Staying in Megenagna!

Hey!

Soooo no time to email this week. The internet connection has been out so I don't have anymore time. Sorry! I will just say a few things and then I gotta go.... :(  Well this was another super good week. We had a lot of fun and accomplished some good work. Things are going great! I am staying in Megenagna for another 6 weeks with Elder Chandler!

Glad you got to meet Jantz! Isn't he such an awesome guy! One of my favorite people on the earth. I hope he helps you guys out and you enjoy his company! I can't wait to get home and work on cars with all of them!

Yeah so there is an abandoned 1968 BMW 1600 at the church! It is right next to it. Not much rust at all. Less than ours for sure. It has no motor in it which could be good. It would allow for some fun work. It would be more of a project than ours because of some funny weird things all around it. I will send a pic! Just a fun thought.

Sooo I got some thing special for James this week. It is a surprise though! You will see it soon!!!

Sorry for the short email. I had a great week and the investigators are all great too. We should have 2 to 3 baptisms this coming Sunday! Progress!!!!

I gotta go... Sorrry!!! I love you all so much! Have a good week and I will talk to you more next week!!

Love,

Elder McLain

 Guess which countries these kids are from... 

Hint, 3 different ones! For me its no problem.

Lemlem's daughter hahahahaha so cute.

 Look! It's my car (almost)

 I LOOK LIKE TAB! (and getting wrecked by acne)

 Random me

Ethiopian dishes

TemQet and things

If I could always be half as happy as this kid is, life would be glorious! 😀


Hey everyone,

We had a really good week in Megenagna. It was a pretty busy and there were some things that interrupted the work but we got a lot done. The main thing was an Orthodox holiday called TemQet (The T and Q are explosive sounds and it means "baptism" in Amharic). But all in all it was a great week!

TemQet is to celebrate the baptism of Jesus Christ and how far he traveled to be baptized by John the Baptist. They celebrate by walking all through the day and night in large crowds while wearing their Orthodox clothes and singing songs. After the walking many are baptized by an Orthodox Priest who holds a hose on a large platform and sprays out over the crowd. Others are baptized by immersion in the surrounding lakes. I find it kind of ironic that they celebrate Christ's baptism by being baptized by the sprinkling of water. Haah oh well. I appreciate their faith though that's for sure. During the holiday we weren't really out doing much proselyting for two reasons. The first is that we need to respect them and their celebration and interrupting them would be rude and possibly cause contention. The second is that even many of the members here celebrate it because the Orthodox church is pretty much just the culture and so many of the doctrines and celebrations get mixed in with our church... So we didn't have really anyone to see for Thursday and Friday. 

Our investigators are still doing great. Most of them are progressing still really well. Dawit was confirmed this week and that was awesome! I was able to help during the confirmation too. He is just super duper strong and great. After the confirmation he stood up and shook the hands of the others helping and when he got to me I just hugged him huge and it made the congregation giggle. I love him so much! Definitely one of my favorite people I have met in my life. Our other investigators still going strong are Yiftusara, Abaynesh, Alex, Wurku, Alemayehu and Alemu, Hossene and lastly but not leastly Esekeder. I can't really say much but they are all still doing good. Almost all of them are ready for baptism soon. Hossene just came up with a concern this week that she is willing to follow the church but that she was already baptized into another church so she doesn't wanna be rebaptized. We corrected that one really quick and she is back on track. :)

We got a few new investigators this week that are really great. One is the mother of a part member family. Her name is......ohhhhhhhh flip I am forgetting. Her sons are Moti and Eebba. They are cool little kids and I teach Moti every Sunday in youth Sunday school class. Oh yeah that is my calling by the way. Second calling on the mission wooo. It is fun! Their Mom has refused the church even when everyone else was baptized but out of the blue she showed up on Sunday and a lot of members got super excited!! They came running saying we had a new special visitor. After church we went to see her and she was just saying she thought church was "betam qonjo new" a ton which means "very beautiful". We will start teaching her this week. We also received a referral from a returned missionary here in my branch named Jote. Her name is Bethlehem. She is about 20 years old and is a model here in the Bole area. She worships at some super i dunno "Paulos Mulu Wengel Internashional Betkristian" which is "The Full Gospel of Paul International Church"... We set up an appointment with her early in the week and actually had to miss it for some reasons and she called us pretty frustrated that we would do that. We felt bad but she said she would meet us another time. So we met her yesterday and briefly shared about the gospel. After the meeting she texted us and said she was sooo happy and excited to meet us on Friday. She actually seems really powerful. Often times these people who go to the born again churches are really accepting of the gospel.

