Elder Corey Miles - Ethiopia Addis Ababa Mission: WK 4

Hello friends and family! Because my 9 week MTC training is more like 8 weeks and two days, I’ve made it to the halfway point! WOOHOO! Time to step it up for part two.

The work is full speed ahead. We did a lot this week. On Tuesday Elder Lyman and I gave a full forty minute lesson in Amharic on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Lemme tell you I did not think that would be possible after such a short period of time yet here we are. Speaking is progressing as usual but I made the realization this week that listening to and understanding Amharic is going to take some major practice and time. Although Elder Lyman and I could teach we couldn’t answer Wendim Abebe’s questions more than just nod, smile, and hope “yes” or “very good” were suitable responses. At one point another day me and another Elder were tasked with answering questions created by the rest of the district and I’ll be honest I was betam tefa (very lost). Brother Osei-Tutu also prepared us this week to give a short lesson in English which was really neat. Learning how to teach the Gospel simply has definitely helped my own understanding!

I’ve been doing a lot of research on Ethiopia lately and I’ve learned a bunch! The church's branches are in Addis Ababa and two resort towns to the south as far as I can tell. Another sweet fact is that apparently Ethiopia is famous for its HYENAS. At night they can be found on the outskirts of mostly all the cities. There’s a town called Harar where they are basically domesticated and people will feed them meat out of their own mouth. THAT’S RAD. I’ll attach a picture. In my obsession with Hyenas this week, I made a sentence about eating them for dinner during grammar practice and my teacher laughed and then said please don’t do that. Let’s just say people would not be happy. It was only a sentence I promise.

Spiritual thought: read Philippians 4:13! It’s so good! We can find confidence in Christ if we are struggling to find confidence in ourselves!

Shoutout to Sister Juber for getting called to Las Vegas! And shoutout to my boy Elder Probst for starting MTC this week! The View Pointe boys are all missionaries now.

ጤና ይስጥልኝ

May God give you health

Elder Miles