Lagman **pronounced lawg-mawn**

A few weeks ago our Relief Society had an activity. We met at the church at 11:00 a.m., then left a little after noon, to go to the home of our branch president and his wife. (If you thought "Mormon Standard Time" was bad in the States, just imagine what it is like when you rely on public transportation!) Our branch president is Uyghur ethnicity, and although his wife, Elmira, is Ta-tar, she has learned some of the Uyghur dishes from her husband's family. This activity was so she could teach us how to make lagman.

The pictures below are of some of the sisters in our Relief Society. It took us a while to get started as there was another car of sisters on their way. (President Sultan drove from his house into the city to pick up the rest of our group from the church--it's at least a 30-45 minute drive.)


Lagman is a noodle soup. The soup has meat in it, but it is fully of veggies and noodles. These noodles are not your standard macaroni. They are homemade and yummy! They are also a lot of work.

The large picture in the collage below shows us working on step 2 (or was it 3?) of stretching the dough into noodles.


To be honest, I can't remember exactly how many times we stretched the noodles. It was at least four times, but may have been five. The dough starts out as one very thick "noodle" (they compared its size to a sausage), then you stretch it and divide it into a few noodles; the resulting noodles are thicker than a hot dog, and can be divided. The process of stretching the dough is similar to making snakes with play-dough except it is much more difficult. {The dough takes much much more work to stay in the stretched snake form than play-dough, I'm not sure why or what causes it, but it has a much different texture (more dense/tougher??) than play-dough and needs more "encouragement" for formation}

The picture in the upper left of the collage below shows Elmira standing behind me a little to the left. She is stretching the noodles in this picture, and doing it speedily with great precision. Watching her makes it look like a cakewalk... she was kind enough to reassure me that she used to stretch the noodles with as much difficulty as me.


One of the amazing things about stretching the noodles was becoming aware of the muscles in my fingers and arms that I apparently don't work very often. Although I wasn't sore later, these muscles were telling me they were tired long before we were finished.

You boil the noodles and then divide into bowls:


Then you top the noodles with the veggie-meat part of the soup and broth. Then, serve.


These are the women of our Relief Society. While a few are missing, these are most of our sisters. These women are amazing! They are simply so committed to the gospel of Jesus Christ and have great faith in Him and this work. I believe most, if not all, have had to gain faith in not just a few of the principles or doctrines of the gospel of Jesus Christ, but in Jesus Christ himself. It is humbling to see and hear these wonderful sisters bear testimony of the change that has come into their lives as they have heard the good news and embraced it with full purpose of heart. Their desire to learn and live according to the Lord's commandments is amazing. Their love for each other is quite an example as well. These gatherings are more than just a bunch of women getting together, it is truly a bunch of sisters getting together and the bonding and exchanges shared are proof of that unity and sisterhood.


When it was time to depart we were divided into the two cars according to the regions of the city so the drivers could save on gas. As we left the neighborhood I saw two wild dogs that both looked like wolves. I gasped and said something like, "Oh! Look at those..." and then realized (and said aloud) that none of the other passengers in the van knew English! It took me another second to remember that President Sultan does know English, and we both started laughing. It was an interesting experience, and a first for me. Never before had I been unable to communicate with people I knew.