Christmas Time

Hello everyone! Hope you’re all amazing and good! This week was awesome. We did good missionary work. We had our Christmas devotional and our Christmas party for missionaries. It was nice! Let's hop straight into this week.

Dec 22 (last p day) 

Today I spent way too much money ha-ha-ha. My parents and grandparents deposited some money for Christmas into my account because they cannot send any packages and I had been wanting a new watch that a bunch of missionaries buy.  Its face has all the Amharic numeric symbols on it. I wanted to use my Christmas money to buy it.  Other than this, we just slept and planned and hung out all day. It was a chill day.

Dec 23

Today was interesting. We got good missionary work done but nobody made it to their appointment, they all changed so we did a member visit and just found some other things to do. 

Dec 24

Christmas Eve! American Style as it was not Christmas even in Ethiopia.  That happens on January 6^th.  But American Christmas Eve was great! We had lots of lessons and people came to the lessons. I am tired today so this week I am glad that we get a break in the middle of the week. The lord loves all!  After we were done with our lessons, I went to buy some ties from a man names Tesfa.  The missionaries all love to buy our ties from him.  

This is me and a few of the other missionaries practicing for the song we were planning on signing for the Christmas program at church on the 28th. (This is a video so you can press the arrow and watch.)

Dec 25

Merry Christmas! First Christmas as a missionary but it is actually my second one, I spent in Ethiopia.  I was here in 2023 when I came back for the first time after my parents picked me up as a baby. We had an amazing big meeting with all the missionaries in the main chapel in the capital of Addis Ababa. We had food and hung out all day. I played lots of basketball. Surprisingly, I scored a lot of points. Our mission leaders the Cowley’s and some of the other senior missionaries helped put on a big celebration for the missionaries.  The Cowley’s gifted us all leather journals with a scripture from 2 Nephi 5:27 embossed on them to all of us.  It was so nice of them to do this for all of us.  I will definitely use it as I have been writing a lot in my journal every day.  I Feel so blessed to feel the Lord’s presence today.

Dec 26

I did all my morning learning, studying and communicating in Amharic as well as planning My trainer was pretty impressed. He said a lot of missionaries couldn't do that.  I have worked hard on my Amharic and take it very seriously.  I am trying to be the best Amharic speaker of all the missionaries that came out at the same time as me.  Today most people were not answering but still had a productive day! Made it the best day we could! 

Dec 27. 

Today was looooooooong. But it was good!

We did a member visit with this lady named Meseret and her 2 children. She is living with her sister right now. She lives in a place called Entoto which is up in the mountains away from the city. She's really nice!  We gave her and a couple of members who live in Entoto gifts.  She lives in a house that has mud walls and is dirt floors.  It is very small, and I took some pictures with her children.  There is no electricity in the house, so it is a little dark and makes the pictures hard to take. 

Happy birthday to my sister Olivia! 

Dec 28

Church was good! We had a lot of people show up! We had someone we haven't met in person yet show up. We think he will be getting baptized soon. Or as the missionaries say, “He’s getting dunked” (🌊🌊) but in all seriousness he's really good! His name is Tamrat. And no, you don’t say it like tam rat ha-ha the sisters in America said that and we all laughed as missionaries ha-ha. Today for Church we had all the area Branches meet at the church building in Addis.  It has a large area around the church and then is surrounded with a big wall all around the compound.  We had a big Christmas program with a lot of music, some speakers and even some Ethiopia traditional dancing.  It was a big turnout, and I loved being there.  I have a lot of pictures to share about this GREAT day!

This is President and Sister Cowley our mission leaders. They conducted the Christmas Sunday service.

Traditional Ethiopian dancing during the Sunday program.

Dec 29

As for today it looks like I’ll be staying in today, Elder Thayne is not good one bit. He’s sick.... We think with a stomach bug or something. There are four of us in the apartment and two of the Elders go home this week. One wants to go pick up some souvenirs and do some shopping because it is his last P-day and he wants to pick up some things before he leaves.  The other is from Zambia, and he must go to the embassy to get an exit visa to go home.  So, the two of them are going to go together today. So, I volunteered to stay back with Elder Thayne so they could go together and do what they needed to do.  Please pray for Elder Thayne to get better, please 🙏 

That’s all from me! Happy new year everyone! You’re all awesome! 

Pound it, noggin, see ya!!!!! (Iykyk) 

Adam - Elder Frasier

Also, from other places in my mission.

What a Betam Konjo gen!

Light the world projects today in Hawassa and Addis Ababa

We gifted much needed supplies in Hawassa at Solon Boarding School for the Blind.

We donated cleaning and hygiene items along with new pillows and sheets for every child.

They are beautiful children with powerful voices and strong spirits the Lord is mindful of all.

In Addis Ababa the sister missionaries and the YSA sewed and packed bags for needy mothers and children. These included food and hygiene items then they were gifted to the branches throughout the districts for them to distribute. Here are some pictures of this.