Gambella Week One

Polygamy is very common in Gambella. Many people here have more than one wife.  It is culturally accepted in Gambella.  I did not see this in the capital, and I believe it is mostly a tribal custom that has been practiced for years.  I have seen a lot of things I did not see in the capital and being in Gambella is an entirely different experience. Just when I get comfortable in one place, it changes. Luckily nothing crazy happened this week let's hop into it

March 16th 

Today was really good! We travelled a long way over to Selam Safer, which is an area 40 minutes away from the church.  This has been a very productive area, and we will continue to keep walking on the paths there because we have had a lot of success and have many people on baptismal dates in this area. You can see the short video that shows what I mean when I say “paths”.   We also met a referral named Ron. He spoke amazing Amharic!! Like fluent.  You might wonder why this is such a big deal, that is because in this area, Amharic is not the language spoken and I seldom hear it.  That has been rough for me, because I am worried that all the work that I have done to learn Amharic will be lost.  We are speaking Nuer and usually have a translator with us.  However, today was great to speak Amharic. 

The path we walk where we have a lot of people we are teaching.

March 17th

Today was a little bit slower and apparently that’s just how it is, because we go at the pace of the members who are our translators. We have a few members who volunteer their time and go out teaching with us and do all the translating.  We are at the mercy of their schedule.  Today when we went out, we were teaching in people’s homes.  These are straw and mud huts.  It was awesome and a real shift in what I have been used to. 

March 18th

Today was awesome. I am getting accustomed to the culture and life here.  One thing that is a bit of an adjustment for me is that you just walk into people’s houses... and teach, it is very different than most spots of the mission. We don’t knock, we just walk in.  We are teaching so many people!  This week we had over 50 lessons.  

This is what the inside of the houses here looks like.

March 19th

Same as yesterday we just went out teaching and walked into people's houses. One thing I noticed is that we will need translators everywhere and we are low-key loosing translators for all sorts of things and so we will see what happens.  I understand because it is hard to expect people to go out with us every day.  This is a brand-new area for the church, and it is VERY VERY primitive, so we have some work to do to get the church established here.

March 20th

We were in my area and found some progressing people for when we split into 4 missionaries. We have heard that the mission will be sending down 2 more missionaries soon.  I don’t know when that is, but I know it will be hard for the members in Gambella as they do so much to help us.  We still do not have living arrangements and are still living in the hotel.  I am not sure when that will change.  Apparently, we will be moving into a room above the church house. However, it has not been set up as an apartment yet and I am not sure when that will happen.  That is something that the mission leaders and the senior missionaries take care of.  As you can tell I am literally on the “new frontier”! Oh yes, and it rained a lot today! We are starting the rainy season, and when I say it can rain, IT CAN RAIN!

March 21st

Awesome day with a member named Dual! He is helping us with translation and is planning on serving a mission soon. He is awesome and he will be an amazing future missionary we will be helping him get his mission paperwork done in the next few months.

March 22nd

Church was awesome today!!!! We had 91 people at church!!! That is a record!!! And so, we are on the up and up! However, we had two kids who broke out in a fight today in class. It turned out ok because we were able to stop them.  One of the little girls really knew how to throw punches.... It was kind of interesting for sure. Then we had a webinar with Bednar!  Good Rhyme huh?

This was church today with the youth. You can see me in the middle. A little different than church in Bountiful Utah.

Signing at church today

March 23

Today we are traveling back to Addis.  We will be flying the 1.5 hours back to the Capital.  We have zone conference and so that is why we are going.  We will also be working with the president and AP’s on how to open up Gambella and get it better prepared for more missionary work.  We checked out of our hotel but will be coming back I believe upon our return.  Things are up in the air, as to our living arrangements and I am having to be VERY flexible.  We will be staying at the AP's apartment when we fly back to Addis which means I get to be with my first companion Elder Ayele for a week. That is a silver lining! One thing I can tell you all is that patience is something that you better have, or you will learn with a fire hose if you are going to survive serving in Ethiopia!  Until next week!

Here are some pictures of the AP's apartment that we will be staying in in Addis.