WK 37 - We got a police escort from FHE

Happy happy Monday morning everyone. I wish I had some crazy big or spiritual stories to tell in this email but as usual I just have a lot of funny little stories. So, buckle down it might be a bit long.

B-Day shenanigans:

It was a glorious thing that my b-day ended up on a p-day. That made it a lot more fun. One of the new missionaries brought a spikeball set with him, maybe the only set in the whole country, and we played that for most of the time. Then we celebrated with a nice meal of Chanoly Noodle. Being able to say I'm 20 is kind of really strange.

Our people:

Patrick the Burundian is on date! He's doing well but he missed church to go teach French so that was sad. We met with a man named Warga and he told us a cool story. His father always told him if he wanted to have a good life, he needed to find a church. Well recently his father passed away and he moved to Addis. The day he got here, he remembered his father's words and was looking for a church when we just happened to stumble upon him. Talk about God putting people in your path, he is so prepared. We taught a man named Tariku in complete Amharic which was a pure act of the Gift of Tongues. We have no clue some of the things he said though which is an issue. 

The Tea:

We went to a man's house to teach him and his friend, and halfway through the lesson his wife brought out tea and they tried so hard to get us to drink it. So, we had to stop midway through the Restoration to teach the Word of Wisdom. They seem fairly interested but had a lot of questions about the Book of Mormon. 

Zone Conference:

We had Zone Conference this week. It was awesome! President talked about elevating the standards and testified about how obedience brings blessings. The Zone Leaders talked about goals and what we want to accomplish here, balancing member work and investigator work, but really if done right they are the same thing! At one point in their presentation a Minecraft stick popped up on the screen and everybody started cheering and clapping. It was legendary. The hoops are up now too so we got to ball up a bit after. Video included. It's worth a watch. 

FHE:

We headed to Yeka Abado once more to do an FHE for Brother Yohannes and his family. It was awesome. Brother Yohannes is a powerful man. He shared some stories about his mission in Uganda and we talked about the blessings of the restoration. When we got back to our neighborhood, the power was out and the area was completely dark. Thankfully we ran into some police officers who warned us that the area was dangerous and escorted us home! I can only imagine what other people saw: two cops with AK-47s strapped on escorting two white guys in white shirts and ties. 

Church:

Church was chaotic this week. During Sacrament meeting, one of the speakers started roasting the leadership. Nobody was prepared to teach lessons. And we had people storming out during the Baptism. You live and you learn. 

Read Luke 17:32! It's super short, but it has some good meaning behind it. Basically, when we have faith, we have faith in what the future holds, we don't longingly look back at our past ways. Faith brings about repentance and change, and that's a good thing. 

እግዚአብሔር ይባርካችኋል

Elder Miles

Birthday Chanoly Noodle feast

In the Taxi

Yeka Abado at Sunset

Ninyal, Nyamal, and Warga

Zone Conference

Throwing it down on the new rims

WK 36 - Hot Glue for Dessert

Sadly, this was probably one of least productive weeks of my mission but we learned a lot and had some funny experiences. We had a bunch of lessons fall apart in the most extraordinarily unfortunate ways. 

For example, we set up a meeting with Brother Duop for Friday night. We went to the roundabout where we were going to meet him and ran into another member, Brother Robert, and he took us to his home. We thought it was just a coincidence, but it turns out he thought we were another companionship who set up a member visit with him at the same time as ours. No problem. We were meeting with someone else anyways. Well, we left and called Brother Duop...only to hear the other Elders on the phone. Turns out "Brother Duop" is just Brother Robert's other phone, and we set up the lesson for other Elders. This story pretty much sums up the whole week. 

I had an interesting beverage one day. We visited our Sudanese friends and dropped off a Book of Mormon. They gave a dessert drink, kind of like hot chocolate I guess, but it was a mixture of milk, flour, and sugar. It wasn't bad. The first couple of sips were nice. But after a while the flour taste became overpowering and it just started to taste like glue. 

We're still teaching Patrick from Burundi. That guy is so meek we love him, and he loves the Gospel. We met with him four days in a row which is a record for me. We also started meeting with a runner named Kelemu and we were able to teach him in mostly Amharic! Honestly being forced to speak the language has helped me with it so much. 

We had District Conference this Saturday and Sunday and it was awesome. We sung as a missionary choir for the Saturday session. All the branches in the area got together and listened to some powerful talks from the leadership. The best were from President and Sister Dudfield. President Dudfield gave a "talk" on the covenant path and the iron rod, but it was more of a live demonstration. He is a such a funny dude; I have never been so entertained yet felt the Spirit so strongly at the same time. 

I've been thinking about working hard and diligence this week. Sometimes, like this week for us, when things aren't working out, it can be hard to have the motivation to keep working and do your best. But, if you do your best anyways, God will make up the difference and work through you despite weakness and unfortunate occurrences. President Eyring said in a talk once: "Hard as things seem today, they will be better in the next day if you choose to serve the Lord this day with your whole heart." I testify that it's true. 

Love you guys, and God loves you too. 

Remember that he is on your right hand and your left. Those that are with us are more than are with them. 

