Elder Corey Miles - Ethiopia Addis Ababa Mission: WK 95

It has been such a wild week. Like, I look back at it and I've definitely never had a week like it before. Did I enjoy? Yes. Do I have a lot to talk about? Also, yes. Plus, I was able to do something I've been wanting to do for 22 months now.

Monday morning, we picked up the mother of an Elder serving here, along with her sister and her two friends from the airport. You may be asking, "Why is a mom coming? Does that happen much?" The answer is actually sometimes yeah. A few mothers have come in the past to help out the mission because we desperately need it. So, we welcomed them gladly and helped them ship their bags to the mission home. It was so fun to have 4 moms straight from the USA appear for a week. They were so fun and did a whole lot of good for us here.

We had a few meetings this week. Elder Christofferson is actually coming to Ethiopia in two weeks so we are preparing for that!

I started MyPlan this week. It is a program the church does for missionaries who have six weeks left. I've seen so many missionaries do it and I guess it is my turn? Wack.

We played some basketball this week on the church's court and have started making some friends.

A new trend has hit the EAAM: bench finding. It’s really hard to find good people to teach in this country. So, the solution is to have them find you! We sit on a bench and say hi to everyone until they stop to talk. We actually found two or three solid people that way and met with them this week!

Thursday was one of the coolest days of my mission. One of the services the moms were giving was haircuts, and so we travelled with them to work with missionaries along the way.

First stop was Summit, an old area of mine. I hadn't been back in a year since before we went to Kenya (in fact today is the one-year anniversary of us evacuating Ethiopia). It was so cool to see it again. They now have a cooler house than I did though. They gave haircuts, we talked with missionaries, then we moved on.

Next came Debre Zeit, or in English, the Mount of Olives. Now, I have heard a LOT about Debre Zeit during my time in Ethiopia. It is a town just outside Addis that missionaries always called the promised land. Now what makes Debre Zeit special is that they have a huge chapel that looks like a small Temple which is especially weird for Ethiopia. I've always wanted to go and see with my own eyes, but I never got the chance to serve there. I got to visit on Thursday though and it was so cool. We got to eat lunch there and help the missionaries teach for a bit. I also really enjoyed the drive, seeing what it looks like outside of the concrete jungle.

I got my own haircut. Hopefully I come back looking fresh because of it.

We did some service packing food for a humanitarian organization working with the church. We tied bags of Teff flour for hours and my hands were raw by the end but it was fun to be there and participate.

Saturday night and Sunday morning we spent time in Arat Kilo to help prepare for the opening of the brand new group there. The meeting was awesome and they had 50 people for the first time. It is a blessing to see the church grow here.

This email is already long enough. I'm enjoying every day though and I'm very grateful for the experiences I'm having. There are for sure ups and downs, but the Lord always leads us along if we let him.

Elder Miles

እግዚአብሔር ይመስገን