For some other things that happened this week: 

1. We got a ride from our District President this week to our house. On the way I was chatting with their daughter Daisy who is the world's cutest little girl in the whole world ever in the world. She was sitting in the seat in front of me and just turned around super fast and yelled "look at my eyes they are rainbow color!!!!" They are just brown but hahahaha it was funny. I will include the pic I took after.

2. We were on exchanges this week in Debre Zeit. It is a little town outside of Addis Ababa. While there we were eating lunch in a little tiny shack. We ate Tibs Firfir which is pretty nice. While eating the lady turned on some music and it was one of my favorite songs from back home!!!! I was shocked really to hear it. I am in a 3rd world country, in a town outside of Addis where no one speaks English and my favorite song pops up. Wooo!

3. We had a District Self-Reliance meeting this week. I sat next to a recent convert named Leti. He is super funny and super awkward. He has some disorder I think like Asperger or something. We were about an hour into the meeting when he just whipped out a pen and start jotting down notes on his pant leg!!! I died laughing cause he was just dead serious about it too.. Hahahaha  It was great!

4. While waiting for Bethlehem to show up to our appointment we were sitting on the curb outside a supermarket shack thing. As we were waiting a little street kid starting begging from across the way. He was asking for money to buy food but we can't give in those situations so I just looked around me and found a little plum in the gutter. I grabbed it and rolled it to him and he missed it and it rolled passed him and got run over by a car. He laughed and we all laughed but man just the timing was sooo funny.

5. Still waiting for Bethlehem and sitting down on the curb and a family of 4 walked by. It was a mom, dad, son and daughter. The little girl was maybe 2 years old and could barely walk or talk. Her dad was holding her hand helping her walk. When she saw me she got a big smile and walked away from her family and stumbled over to me. She just landed in my arms and whispered, "iwedehalehu" which means "I love you" and I just lost it hahahaha. The cutest little girl soooo happy to see a white person and came and hugged me. I loved it aaaah!

OOOOOOOKAY That will wrap it up this week. That was a pretty massive email. I hope it satisfies you guys. All is well here. Have a good week!!!

Love,

Elder McLain

Me with Berhane and Habtamu

 Playing soccer in the house

 Me in a traditional dress LOL

 Daisy - the girl with rainbow eyes :)

 Our bathtub (random....)

 This is Ethiopian traffic. When there is a traffic jam on a one way road people just turn around and go the wrong way and cause more traffic.... Just dumb honestly. 

The cars you see are supposed to be going the other way hahaha.

A nice Merc 😀

Kitfo, Tre Siga, and all sorts of wats

Hey everyone,

It was just another good week in Megenagna (by the way it is pronounced Megenanya). The work is still on fire in the area and we are continuing to increase in investigators and recent converts. I had a lot of fun things happen this week so stay tuned to find out what's up!

First great thing was the baptism of Dawit! It was one of my favorite baptisms I have seen on my mission. Not just the service but the progressing and preparation of Dawit was just awesome. He is sooo powerful and has already asked us to start teaching him the things he needs to know to serve a mission. He was baptized by his little brother Abel. It was a really smooth service. Abel has been less-active for a while and so Dawit's progression has reactivated Abel and prepared him to be a worthy priesthood holder again to baptize Dawit. So it was a win win! When Abel put Dawit under the water he lookked up at us to make sure it was all good and literally held Dawit under for a good 4 seconds. We were all like waving our hands telling him to pull him up hahaha it was super funny. But also super spiritual. It was just a great day. This branch is awesome!

Our investigators are all still doing good. Some have slowed down and some have surprised us with their progression. I forgot my planner today so I might miss some stuff (that is when you know you have a lot haha)... Alex came to church!!! He didn't even tell us he was going to come but he showed up and BOOM! I just kinda yelped a little out of shock and ran over and hugged him. I was soooo happy. Alex is one of my best friends I have made on my mission. I told you about him earlier. He is the college student who has been really busy lately. He loves the church and is just finding a way to let his family know he will be leaving the orthodox church. 

We found some new investigators. One is named Wurku and the other is Yohannes. Both are heavy Orthodox members and Wurku is actually a deacon in their church. But he says he is unsatisfied and wants more. He is finding joy in the church. Wurku actually just showed up to the compound one day and said "tell me more about this place!" That seems to be the #1 way we get new investigators, people just see the church and come in. 

Yiftusara was the same and she is doing great. Her parents both passed away last week unexpectedly and unrelated to each other. It was sad but we helped her be comforted with some nice teachings. She is preparing for baptism. 

