This Place Is Running Through My Veins

Hey guys,

I am doing great! Too great actually. I don't know what has changed in me over the last few weeks but I am just a completely different dude up here in Ethiopia. This place has molded me to the exact person I want to be. I want to improve in a lot of things but right now I am on the right path that is for sure.

I am still in Beklobet AKA South Side Chicago of Ethiopia. It is too cool here. I love the area and feel like I fit in perfectly minus the white skin, white shirts and height. Either way this place is a part of me and I am a part of this place now. That is the way I want it to be. I have no doubt in my mind that I was called by God to be here. The reason I know is because I promise you there are maybe only 3 missionaries in the world that are happier than I am right now. 

The work is hard! I wish I could say it was easy but it is darn hard. Transfer week made things a bit on and off with the work. The first reason is that we weren't in our area until Wednesday morning and so that got us on a late start. The other reason is that the new Elders being transferred here were having visa problems and still don't get here until tomorrow so we were stuck in the other area with an Elder so he wasn't alone. But now we are full force in our area and doing A+ work. Both of us have a really positive vision for the work this transfer and have done a lot of pondering on what we are going to do to strengthen Beklobet. The truth is it is by far the most struggling branch in the mission and so we need to work hard. And we are! 

Our idea for the area is to teach 4 lessons a day. That is our mission standard of excellence. What we want to do is teach one investigator, one recent convert, one less active member and one strong member a day. We feel like focusing on all areas of the branch will just bring it the strength it needs. 

We still have the same great investigators. Ermiyas and Emiyu both came to church this week and loved it. They are doing great and are progressing to a baptism on the 15th of October! We have a few other investigators actually we found this week. One is awesome. His name is Zemen (meaning season in Amharic). We met him in a funny way. Being in a non-English speaking country we tend to talk in English out loud a lot without anyone understanding us. One day we crammed in to a taxi and we were darn frustrated about lunch. Ethiopia is annoying for a few cultural things. One is that the Orthodox church "fasts" every Wednesday and Friday. Their idea of fasting is no animal products for 24 hours. So no meat. We were riding in a taxi and had nothing to eat. We were talking about how the Orthodox are confused on what fasting is and that fasting means no food and no water... A guy piped up next to us and said we don't understand culture. We started talking back and then he said he agreed with us and that he was Lutheran! We set an appointment and met with him on Saturday. He is extremely powerful and speaks great English. We will see how he goes. Progression in Ethiopia is much slower than Uganda. Most investigators take a few months where as in Uganda they can take 2 to 3 weeks. 

It is as if this place is running through my veins. No matter what comes my way I am just too happy to let it hit me. Will some things actually hit me physically but mentally no way. Satan is a huge coward. Right now Satan is literally helping us find the elect. Who woulda thought? It seems like every time something is going good we get a crap shoot moment coming our way. The biggest example is with Emiyu. She is just so awesome and powerful. She lives in Shiromeda. It is on the top of a mountain a good distance from our house. Every time with out fail that we go there something bad happens. Wether it is weather or the people around us something fails. Last Friday we were on the way to her house. Keep in mind that Shiromeda's elevation is higher than Provo's so it can get really cold. It was about 6 in the evening when we hit Shiromeda and the rain started coming down. We were getting soaked and had no jackets or umbrellas. My companion and I just started getting angry at Satan and knew he was behind it. We were late as it was and couldn't let her down so we just kept our heads up and walked to her house. When we were almost there, head to toe soaked and freezing, we had some guys try to rough us up. We got around it and made it to her house. There we taught an amazing lesson that helped her know how much God loves her despite the amount of rejection and trial she has gone through in this life. It was so awesome. After leaving her house we just started getting wrecked (hit) by rocks left and right. I told my comp we just have to keep going because turning around would do absolutely nothing but cause a fight. We kept our heads up and walked with confidence while the rain soaked us and the rocks pelted us. Honestly I have learned a few things from these situations. One is that, as I said earlier, Satan just helps us to know when we are on to something good. And two, enduring trials is a huge blessing. I have gotten really good here at ignoring and moving on rather than confronting and getting angry. I think this will be a blessing throughout my life. Ethiopia is the best.

I am doing amazing here you guys. You are all missing out on this kind of happiness. Thanks for all the love. One year done in the Lord's service and another prosperous one to come. 

Love you guys!

Love,

Elder McLain

satan is a coward

 Me and Elder Tesch

dropped 40 birr on some milkshakes ($2ish dollars)

 A nice nice meal. 

