Pictures from Ethiopia

I received a letter this past week from Sister VanDerzee (the new senior couple in Ethiopia). Included were these pictures. Bless her for knowing what makes a mother's heart the happiest! 💞

Colby's companions in Megenagna

Lunch with Brother and Sister VanDerzee

No greater love than this!

Doing work in Ethiopia

Submit cheerfully and with patience to all the will of the Lord.....Leaving Megenagna

Hello,

What a week it was for me! Not gonna lie, it was a tough one for sure. Elder Chandler and I were doing really good. We had Elder Munsey with us and even a local missionary, Elder Abdulahi. We were all great. We had a lot of good things going for us. Early in the week was one of the best few days I have had in a long while. On Friday (Elder Chandler's Birthday) we got a call from our Zone Leaders saying our companionship would be splitting. We don't even know why to this moment. So, I moved BACK to Beklobet to be in a threesome with my Zone Leaders. I am really confused and saddened by this. I loved Megenagna and the work there. I loved the branch and the people so much! And as you can probably remember from my older emails during my time in Beklobet, I struggled a lot and am not really looking forward to being here. I hate to speak like this but it is the honest truth. 

So, that is the new news. I have had like 6 companions in the last month and am now back to my old area... Eish, during the middle of the transfer too. I am sad that I won't get to witness Wurku being baptized. I have waited for this : (  Or Moti's mom, or Desalegn, or Abeba... We had so many good things going for us! But anyways.

I don't know anything about the work in Beklobet right now. I haven't really been here for a while so I can't give any sort of update on it. Sorry for that. And in Megenagna, Wurku was not baptized because he had work... We were a bit bummed but he is still strong and we know he will be baptized in the next few weeks. As for the others I mentioned earlier, they are all progressing will and we are happy for them. We found a new investigator this week named Teshome. He is a good man. Well dressing, smart, good English, etc. He came to church and had a lot of great questions. He will be powerful as he continues to learn.

Thank you Dad for the spiritual thought. Funny, it fits right in with what I am going through right now... I hope things can improve and I will have a good week and a good time back in Beklobet. Sorry for the brief email. It's been a rough week. 

Have a good week!

Love,

Elder McLain

Exerp from Tim's Letter (spiritual thought):

 My thought for this week is from Mosiah 24 where the people of Alma were in bondage to the Lamanites under Amulon and were being persecuted mercilessly and prohibited from praying to God.

12 And Alma and his people did not raise their voices to the Lord their God, but did pour out their hearts to him; and he did know the thoughts of their hearts.

13 And it came to pass that the voice of the Lord came to them in their afflictions, saying: Lift up your heads and be of good comfort, for I know of the covenant which ye have made unto me; and I will covenant with my people and deliver them out of bondage.

14 And I will also ease the burdens which are put upon your shoulders, that even you cannot feel them upon your backs, even while you are in bondage; and this will I do that ye may stand as witnesses for me hereafter, and that ye may know of a surety that I, the Lord God, do visit my people in their afflictions.

15 And now it came to pass that the burdens which were laid upon Alma and his brethren were made light; yea, the Lord did strengthen them that they could bear up their burdens with ease, and they did submit cheerfully and with patience to all the will of the Lord.

One main takeaway is that we should pray for strength to bear our burdens and to submit cheerfully and with patience to all the will of the Lord. As we do that and honor our covenants with Him, he will deliver us out of bondage – whatever type of bondage  it may be.

Even though the work may be slow right now, I encourage you to make wise use of the time that you have there.  You will be blessed for your efforts.

 

Saying goodbye to Gursha

And goodbye to Aster's family

 And goodbye to Dawit.......The Man

 Celebrating Elder Chandler's birthday 

with some good italian food

Me packing to leave to Beklobet 

The work is still going

Hey Everyone! 

I don't have much time to write but I had a good week. Just really the same as all the other weeks but a good one! So on my end I wont have much to tell you about but I will just blabber as usual and see what I can come up with for an email. Haha. I will give you a simple update on what is going on here. First, let me respond to Dad's email.

I about died reading those blog updates on that cyclist in Ethiopia. He is not at all wrong. First off, we get called ferenje EVERY 5 SECONDS!! It just means foreigner. Some aren't so nice about it though. Two, I also have been hit by rocks a ton. It is a common thing. And three, now that I can understand some Amharic, they speak and say awful things sometimes. But the truth is I am used to it now so it doesn't bother me. I can imagine as a cyclist it would be hard. All they see is nice stuff on a white dude aaaand they say and do those things. It is wild here!

Either way, it is kind of funny that you talked about cycling in this email. This week I realized I would possibly like to get into cycling when I get home. My knees are already having some issues, not sure why. And so I thought cycling would be better on them than running. I don't know, just a thought!

The work here is still going. We still don't have work permits. I am now with Elder Chandler and Munsey. Things are going well. We are also with an Elder named Kasim. He is from Hawassa branch and leaving to Sierra Leone in a few weeks and is just working on visa stuff in Addis. So he is with us. He doesn't speak English so we will get to speak some Amharic with him. He's great!

Like I said, no time this week. I will write a more decent email next week about our investigators. We should be baptizing Wurku, the Orthodox priest this week! Woohoo!! We hope it works out. 

