s really the adult population of Mongolia, were able to see that.
39:07
Mary Richards: Well, how happy were you, and how happy were all of your friends, when in October 2023, President Russell M. Nelson announced a temple for Mongolia?
Sister Mary N. Cook: Well, October 2023 is a special month for us. First of all, we get the temple announcement; brought tears to my eyes but absolute fear. “How are we going to have a temple when we can’t even worship in a stake center?” But I’m not in charge of that, clearly. And I thought about those dark, cold winter days, so many struggles, “Richard’s a spy.” Would I ever, ever see a temple in Mongolia in my lifetime? It was unbelievable.
When I was in the Young Women general presidency, we climbed Ensign Peak for our first presidency meeting. Sister Elaine S. Dalton wanted us to look at the temple from that vantage point. And her efforts and our efforts were always to have the youth focusing on the temple. We had worked so hard during that presidency to get the individual limited-use recommend; before, they had to have one sheet, they had to go with their ward. And so it was thrilling that when that happened, they got that recommend. And I have been thrilled to watch this evolve over the years as I’ve seen — I work at the temple at 5 a.m., and I see these youth come in. They flock to the temple with that recommend, thrilled to be serving the Lord.
And to think that in just a few years, my Mongolian young women will be able to go and serve in the temple, just like they are here. And I know President Nelson was thrilled with that, and he made a mention of that in conference. Well, I mentioned October was really special. Not only was the temple announced, Richard got the Order of the Polar Star here, and that was an amazing thing. And then Munkhtsetseg and Ted left on their mission. Richard felt that they needed to be there now, and we arranged for them to be able to go over in their mid-50s at this time, and they initiated their mission at that time, right that month.
41:07
Mary Richards: Their service for the Church and the miracles they’ve seen in their lives, and now that continues. I love that. So, also in 2023, you mentioned that Elder Cook was awarded the Order of the Polar Star here, but he was going through cancer treatments as well.
Tell me about all that surrounded that ceremony and his health, and then what was happening with the Church’s efforts in Mongolia at that time.
41:28
Sister Mary N. Cook: Well, Turbat kept saying, “President, you’ll get that award, trust me.” And so he called us and said — it was in August of 2023 — and said, “The president of Mongolia will be in Washington, D.C., and we’d like you to fly to get the award there.” And Richard had been diagnosed with a tumor from his skin cancer, and he was in radiation treatments at the time that he’d have to fly, and it was absolutely impossible for us to go. So the President made the determination that he would have Batbayar, the ambassador of Mongolia to the United States, come to Utah to give it to him in October. So that was Oct. 13, was the date that that happened.
And it was difficult to get that arranged, because the Mongolian embassy made it just so clear this was a Mongolian ceremony, it was not to have anything to do with the Church, they would not meet in Church buildings. So we tried to honor that. We held it at BYU. And two days before the ambassador was to arrive, we got a phone call that said the ambassador had reviewed the itinerary, and he would be happy to meet with Elder [Neil L.] Andersen, but it could not be in a Church building. So Elder Andersen arranged to meet at the law offices of Kirton McConkie, where Elder Andersen explained all about the humanitarian effort that they wanted to do with Mongolia and explained that, “We need your help.” Those two became fast friends. Elder Andersen said, “It’s beautiful here. You need to go through Provo Canyon on your way to Provo. It’s beautiful. You’re going to love Utah.” And so, that friendship began at that point in time.
The Polar Star ceremony was beautiful. I’m going to get a little teary here. Richard was blessed to give his acceptance speech after finishing 20 treatments that Monday, and it was on a Friday, and it was amazing. He was amazing. I believe he was renewed by the Lord. During it, I was told that Batbayar actually got tears in his eyes when he saw the passion and love that Richard had for those Mongolian people. Well, it was clear to see that after that event, that Batbayar had fallen in love with Elder Andersen, he’d fallen in love with Utah, and he’d fallen in love with the Church. And even this last December, I went back to Washington, D.C., where Elder Andersen had invited him to the Festival of Lights, where he helped light the lights at the Washington D.C. Temple. It was thrilling.
