Go to Jail - CHECK!

My sister Olivia sent this to me and my companion. AFTER we were out and we could laugh at it. Not so funny in the moment.

Yep! October 25 was my first night ever spent in jail. Only a week into the field and I managed to get locked up.  Don’t worry I am ok and we made it home safely after being in jail for more than 24 hours.  I’ll touch more on it down the email so read away. (Frasier siblings I’m officially the coolest sibling. Although I am aware that Mom may not agree as I know this caused her to have a very sleepless night.) 

Sorry a little dark. But there is not many lights in Ethiopia at night.

October 21 

The morning started off normally! I got ready and did my companion and personal study. Then I had my first district council meeting! That was interesting to run. As I explained in the last email, although I am fresh in the field I was called as a District leader. I’ll get the hang of it sooner or later. After that we visited some members until our meeting at night with our group leader (We are a group in this area, meaning we do not have enough members to even be a branch yet. There are NO wards yet in Ethiopia) I also learned that I am in charge of this meeting.  So, I am getting a lot of practice at leading meetings. We ended the night hopping on a zone call with everyone and that ended off the day. 

October 22

Today was packed! We had Amharic connect. Amharic connect is an Amharic class with the district. Amharic is the language spoken in Ethiopia. We practiced conjugations today.  I personally want to go a little faster than we are but I am not in charge of the pace and so it is whatever. We had lunch with a man named Daniel; he’s a nice guy but honestly a little crazy but its ok. I tried goat for the first time! There are a lot of goats in Ethiopia.  You can find them on every street corner.  They are usually alive on the street corners, and you can go buy one and take it home for dinner.  Today was a very productive day with a lot of meetings!

October 23

The days feel like they keep getting shorter and shorter and that’s sometimes a good thing because it means we are doing a lot of work! I like to think of it that way even though some days are hard and not like that. Today we had a lot of people question our religion. Tell us we are wrong and pretty much just try and get us to leave our faith. I thought about two things at this moment.  First, to test my knowledge of the gospel. Secondly, to see if I would stand strong in my belief. I thought to myself I will stand strong and firm in my faith! No one will shake my faith in my savior Jesus Christ and of the Father!

Oct 24

1 full week in Adama (this is the area I am serving in) the language is coming faster than I thought it would. I hope it stays that way because I hate not being able to know what’s going on most of the time! It kind of makes me go insane, I won’t lie. Every time I think I’m doing good something gets thrown at me! Then I try to stay positive but sometimes it’s hard. I’ll be ok though!  The highlight of the day I was able to invite someone to church fully in Amharic which was cool! 

My companion and I waiting in the courtyard after we were taken to jail.

Oct 25

Alright, the story you’re all here for. Drumroll please………

My companion and I were knocking doors because we had time to kill before a lesson. We were able to get a few numbers but mostly people saying, “No Thank You”. We knocked on a door, and a lady came out, we offered our usual greeting, " Hello we are missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ, and we teach the gospel of Jesus Christ” after we said this to her, she looked at us and said, " let me see your ID”.   I said “no” because we are not required to show it to an average person. It is meant for government people, my companion didn’t think much of it and then my comp just showed her his ID. She took his ID and told us to leave. And we said, “Well we can’t leave without his ID" and she wouldn’t give it back and she said she would call the police. She also kept asking us “Do you know who I am?” We did not know who she was and that seemed to make her upset that we did not know who she was.  We then told her that we needed the ID back and she then proceeded to call the police. We thought if they came, they would be able to get this figured out. In Ethiopia the main language is Amharic.  However, many people also speak tribal language. We are currently in an area where there is another language spoken called Oromo.  This is also the tribe that is currently in power in the country.  While she was on the phone, she only spoke Oromo so we could not understand what she was saying, and we are pretty sure she said some things that weren’t true. The police showed up, and they asked us for our ID.  I gave them my ID and then they said let’s go to the station quickly. Off we went to the police station.  But I really did not think of anything about this, only that we would go and it would be a short visit and get us out of the situation with this woman.  We ended up in the station, and they took photos and videos of us.  About this time some of our church members found out we were there and were trying to get us out of jail. Word travels quickly in Ethiopia amongst the people.  At this time there was a female officer that ask us to tell her why we were there. We explained why we were there close to 20 times. Just then the lady whose door we knocked on showed up at the police station.  However, this time she is wearing an army uniform, my comp and I almost lost our minds.  Perhaps this is why she thought we should know her.  One thing that I noticed was that most of the officers at the station and most of our church members were so confused why we were there. However, nothing we said seemed to make a difference. We started to realize we were not going to be leaving the jail anytime soon.  At first, we were in a courtyard with other inmates, you can see the picture.  These were taken right before our phones were confiscated.