Thanks for all the emails. I hope you have a great week! 

Love,

Elder McLain

 Me with a stash

 M&M's!!

 Yum!

 Elder Chandler

Another Ethiopian sunset 

Now there are Three......One from the US and two from Ethiopia

Hello!

Yep, another week has passed in Ethiopia. It was another week just like yours. I could almost copy and paste my email from last week and you would be pretty filled in on what is going on here. My weekly emails home are just gonna be super lame until we get work permits cause we have not that much to tell you guys. There has been no new news on work permits. We are still just waiting and for now are just visiting members that are willing to see us. So the work is a little slow. But we are enjoying as always and filling our free time with extra studies and language study. It is a good time.

Hahahaha Djibouti, Ethiopia! That one made me laugh. To be honest I have heard almost nothing on Tillerson's visit. I did hear that he said they would have much less fighting if they had more freedom in their everyday lives. Also that they should lift up the state of emergency. Other than that i don't really know  much.

(Except from Tim's letter to Colby) 

I was listening to a radio show this week on my drive home and the announcer on a national news show was talking about how our Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson was in Djibouti, Ethiopia this week. Haha. The announcer later had to correct himself and point out that Djibouti was a country adjacent to Ethiopia, not a city in Ethiopia. Oops! Did you hear anything about Tillerson’s visit. As Ethiopia is a key U.S. ally in the region, the U.S. really wants things to be stable there. I’m sure all of the state department members of your wards were on their toes this week, as well as the CIA members of your wards too!

Our investigators are all doing the same right now. We werent able to visit or see a lot of people this week. We had exchanges where I went to Beklobet area and worked with Elder Adu-Mensah. We were able to see some members there. It was nice to go back to the old area. Other than that we just visit some members. We also had a nice dinner at Sister Atsede's house. We ate some local food of course and had some soda. 

On Sunday we went to Sister Atsede's house for her daughter's birthday dinner. Her daughter is at BYU-I so we were there with her other friends and family. They fed us some great food and we laughed and had a good time. That is the major highlight of the week.

Transfer news came on Saturday. So I am staying in Megenagna and I am still with Elder Chandler. The only difference is I am also with Elder Munsey. I was with him in Beklobet. He is originally from Ethiopia too! Wild. But I am happy to stay here!!! I like that. Now 3 Elders, one from US and two from Ethiopia. Yep. It will help me blend in better and avoid people calling out and yelling and saying things so much.

Amharic is coming along good. Just studying and working on it. My comprehension is pretty good right now.

That is about all I have on the week.  Let's hope the work permits come soon. If not I will just have to return back to Ethiopia on my own time and do some good work to make up for this time period. Haha.

Other than that I am just hangin around. I look forward to my next package! Thanks!!!!

Well, that is it for the week. Thanks for everything and I love you all so much! 

Have a great week!

Love,

Elder McLain

Habtamuuuuu.......

He's the man!

 Hello Megenagna!

View from the top of our apartment building

 Elder Chandler's caretakers before he was adopted

Lookin fly in new fit

  Fikre's birthday party. 

Celebrating BIG!

 Bumpy bajaj selfie

 Getting out there in the village to see a member

View from his porch

 In our most favorite least favorite restaurant drinking non-alcoholic beer. 

Not worth it...

E30!

Look familiar?!

So we wait!

Hello everyone,

This weekly email will probably leave you guys with like no hair and charred faces. It will be a real BANGER!

Unfortunately, I am completely kidding. I have very little to talk about. My mission is wonderful and exciting and full of the greatest experiences of my life. As for things to report home, I have very little. 

Right now we are still waiting on work permits for our companions. This last week, three Elders were deported back to Uganda due to visa expiration issues. This leaves the work force here with 7 Elders only! Wild.... I am now in a threesome with Elder Chandler and Elder Schuler. Both of them are missing work permits and so we are not allowed to proselyte. This is the exact situation I was in earlier with Elder Tesch but now it is flipped and my companions are lacking permits. So we wait! As of now we are pretty much allowed to see members and our current investigators. We have about 40 activish members in Megenagna branch. Of those 40 we can probably visit about 20 in a week. But that includes a few families... It isn't a lot of work but we are truckin along!

This week we were able to reunite with one of my favorite investigators Wurku! He is the former Orthodox Priest and is so powerful.  He left to the village to visit his family. They are strong Orthodox people. There, they saw his Book of Mormon and rebuked him. He was kicked out of his trip there and disowned. Originally they only knew he was a Priest so they were angry to see he left that church. After coming back to Addis, he lost his job (as a Priest) and had no money. He was kicked out of his home for not having rent. He stayed at his friend's house for 2 days until he also found his Book of Mormon and kicked him out. Wurku is now homeless and jobless but continues to testify and read the Book of Mormon. Truly he has lost everything and he is still fighting for his conversion. It is a great blessing for us and even a testimony builder to me. I am happy for him.

That is really it for the week. Stay blessed everyone and enjoy yourselves!

Love,

Elder McLain

The Good Life!

Soaked to the bone but happy! 

Got me some new sunglasses

Asters House

Regular clothes as a result of getting soaked head to toe in the rain.

 Finally saw some Ethiopian village. 

First time since I've been here to meet members outside the city.

 An Ethiopian sunset