That happened in October. Well, three months later, Munkhtsetseg and Ted get a call that Batbayar was on his way to Salt Lake City to meet with Elder Andersen, and he wanted them to come and be at the meeting as well. Batbayar had arranged for the mayor of Ulaanbaatar city and three councilmen. Now, remember, it was the city council that had blocked our stake center, that they would be in attendance as well. So, they came back and met with Elder Andersen. At the meeting with Elder Andersen was just Batbayar and the mayor of Ulaanbaatar city, but Elder Andersen explained temples, said, “We are planning to get one” and told him all about temples. Munkhtsetseg was the translator in the meeting. The mayor of Ulaanbaatar city looked at her and said, “Munkhtsetseg, we have to help these people get their land quickly.”
Well, it has come quickly. Two months after that meeting, the stake center was open for religious services. Richard died May 1. He was given a blessing that he would be able to live long enough to fulfill his work on the earth, and he got to see some of these blessings.
45:17
Mary Richards: Wow. Oh, that is so beautiful. These miracles and these blessings in the hand of the Lord in that effort to get the temple.
This must be very tender to talk about your husband’s health and then his passing. At the time of this recording, it’s been just over a year since he passed. But how do you see the Lord’s hand in your life and His hand in what was happening for Mongolia and has been for this time?
45:43
Sister Mary N. Cook: Well, I’ve seen a lot, even since Richard’s passing. Munkhtsetseg and Turbat returned — sometimes I call him Ted, but that’s his American name — but Munkhtsetseg and Turbat returned from their mission on May 2, they brought with them a letter from the Office of the President of Mongolia with gratitude for all the humanitarian service that has been done in Mongolia. Specifically, they were able to give 300 Chromebooks to the rural nomads in Mongolia, because they now can get internet, and English is now a mandated requirement, and guests can teach English in their native language, missionaries. So it’s really opened up visas.
When we were there in 2022, there were only 40 missionaries, and most of them Mongolia, because we could not get visas. I think we now have 130 missionaries there now serving. The work is going forward. Missionaries are teaching and preaching and reactivating, and we are seeing the gathering taking place in large part, I believe, because of the temple. A new draft law that Turbat helped work on is being proposed that will allow us to have more freedom in our proselyting methods and as preaching the gospel.
Ulaanbaatar itself sent 26 staff members to BYU just this past May, where they met with the Marriott School Public Administration Department to talk about how to improve pollution, how to improve their traffic problems, how to improve addiction issues. And so they were here for two weeks and had a wonderful experience and learning about the Church and attended the Syracuse temple open house.
And what is next for the Church? Well, I believe the gathering will continue. We’re seeing it. Many members and nonmembers are benefiting from healing in the Savior’s way with their addiction problems and are thrilled with that opportunity. Pathway and EnglishConnect are providing quality education opportunities, and these people are going to be our future leaders in Mongolia. So, it’s a special time in Mongolia with the temple coming, and I just think it’s just going to accelerate.
47:58
Mary Richards: Oh, this is so exciting. Our last question on the podcast is always: What do you know now? Sister Cook, what do you know now, after more than 30 years experience with the country and the people of Mongolia and the Lord’s work to gather Israel?
Sister Mary N. Cook: When I think of my 31 years of blessings, truly blessings, of Mongolia and its people, I recall this scripture: “And the Lord will surely prepare a way for his people” (1 Nephi 22:20). I’ve shared just some of the miracles and the people that the Lord has prepared years before, and since, in gathering these chosen Saints. I know His work will go forth, and it is going forth. And it’s been so wonderful for me to see the fulfillment of Elder Neal A. Maxwell’s prophetic words from that dedicatory prayer, “Mongolia will become a beacon light.” Mongolia truly is a beacon light, as are its members.
You know, when the nurses were caring for Richard, they’d say, “What are your goals, Mr. Cook?” And he’d say, “I want to go to the groundbreaking of the temple in Mongolia.” It’s coming in the not-too-far future, I’m hoping within the next year, and I know Richard will be there, and I will be too.
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Mary Richards: Thank you for listening to the Church News podcast. I’m Church News reporter Mary Richards. I hope you learned something today about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and had your faith in the Savior increase by looking through the Church News window as a living record of the Restoration. Please subscribe, rate and review this podcast so it can be accessible to more people. And if you enjoyed the messages we shared today, please share the podcast with others. Thanks to our guests; to my producer, KellieAnn Halvorsen; and to others who make this podcast possible. Join us every week for a new episode. Find us on your favorite podcasting channels or with other news and updates about the Church on TheChurchNews.com or on the Church News app.