The last I will share about is Abaynesh. She is a younger girl working for a member here. She cooks and cleans menamen. She is from Arba Minch, a village in the south and is part of the Welayta tribe. She speaks zero English and zero Amharic... Only Welaytegna. Soo Marta translates for her. In our first lesson we told her we were from the US and she asked where that was. We said okay what about America and she still didn't know of it. So she really is from the village haah. I think I am the first white person she has seen in person. That was a first! She is great though and just loves the church even though she can't understand anything. Marta just keeps her updated on what goes on in church. Even her she will be baptized soon.

There is a member here named Getu I am close with. He got married this week! Yesterday we went to his wedding in Debre Zeit with Habtu. It was sooooooo nice! His wife is not a member but she is really nice and cool. The wedding was so fun. We couldn't stay long cause it was far from home and we needed to be home by 9:30 but we ate big. Kitfo (raw chopped meat), Tre Siga (raw cubed meat), All sorts of wats (sauces). Oh man it was nice. One of my best meals on mission (I say that a lot).

On Saturday we went to Dawit's work to see him. He is a professional traditional dancer at Desalech Kitfo Restaurant. It was soooo fun. We ate more Kitfo and Fento (look it up) while watching Dawit dance super cool on stage to a live Ethiopian band. It was seriously one of the funnest things I have done. If any of you come here make sure you eat at Desalech. Well worth it!

That is about it for the week as far as I can remember. It was a really great week for the work and the area. I am enjoying Ethiopia soo much. I feel like this is my real home now and that I should stay here forever! Love you guys. Have a good week!

Love,

Elder McLain

 Some nice doro wat for the boys

 Leti insisted we teach a lesson standing by this bush. Haha

 Desssalech Kitfo

 The lone white man

 Dawit's Baptism

Wedding day! 

 Wedding food!

Wedding fun

Habesha Christmas

Hey Everyone,

 

The email this week is going to be somehow short and not very detailed but I have little time. President Collings is in the country and we are doing Zone Conference and Interviews. So I have to be at the chapel tonight in about an hour... 

Crazy week but a good one. It was Ethiopian Christmas or Habesha Christmas. Sunday we had a lot of dinner appointments. We ate a ton and saw a lot of branch members. Between Saturday and Sunday we had like 6 meal appointments. All of them ate Doro Wat. That is the staple food for holidays. It is really good and I enjoyed the time. It was really nice. The work here is fun and enjoyable. I love Ethiopian people, culture, attitude, food, and everything with all my heart. It would be cool to marry one even, but hard to do also.... Hahaha ;)

Things are great for me and the work is still strong. This week was a bit of a struggle. We didn't have a lot of time to work in our area. All elders in the country came in and all 6 are staying at our house. So we spent most of the weekend doing Zone Conference and hosting them. It was a bit stressful but fine. 

Zone Conference was pretty good though. President Collings was here for a quick visit. I learned some things and enjoyed it a lot. 

Our investigators are all still good. We have had a few get a little lazy but no one has dropped us yet. Still a lot of work. President said next transfer there will be 4 missionaries serving in Megenagna so that will be great!

I am sorry to hear about Sister Christy. That is really hard. I hope their family will be okay and I will keep them in my prayers. She was an amazing lady!

Sorry for the short email. Next week I will do better. 

I love you all!

Love,

Elder McLain

 Zone Conference

 Ethiopia Zone

Fun Day!

Happy NOT New Year's in Ethiopia!

It's 2018....... The year my boy comes home!

Hey guys! 

How was everyone's New Years celebration? Mine didn't really take place since it is like February 2010 here in Ethiopia. Oh well! Today was a pretty normal P-Day. Nothing old nothing new. But my area and comp are a great time. So things are really good right now! We had a lot of work this week and a lot of people to teach so we kept busy. Also, a few crazy things happened this week too ! 

We got together 4 of us missionaries last night at 7 pm to cook a dinner and celebrate but the power and water has been out for 3 days sooo it was tough. We still cooked and enjoyed but none of us had lights so we used one phone flashlight for the whole thing. Hahahaha.... Then this morning we went to Brother Conners house and played some board games with him for New Years. It was fun. He cooked us some waffles. Yeah!

