Hey guys,
First things first - I just want to take some time and write a real deal weekly email. I owe it and have really slacked lately. I can give you guys the full run down and all that jazz this week.
It is my birthday this week! I turn 20 on Saturday! I will probably celebrate by going to a place called MKs Pizza for dinner and paying the extreme amount of about $7 on a Large Meat Lovers pizza. And I will get a coke too! ha.
To catch some people up, I am serving in Ethiopia now. About a month ago I took a plane up here to Addis Ababa and am now serving in a place called Beklobet. BKB is the slums or ghetto of Addis Ababa (not trying to scare you Mom) but it is a really great place. Addis is a lot more developed than anything I ever saw in Uganda. I am serving in a big city now! It is weird and entirely different from Uganda. I really do miss Uganda and especially Masaka. I loved that place to the grave and am so grateful to have served there.
The work in Beklobet is sort of slow right now. Actually to be honest it is incredibly slow. It has picked up a lot since I first got here. The church is struggling in a way here. Right now there are 5 branches. Each branch has about 30 people in attendance. To put it in perspective there are over 100 million people in this country and my home ward in Provo has more active members than this whole country. Ha! That is a crazy thought. Right now there are 10 missionaries in the country. The upside of that and something my Dad mentioned last week is that 100 million people and 10 missionaries leaves us with a bazillion people to talk to and a load of missionary work! The church is at a low here for many reasons. Government, religion, pride, unrest to name a few.
The Orthodox church has pretty much become the culture here. It is a large majority of the population and they have massive catholic style churches every where. It is one of those religions that heavily runs the lifestyle of the members. They dress weird, sort of like Muslims. They tattoo crosses on their face. Pretty much (and I mean no offense to anyone) a lot of their doctrine just heavily contradicts the Bible and our Saviors teachings.
When I first came to this country I felt like I just had a million enemies around me. It wasn't 5 minutes out the door on my first day that someone was screaming at me to leave the country. I was taken back by the amount of tribulations missionaries go through here. I was mad at first and had a horrible attitude. I had a thought the other day that has really changed me though. I was asking myself what I could do here that would be unique or new and make a difference as a missionary. I was frustrated and almost angry at God. I kept asking myself why it was so hard. Two things came to me. The first is I wanted to figure out how to get these people who are so set in their ways to change. I realized one thing and it is that though these people are set in a wrong way, they have faith. These people are so faithful to their church. Rain or shine, day or night, drunk or sober, healthy or sick, these people give everything to their church. I thought that the only way I could make a difference would be to be set in my ways as strong as these people are set in theirs. When I am as faithful, as serious and even as stubborn as these people, that is when they will see light and that is when they will want to change. The other thought that came to me was a talk given by Elder Holland titled Missionary Work and the Atonement. My companion and I were listening to this talk the other day and it really gave me some confidence. Elder Holland addressed the same question I was asking myself a few nights early. He answered it by saying that missionary work is not easy because salvation is not easy. That is the honest truth. It can't be easy to share the gospel because salvation is not easy. It takes work and takes digging deeper when things get a bit harder. So my attitude of the work and church has changed a lot in the last few weeks. I have started to love it here!
One downer this past week, we got roughed up (in other words mugged) the other day but we just complied and it all went well. Got my wallet taken and our phones. My area is a bit in the hood so it can be sketchy sometimes. Nothing too serious would ever happen though. As long as we cooperate people wont hurt us. Don't worry, I feel fine and safe and confident here!
Our investigators are doing okay. Our teaching pool changed around this week. We lost some investigators and gained some. One of my favorites, Tesfaye the Pastor, told us his wife and kids would kick him out if he joined our church so he politely declined. I was a bit sad but that's just the way it goes. Its okay. We had a recent convert named Slomon invite two friends to church on Sunday. They came for the last hour and that was awesome. Referrals don't happen very often here so we are grateful for that! As well we had a man we were trying to meet last week named Tefasse. He was a great guy but we couldn't find the time to meet. When we lost our phone we lost his contact. That was rough. We had no way of seeing him and he had no idea where the church was. On Sunday he magically found the church in Meganagna and attended! He told the missionaries there we forgot about him and he was angry! We were able to get his contact back and will start teaching him this week! As for most all of our other investigators they have stopped meeting with us. So that is our work for right now.
Well, that is my update for the week. Thanks to everyone who wished me a happy birthday. I am really grateful for it and will have a great birthday out here in Ethiopia. I hope everyone has a great week and celebrated my birthday on Saturday by drinking a soda or getting Chick Fil A. Have a great week! Love you all.
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