እግዚአብሔር ይባርካችኋል

Elder Miles

 

It's ya boi Patrick

Mission Choir practice selfie

Elder Burger make burgers

WK 35 - HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! 🥳

WOOHOO goodbye 2013! Hellooo 2014! As they say, new year new me amiright?? It’s shaping up to be a good one already. For some reason Ethiopia is 7 years behind the rest of the world and their Calendar doesn't lineup with ours, but it was a party seeing all the celebrations. We got fed Linner (Dunch?) by one of the English teachers Eyobe and he made us eat so much I nearly popped. 

Another important announcement: I can 100% testify that blessings do come as you serve a mission. It was made manifest this week in BYU'S victory over Utah in football.

Here's a little rundown of the people we are teaching:

• We got a referral for a man named Patrick from Burundi (literally the first person I've met from there) who learned about the Church from his friend in Canada and is way solid. 
• We've started with a police officer named Tadese who was a part of a different religion before but has converted to Christianity recently and knows very little about Christ. We're really wanting to help him know more about who Christ was before we go too far. He brought his cop partner who isn't very interested and the duo are hilarious. 
• We got a referral from a member and she is one of his students. We traveled about 30 minutes away to visit them and it’s a group of Sudanese women, all taller than me, who frankly know next to nothing about Christ too. But we're pretty sure they want to learn more because they always read the scriptures we give them. We invited them to church and they came late because they completely overdressed for it. It looked like they were going to a wedding.

We've been really, really focusing on member work here in the Megenagna Zone and so we've met with two less active return missionaries in our area. It's been awesome to get to know them and their families, and their testimonies are so sincere, they just have little issues keeping them away. Showing love is all we're trying to do now. 

One night we went all the way to visit one of them and he cancelled on us (turns out we weren't even in the right place) so we said a prayer for God to lead us where we needed to go. It was super late and we had no options to get home other than walking for an hour and a half. We started talking to this man and he offered us a ride home. Most people here don't have cars so it was a bit of a miracle. 

Last and best: Robel and Gideon (Robel's best friend) were baptized on Sunday!! Even though I'm not teaching Robel anymore, the companionship that was offered to let me do the baptism! It's been awesome seeing Robel progress and grow in the Gospel. He started out basically atheist and ended up sincerely wanting to come closer to Christ.

This is a lengthy email already but spiritual thought: with it being the New Year here I've been reflecting on the past couple of years of my life as you do. Do you ever have those memories where you look back at yourself and just cringe and think "what in the world was I thinking?" Yeah. Me too. A lot. Some of you can probably name them. But in those memories, I've also been able to see how far I've come and how the Lord has led me to change. If you are faithfully looking to repent and follow the Savior, then through the Atonement we can learn from those times and become better. 

 

እግዚአብሔር ይባርካችኋል

Elder Miles

Getting lined up by Sister Dudfield

My adopted son

Kiddos

The finest dining establishment in all of Summit

HAPPY NEW YEAR from Eyobe and friends

Robel and I

Gideon and Robel

Random Gambellan dudes who wanted a pic with us

Week 34 - Guests of Honor

My takeaway from this first week in Summit is that there are a lot of opportunities for service and member work, but I've got a funny feeling that finding and teaching will struggle a little.

We've been involved with a lot more English classes this past week. We attended one class where they literally just had us talk to the kids. Their English was good though so it was way fun. We met a kid named Nathnael who will be the next Ed Sheeran mark my words. 

The teachers invited us back to attend the graduation on Saturday and it was a party because they treated us like celebrities for what I felt like was doing almost nothing. All in a day's work, I guess. They gave us nice chairs near the front. They had us hand the certificates and prizes to all the kids. All of the students wanted to take pictures with us afterwards. I even got to help cut the ceremonial, traditional, graduation bread (Momma I made it! I'm famous!) It was actually super effective though, because we were doing member work (2 of them work there), finding new people (one of the teachers invited us over for dinner on the Ethiopian New Year), and we were providing service. 

Another teaching opportunity: we were eating lunch one day and talked to this man. Out of nowhere he invited us to come tour his school. So we went and it was like something out of a Disney Channel show. The architecture was crazy and they had some sick stuff like goats on the roof and a professional recording studio in the basement. He told us we could help out there too sometime. 

We've gotten swarmed a few times while out street contacting. One was by a bunch of dudes looking for work and when we mention our church name they told us to scram. The other was by a bunch of people who saw us pull out a Book of Mormon and wanted to learn more. One guy grabbed the book and started preaching for us. I don't think everyone got the picture of our purpose though, they just saw everyone handing out their numbers so they did too. For example, one of the ladies just giggles and says I love you every time we ask her if she wants to be taught. 

Oh well. We taught a man named Emmanuel who wants to start his own church. We taught a man named Yigezu who we tried to teach purely in Amharic and sadly I don't think he was feeling it. Occasionally we'll meet someone who has lived in the states, and we met a guy named Yessuneh who lived in Ohio. We invited him to church and he showed up! 

This week I've taken a step back. Sometimes it's important to just remember the basics and not overcomplicate things. God loves you. Christ loves you and his Atonement applies to you. As you follow the Gospel and do all you can to serve others, you will find peace and joy. We can serve in little ways every day and much of that can be by just showing them love. We aren't here to just shove the Restored Gospel in people's faces, but we can touch hearts and show how it has changed us. 

Love ya guys. 

እግዚአብሔር ይባርካችኋል

Elder Miles

Traveling with Elder Burke

English Class kids

After 9 pm...

The school's courtyard

One Planet International School

English Class graduation with Brother Temesgen

Summit traffic

Flooded Road (peep the swamped Bajaj)