My area is awesome! First off it is HUGE. We work from Bole, Gerji area all the way out to "49" and Ayat. It takes hours to taxi from one side to the other. This means a lot of work. A lot. Our area was pretty prepared as we came in to it but even since we have gone out finding and found more people. So, we have a lot of people we are seeing right now. We have 9 with dates for baptism in the next few weeks and about 5 more that just need to be told but are ready and asking for baptism. To be completely honest some of these people won't even be baptized on the date set because WE don't have enough time in the week to progress them. It is hard! I will tell you of a few great ones:

1. Alex- This guy is insanely amazing. He is a 19 year old college student from a well off Orthodox family. He has never cared much for the Orthodox church and so it wasn't hard to convert his attention to our church. He actually found us. He was walking passed the church one day and saw the compound. Our church compound is really beautiful and well kept so it caught his eye. He entered the gate and just walked around inside. He later told us that those first moments in the compound he felt a peace unlike ever before in his life. A later day he came back and found us there so he introduced himself and we taught him. He had the great comprehension of the lesson that I have ever seen on my mission. It was just perfectly clear to him. Every lesson since has been the same. He hasn't told his family yet and for that reason he hasn't come to church on Sunday but he is eager and ready. Just the best guy. His great attributes are, English, resources, not struggling, and a lot of family in the US and Canada. These are big things. These are what future leaders are made of.

2. Yiftusara - She is a quiet woman. She is of a Born Again background. She has had a lot of issues in her life especially recently so she is looking for purpose and help. Like Alex she saw the church and felt like she should enter. She said there was a light about the compound unlike most places she had seen. We have taught her a few times and she has been to church 3 times. The great thing with her is the Relief Society in this branch is powerful and inviting her to all the events and activities and including her so well in everything. She is finding just what she needs and is ready to be baptized. She asked if she could be baptized next week but we still have a lot to teach her so it will be a later date....

3. Dawit - Oh Dawit (Amharic for David) is awesome. He is the brother of a part-member family. His mom, sister and little brother are members. Dawit is just sad that he wasn't baptized with them. At the time he was about 18 and a bit of a punk so he didn't want the church. Now he is 23 and a professional dancer. He is soooo eager, almost too eager to learn. It is a great thing though. He loves the lessons and church and has some great fellowshippers. He will be baptized in 2 weeks. His little brother is about to start his mission papers and last week Dawit bore his testimony and said he knows he will also need to serve a mission when the time comes. He is so cool.

There were 3 others that came to church on Sunday that are powerful. One is Wessen. She is an older Orthodox woman who is just tired of her church. In Gospel Principles she was told by the teacher that this was the true church and she needed to be baptized into it and she responded saying that she wanted to and has felt the spirit so strong. We are meeting her this week. She is excited. Another is Rahima. She was formerly taught by missionaries about a year ago and fell out of contact for a full year. She came back to church on Sunday and was SO happy. She was just hugging everyone and asking us when we can teach her so she can be baptized. We are meeting her tomorrow. 

There are a ton of others right now honestly but I figured I would tell you about a few. So, this is my work right now. A lot right!?

Some weird stuff from the week:

1. Last night a super creepy thing happened. I couldn't sleep much and I was just tossing and turning. At about 3am I wake up to some screaming in our apartment hallway. It is just loud and deadly screaming from a woman. She was screaming in Amharic and it was soooo loud so we could make out much. During the screaming we were hearing some beating sounds both from her and a man. I think they were hitting each other and fighting. It lasted for about 10 minutes. We didn't open the door to check it out but the 4 of us missionaries stood in the living room hearing it. This morning as we left the house we asked the guard what happened and in Amharic he said, "Dont worry about it." We followed up again and he just said a Muslim man and woman were fighting and he was forcing her to leave with him. We asked why and he said, "crucifixion." Soooo we aren't sure at all what took place but seeing the police for and everyone doesn't care much here we might have just experienced an offering of some kind last night. We felt strongly we shouldn't go out of the apartment while it was happening though. Weird stuff.

2. We have a crazy guy in our branch who just attends hoping the church will give him money. In church , my companion was teaching Elder's Quorum and talking about the Word of Wisdom. This man just botched the WHOLE lessons and went on for about 15 minutes on how the Word of Wisdom is useless and that it is all about what we take into our bodies cells rather than stomachs. He then went on to explain how Ethiopians don't take enough "weteT" or milk and that is why they are all starving and their brains are slow. Kid you not, 15 minutes straight blasting my companion for saying it is bad to take alcohol and drugs. Hahahaha I think alcohol and drugs have caused his mental state.

That is a long email gosh darn! I hope you all enjoy it and celebrate the New Year big! I will follow up next week. Happy New Year everyone from Ethiopia! 

I love you all!

Love,

Elder McLain

Popped ball hat

Full moon (look close) 😂

My companion Elder Chandler

Cooking with no lights 

Eating with no lights 

 New Year's fun!

 Me and the comp

Me on one hour of sleep