Ethiopia I'm here!

Arriving at the Addis Ababa Airport in Ethiopia with all of the new Elders and Sisters!

Holy Moley! It's been a wild 4 days already, and the days continue to move fast. However, 4 days out here beats a week in the MTC, EVERY DAY OF THE WEEK!  We were all so excited to leave the MTC as can be described by our willingness to cram all of the luggage into the van as we risked life and limb to get there.  This can be seen on the video.

Our crazy van getting from the Ghana MTC to the airport.

Getting ready to leave the Ghana MTC

All of the missionaries headed to Ethiopia

Oct 15 

We left the MTC and traveled to Ethiopia.  We arrived about 9:00 at night and were greeted by the mission president and his wife.  It was so great to finally be in Ethiopia.  We were all tired, and they had arranged to have all 26 of us stay at a hotel and rest until the morning.  Interesting fact, with 26 of us arriving, we are almost doubling the mission in Ethiopia.  I had heard we had more missionaries in Ethiopia, but apparently that was not accurate.  There are about 56 missionaries currently in the Ethiopia mission, small and growing. That is 56 with my new group of 26 missionaries.  Certainly not like many of the other church missions with 300 missionaries in just one mission.  We have a lot of work to do here to expand this country in the gospel.

Arrival at the Addis Ababa Airport!

Oct 16

I had meetings today and learned about all the mission rules, and had personal interviews with the Mission President, President Cowley.  President Cowley seems very kind, and I can tell I will really like him.  He is kind but very obedient and let me know that he expects the same from me.  “Elder Frasier, these are the rules; let's obey them”.  He then asked me if I liked the “heat.”?  That let me know that I would not be serving in the capital city of Addis. It is not known for being the “hot place”.

New missionaries on the church property in Addis. This is a large compound that contains the only constructed LDS church in the country.

This is a picture of the only LDS church in Ethiopia. It is located in the capital city of Addis Ababa.It is surrounded by a large compund with a large grass area and basketball court and lots of room to have activities. The members and missionaires use it to gather and have activites.

Pictures I took outside our hotel the first night we arrived in Ethiopia.

Day one in Ethiopia with all the new missionaries that just arrived in Ethiopia as well as the missionaries that are in Addis and several of the Senior missionaries. My mission president is on the first row in the blue suit, and his wife is behind him in the tan dress.

Oct 17 

Today I learned where I will be going, and it is traveling day. My area that I will be in is named “Adama”. It is about an hour and a half out of Addis Ababa. I found out who my new trainer is, his name is Elder Ayele! He is also Ethiopian but from America.  He was adopted, like me, and grew up in Payson.  He is 21 years old and has been out for 9 months.  His Amharic is very good, and that will be helpful to me.  He seems very cool! So far, we have gotten along very well, and I am excited to be here.  Elder Ayele had me try talking with people, and it's really hard because I don’t know enough Amharic yet to really carry out a full conversation. Not that this is surprising, seeing as how I have only been in the country for a few days.  This area has been open for about 9 months, and it is not even a Branch.  We are only a Group.  One thing we are doing is teaching English classes twice a week.  We have about 20 people coming to class, and today I got thrown into teaching English to little kids, which was really fun!  Apparently, I will be teaching them tomorrow as well, so I need to figure out what the lesson will be.  I was surprised at how much English they already knew, and so I need to figure out how to build on that.  

My companion Elder Ayele and me traveling from Addis to Adama

Another funny thing to add is that I am a district leader….ALREADY.  There are four missionaries in my apartment.  Two trainers, and they are also the zone leaders. Me and the other Elders new companion are both the District leaders.  I laughed when I received that assignment, as I am brand new and don’t have a clue.  But we are in a small district, so that is how it is.  My companion and the other Zone leader have to go on visits to the other parts of the zone this next week, so me and the other newbie Elder will be paired up for the day.  That should be interesting, as neither of us speaks very well. We will do our best and figure it out. We leave our apartment in the morning and are not supposed to come back until the evening.  So, we usually grab lunch out, which means just finding a little “Home Café”.  A little stand that sells injera (the local bread dish that is eaten at every meal) and then some meat and vegetables.  The sisters must be in their apartments no later than 7 pm for safety, but we can stay out a little longer if we have an appointment.  The mission rules used to be that we had to be in by 6 pm, but in this area, we can be out until 7:30- 8:00 pm. 

Pizza on the night we arrived at the hotel. So yummy!

October 18 

Today was the first full day of work, and we had district finding. District finding is where the whole district goes to one area we concentrate our efforts on finding people intrested in hearing our message for the sets of Elders/ Sisters (there are only 4 of us in my district, and we are all elders).  We found a family that was Muslim, and we talked to them.  However, when we discovered that they were Muslim, we only offered them the opportunity to come to our English classes.  The daughter in the home seemed interested, and so we hope we see her there. After we had lunch, which was really good, I have missed injera. I was called an American N-word, so that was fun. (In Africa, people hear the word on American TV, and they don't have any idea what it means, but they think it is cool to use it because it is an English word) But after that, we went knocking on doors and finished the day. Tomorrow is the first Sunday, and I teach primary, so hahaha we will see how that goes.

October 19 

FIRST SUNDAY!!! 

Sacrament was really good, and I saw a lot of people that I am starting to get to know. I played piano for sacrament meeting, and I think that I will be playing my whole transfer, which is awesome!  I taught primary, which was a little challenging, but I made it through.  There were two teenagers who spoke English who helped me when I failed. The Muslim girl came to church today, too.  I am not sure if she came for the meeting or was hoping we had more English classes.  But we were still glad to have her there. After church, I did accounting with my zone leader, who's my comp hahahah, and then we went to give a blessing for someone who fell off a two-story building. It was a very spiritual Sunday.

October 20

It is P-day and also Elder Ayeles birthday! So far, we went to a school and snuck in with these two kids who wanted to show us around, they said we were their uncles from America who came to visit which works because both of us are Ethiopian and about the same height. So that was fun, now I’m just going to chill and get some P-day stuff done and then we will go get a treat for Elder Ayeles Birthday. 

Love you all!

Elder Frasier

This Weeks Zoom Faces of Adam aka Elder Frasier