Sorry you may have to watch sideways.

However, soon they confiscated our phones.  Fortunately, we were able to get a call to the mission home to let them know we were in trouble and would most likely need some help.  Shortly after this we realized we were not getting out and would be staying the night.  Apparently, if you are in jail and it is after 6 pm you are not leaving.  They piled us in this cement box and lit some candles for light with about 50 other male inmates.  We were in the box for about an hour and a guy to my right had a panic induced seizer. So, they came in and got him, and we were told they took him to the hospital. After another hour we were told to come outside. Apparently, the mission president was in Kenya at a conference, and he had sent his counselor down to Adama which is 1.5 hours from Addis to come and try to get us out.  He was not successful.  However, he was able to talk them into moving us into a private cell.  He also went to our apartment and got one of our twin mattresses and brought it to the jail, so we did not have to sleep on the cement floor. However, you can imagine two elders sharing a twin mattress with nothing more than the clothes we had put on that morning.   He also arranged for one of the church members to bring us food and water.  When you are in jail food is brought to you by someone outside of the jail.  We were very fortunate that the mission and church members took care of us.  The room was not pleasant.  Four cement walls and a hole in the floor to use as a toilet (if you are asking, there is no privacy, so that is fun).  They kept checking on us every hour, so it did not make sleeping easy. The next morning, we were told we would need to stay one more night because it was Sunday and no one that had authority to get us out of jail works on Sunday.  They also told us we would need our paperwork and passports to get out.  This is another time that we were blessed as the mission presidents’ counselor had been working on our behalf while we were in jail and had gotten our paperwork and passports at the mission office and brought them to the jail. To be honest I can only guess what happened that allowed us to get out on Sunday. As, this meant that the policewoman in charge of the jail came in on a Sunday and talked to us and let us know that she was sorry this had happened but next time to call her before coming into the jail.    She asked us for the film and video I had taken while the lady whose door we knocked on was talking to us and took our ID.  I believe she will be the one in trouble.  But who knows, this place does not operate like the US, and the rules are completely different.  She then proceeded to give us her phone number and told us to call her if we had any trouble in the future.  She then let us out of jail.  We packed out our mattress and were met outside by the mission president’s counselor who took us back home.   We asked him why we really got put in jail because we thought it was for knocking doors because we were told that’s “Illegal" but we thought that was a lie because if that was true then missionaries wouldn’t be here right now as there would be no way to do missionary work. Turns out the ladies’ house we knocked had gotten robbed some time before and she thought it was us who robbed her, i also think she doesn’t like missionaries. So, in the end we spent a night in jail and got the head jailers’ number and was told to call her if there was any trouble and to not listen to anyone. Silver lining of this story is…… One of the guards gave us his number and we are going to teach him.  Side note, it was a frustrating experience. My mom asked me later that day when I was able to call if I was ever afraid. I will admit I was very afraid but only for about 10 minutes. It was difficult sleeping, but I kept thinking about others in the scriptures and Joesph Smith that were also imprisoned, like me for doing nothing more than speaking about our Savior Jesus Christ and the gospel.

This is the Mission Presidents counselor and the person that was responsible for helping get us out of jail and made sure we had a mattress for sleeping and food while in jail.

Lunch, not typical Ethiopian food like the video below. But I have honestly had good luck with the food here and find myself really enjoying it.

October 26. 

Sunday after our release- The Mission Leaders called to check on us and make sure we were doing okay.  They told us to call our parents to let them know we were released.  And told us to just relax the rest of the day.  We were pretty tired and glad to be home. 

October 27- It is P-Day and the “Day after Jail”.  We are going to catch up and take it easy.  I hope this next week does not bring so much excitement!

Later! 

Elder Frasier