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)

WK 33 - The Summit

Transfers kinda rocked my world. To be fair this is the first actual transfer that I've had, but honestly so much has changed that I don't even feel like I'm in the same mission anymore. So let's get right into the meat and potatoes shall we?

Before transfers hit we had an opportunity to go to a service opportunity in Arat Kilo that the APs set up for us. We were the guinea pigs so we had no clue what was going on. We arrived, a lady shoved us into a room with 20 people, and then told us to teach English. Well...we didn't have a heads up so we had to wing an English lesson. Surprisingly it went really well and was a blast.

I've heard you get transferred when things start to go really well wherever you are. That was definitely true. It was hard saying goodbye to some of the people we were teaching. We will still see them on Sundays (more on that later) but it’s not the same. There's a chance we may still be able to baptize Robel which is amazing. But still sad.

Transfer News (President decided to switch my game mode to very difficult this time around):

- We celebrated transfers by going to a very traditional Ethiopian restaurant and enjoyed some singing and dancing while eating flaming Chekena Tibs.

- I have been transferred to a brand new, just opened area of Addis Ababa called Summit. The area is so much nicer than Megenagna (our neighbor has a massive swimming pool if that says anything), but the empty contact list is looking intimidating.

- We live in a super nice villa/house that will double as a chapel when the Summit Group gets started out here, but for now we are still attending the Megenagna Branch. It's me and 3 other Elders (Elder Anbesse, Elder Cockrell, and +1). Quiet compared to my last apartment with 8. I definitely miss that group. 

- The +1 is my trainee! His name is Elder Burke and he is from Saint George. It's way cool because he's been to Ethiopia before and has an adopted brother from here. 

- Aaand lastly I was made the District Leader for the new Summit District. I'm pumped to see what kind of work we can do here but I'm gonna be real with it I don't 100% know what I am doing. Good thing the lord qualifies whom he calls.

On Saturday, we were walking home from another, different English class when it started to pour on us. Like we were going to be more than drenched if we continued. Lo and behold we hear a honk behind us and the District President pulls up and offers us a ride home. It was a small miracle and a major tender mercy. In a way it confirmed to me that God is aware of our little district here in Summit and that he will guide us. Look for those little tender mercies every day. They are there!

እግዚአብሔር ይባርካችኋል

Elder Miles

English Class (1)

Titios

The view

The Summit

Our house's security system

Robel

English Class (2)

WK 32 - Opposition in All Things

The beginning of our week was vastly different from the end. We started out insanely busy. And I mean like, lunch is a backup-plan type busy. For some reason our area just exploded with so many new people and activities. Here were some of the highlights:

- Had a lesson with Estefanos and made the mistake of telling him I liked to eat pork. He was ASTOUNDED because that's something they just don't here. He asked if I liked to eat dogs and horses too. I guess they didn't get the update that the Law of Moses has been done away with or something.

- Mana brought two of his friends to learn about the Book of Mormon, and told us that he might bring his wife to church when he can. The problem is she only really speaks their Sudanese tribal language.

- Had solid lessons with both Robel and Dula. Robel is really starting to understand the Book of Mormon and is becoming more and more excited about what he's learning. Dula is solid as ever. 

- Did some ping-pong contacting! We stuck the rickety "table tannis" table out on the sidewalk and just asked people if they wanted to play. Then we'd get their numbers. It was the most fun I had ever had contacting and at the same time it's prepping me for the 2025 Olympics (but really though when will it actually be the schedule is so messed now).

Thennnn on Friday we got the news that we would be quarantined because we may have been exposed to COVID. So we spent Friday and Saturday inside studying and playing Solitaire.

Luckily on Sunday we were able to get out and go to church. We had 104 people at Sacrament Meeting which is crazy for here! Part of that number came from the new missionaries who arrived! A lot of our people came too (one of them yelled at the Branch President after though). That being said, transfers are on Friday, and all I know is I'm packing. So we'll see what happens.

Go read 3rd Nephi 27! In it the Savior himself is explaining his purpose and Gospel! I learned at lot from the perspective it gave me. I'm extending the invitation to everyone who sees this: If you read it, shoot me an email and let me know what you learned. 

እግዚአብሔር ይባርካችኋል

Elder Miles

I don't have a lot of pictures so here's some memes too:

A nice lunch

Too true honestly

BongeSpob

Plagues

WK 31 - Chilling by Open House

This week was strange. We were super busy: we never had any time where we weren't doing something we needed to, yet I feel like we got almost nothing done. Plus it just flew by. I don't know if this is a natural missionary phenomenon but here we are.

Funny story of the week. We were eating lunch one day in a tiny restaurant the size of a bedroom, when a bunch of old dudes poked their heads in. One let out a little bit of a screech and they all came in and started singing and dancing. As most things like this in Ethiopia go, they wanted money, so they kept going until a few birr was coughed up. Then they left us with some grass as a blessing and were gone.

Updates on our people: Dula was confirmed on Sunday and I had the opportunity to confirm him. We gave him the new member pack with a white shirt and tie and he was quite emotional about it. Our teaching pool has been refilled so we've got people like Temesgen, Abenezer, Theo, and Mana who hopefully pop up in later emails as they progress.

The main part of this week was our Chapel open house on Saturday. The branch here is in dire need of activities so we had this planned as one, as well as to help find people. Two birds with one stone. We passed out tons of flyers and made an Amharic-dub, Oromic-sub version of the "Ask of God" video. Not a ton of people showed up, but luckily for us, our buddy Robel came and loved it. He also got talking to President and Sister Dudfield afterwards and that definitely left an impression on him. He decided he wanted to be baptized!

I don't remember what I talked about in the last few weeks, so if I repeat forgive me. But Dula shared something with me that I loved. He read a story in the Liahona about a missionary who died on his mission, and his parents found out his motto was "do a little better every day." I love that motto and how it applies to repentance! Christ doesn't expect us to be perfect, and frankly if we expect ourselves to be we will always be disappointed. But as we intentionally do just one thing better every day, slowly we will begin to see his countenance in us! Bit by bit a change of heart and mind will occur.

መልካም ሳምንት እሺ???

Elder Miles 

Only one picture this week. Elder Larson and I in our traditional Ethiopian Gabis 🥶.