Elder Corey Miles - Ethiopia Addis Ababa Mission: WK 16

Heyyy well I hope everyone is having a great middle of the night! So much has happened in the last week that there's no way I'll be able to do it all justice so I'll briefly hit on the most important parts:

I said goodbye to everyone in California which was hard! I was pumped to come to Ethiopia but it was a sad day leaving all the people I was getting to know.

We flew from Santa Barbara to San Francisco to New Jersey to Togo to Addis Ababa in a fat 23 hours of travel time. Ethiopia welcomed us with a thunderstorm (made it just in time for rainy season. It's poured every day since coming) and it was straight up like a movie descending through the clouds with lightning flashing around us.

The airport took forever to get out of, and when we finally made it out and were loading bags, random locals started showing up out of nowhere trying to "help us" and President Dudfield and the APs were not having it. Fists were nearly thrown. It was a nice welcome haha.

Speaking of President Dudfield, him and Sister Dudfield are the best. First off, they are Australian so their accents instantly make them fun. We stayed at the mission home the first few days and I can tell just how much they love the missionaries and the country. They cooked us our final familiar meals (rip), took us to church (it was Ethiopian Easter on Sunday so I got two Easters), and sent us off.

Addis Ababa is unlike any place I've ever seen. I can't describe. It's huge. It's such a cool city. The weather is perfect in my opinion. It's got a bunch of skyscrapers which are either super nice or half done and crumbling. And in between are either nice, walled off houses or tin shacks. It's an interesting combination of modern and third world but I love it. Here are some things I've seen so far:

Cars just do what they want. Traffic is insane here.
A few carcasses on the street.
Shepherds driving goat herds next to the freeway.
People chilling in abandoned buildings
And so on. I'll include more in other emails I can't remember it all.

I'll be finishing my training in an area of Addis Ababa called Megenanga with my trainer Elder Anbesse. He's a native Ethiopian and a little fireball. His name means Lion in Amharic which is lit. He calls everyone brrrro (with a rolled r) and there is a bit of a language barrier but his English is pretty good and I'm excited to learn Amharic from him.

I won't have a lot of time to communicate because our companionship shares a phone so our time is split. I'll try my best to respond to emails but just know that I see them and am sending out mental messages of appreciation.

Sorry for the lengthy email, but lastly is my spiritual thought! President Dudfield shared with me the importance of including spiritual events and my testimony in my emails, so I'll do a better job at including those in my letters. The biggest impression to me this week being on the other side of the world: God ABSOLUTELY loves all his children everywhere. That means you and you and YOU. The people here are amazing. Their testimonies are so strong.

እግዚአብሔር ጥሩ ነው

Elder Miles