Zone Leaders be a working!

Hello everyone! How are you guys? How’s life? How’s music 🎶  I hope it’s all well! 

My week was pretty average so let’s jump into it! 

July 14th 

Today was a pretty chill day, we had to do quite a bit of finding because people had to cancel on us. Towards the end of the day, we found our friend Surafi and were able to talk with her for a while.  I must admit that it is great to talk with our friends and have contact with members and their friends.  However, when we do not have any appointments and are just finding people that would like to listen to our message, it is hard.  It is not my favorite part of missionary work, that ended the day lol

July 15th

Welp we are halfway through July. Today we had a waaaaayyyy to long member visit.  The thing about Ethiopia, is that it is very different than the USA.  People here are very relationship based and spend a lot of time visiting, sitting around talking and building relationships.  Being in a hurry can often be seen as rude.  After we finished our member visit, we met up with Arat Kilo Elders to do an exchange.  

 July 16th

Today was an awesome day! We went to visit some of my favorite members in the Ghe branch and it was really nice to see an old friend that I taught named Mulu. We put her on date to be baptized and found lots of people that we will continue to teach.  One blessing while we were there is that we found a member that had been in our last area but suddenly disappeared.  We did not know what happened to her.  But when we went to see another member that lived in a compound in the area that I was doing the exchange with another Elder, we found our lost member.  She had moved into the same compound as the member we were going to visit.  She had just had a new baby that was 5 days old.  Her husband was in the Ethiopian military and was killed in a military conflict when she was a few months pregnant.  She already had a little boy at home.   People in Ethiopia cannot afford to have an entire home.  So, there are a lot of compounds.  It is basically an outside wall and then inside there are a lot of rooms that all open to a common courtyard.  They share a kitchen, common area and a bathroom.  The bathrooms are usually just a hole in the floor and sometimes an area to shower. During this visit the Senior missionary couple the Slaugh’s came over to help this new mom and I served as the translator for them as they do not speak Amharic.  They are going to work with her and see what types of aid the church can help this new mom with.  I was so grateful to have found this sweet mom and hopefully she can get some help and continue attending church.  

July 17th

Today was alright, lots of finding which was chill. I was feeling a little down.  Most likely because I had brain fog about not even being out an entire year and still having a year to go.  But I emailed my dad for some advice and then got to work.  We had a conversation with a JW.... That was fun and we went to a member’s birthday lunch, and we celebrated with her with another member that works for the church in the Pathways education program.  She does better than most Ethiopians because the church pays her to run the pathways program in US dollars which are worth more.  Even though we tried to pay for ourselves she insisted.  That is a rare thing in Ethiopia as most people we meet are lucky to have enough food for one day.  We were very grateful to her and the meal was a real treat today.   

July 18th

Today was awesome! We had an activity with all of the members from both the Beklobet and Saris branches.  We played football (soccer) and it was really fun! I gave my phone to one of the younger girls who was watching to hold for me, and you can see below how much fun she had with it.  People enjoyed it and then we all went over together and cleaned the church. When my companion and I got back to our apartment we made a bunch of calls to remind people about church tomorrow and get commitments from some of our members and friends to come. That was pretty much our whole day hahahaha

July 19th

Today was pretty normal, we went to church and had some accounting.  I played the piano for church today as I do every Sunday.  I have found myself really looking forward to Sundays and being able to play the piano. After church we went to one of our members’ homes and then came home for the day! 

July 20th

Today was P-day we went to Meg which is where the mission office and the big new church building are. We have to discuss with the Ayat Zone Leaders some stuff for zone conference but since they were having a zone activity, we were invited and its pretty chill 😎 We had a great P-day with the other elders.

Well, that’s all I got for the week!

Don't do stupid stuff people, hope you are all safe, love you all!

Chow,

Elder Frasier