Kitfo (raw cow) and cheese, Kay wat, and greens... yum

The street just by my house. 

Ethiopia pride!

I Feel Like This Is The Reason I Was Called To Serve Here. I Love With Everything I Am

Hello family and friends!

I want to begin by saying I was overwhelmed by all the emails and love I received for my birthday. You have no idea how much it meant to me! Thank you for making my 20th so great.

It was a really good week this week. I have started to love this place so much and the work here. I am happy to say that my transfer news is great! I am staying in Beklobet for another transfer and getting an awesome companion! His name is Elder Tesch from St. George. He is so awesome. We served in the same area in Ntinda and have been on exchanges many times so we get along extremely well. Plus he loves cars and all that so we have things to talk about! I am just really excited.

This week a lot happened this week in Beklobet. We are working hard and seeing great blessings. In the last week we had an amazing investigator come our way. His name is Ermiyas. He was told of the church by a non-member friend and was able to contact us. He came to church on Sunday and asked for a baptismal date. He loves the church and is so great. He speaks very good English as well. We have taught him twice now and he literally said he was tired of seeing all the traditions of men that all Ethiopians believe in. He wants to find the true church. We hope and pray he will progress to baptism! Another amazing miracle has been the progression of President Desta, our Branch President. When I came to the area I was told by many  that he is a strict and tough man. He is the Police Commander over all of Addis Ababa and has a hard time showing love. In the past he has really been hard on missionaries and the branch. I chose to start fresh with him and do my best to change that. He has changed incredibly. I have prayed and asked to know what I can do to help him and I have learned. I began showing incredible love to his wife and children. Before, missionaries only visited about once or twice a transfer. Right now we visit twice a week and hold Book of Mormon reading with them. Every time we see him he embraces us with a big hug and always says he loves us so much. He is an amazing man and far from the President Desta I have previously heard of. I really feel like this was the reason I was called to serve here. I love him and his family with everything I am. It has blessed my life to meet and serve them. 

There are a few members I have grown to love so darn much here. One of which is Desta's family. Another is a woman by the name of Sister Weynshet. This woman has to be the most faithful saint of all time. I am so impressed by her faith. When she was a child she was beat by her caretaker so badly that she went blind in both eyes. Since then she has made her way to Addis, graduated college, and now works as a caretaker and takes in other blind girls. She gets them through school and on to a better life. She is amazing. Right now she is taking care of 6 completely blind girls. As I said she is also fully blind. She cooks, cleans and raises each one on her own. Can you imagine? Blind?! We go visit her a lot. She lives far in a place called Shiro Meda (google it). It is up in the mountains and really cold. Every Sunday she taxis from Shiro Meda to Lancha for church. I want to help them out so bad. Right now a house of 7 girls including her self and it is just falling apart. There are leaks in the ceiling everywhere, walls torn down and much more. I wish we could help in any way. I think we are going to try and do a zone service at her house soon and just fix everything up. Recently we started teaching one of her blind girls named Emiyu. She is amazing! The first time we taught her it was a simple spiritual thought from Mark. The second time we taught about the Atonement. By the end of the second lesson she was frustrated that we weren't sharing more about our church! She came to church on Sunday. Sister Weynshet, blind, brought Emiyu, also blind, to church by a 45 minute taxi commute! She loved church. We are visiting her tomorrow and will talk about baptism. Like Weynshet, Emiyu was beat as a kid by her mother. She grew up in a village far from Addis and was extremely poor. When she was beat so bad that she became blind, her family disowned her as a child and made her their maid. She was a servant for her family for years and at 14 was brought to Sister Weynshet by her aunt for a better life. She is 16 now and in 3rd grade. Her heart is so strong. I love her! 

I ate some bad food this week! Ha! Twice we had just horrible meals fed to us by members. It was funny. I have gotten really good at just throwing things back and finishing them. This meal was gag worthy with every bite. It was stomach fir fir. Fir fir is when they take injera, break it up and soak it in a broth then you eat it with nonsoggy injera. Its not that great. But man, when they add sheep stomach and intestines it becomes a whole lot worse! It was just soaking in stomach juice and tasted awful! I finished it all though while my comp (who is from Africa) struggled to finish one bite.

Well I gotta go. Thanks for wishing me a happy birthday! I Love you all!

Love,

Elder McLain

Me and Galilah (President Desta's daughter)

My favorite human on earth. She speaks zero english 

Check out my little ponytail

 Galilah

Sister Weynshet cooked dinner for us!

Missionary Work Isn't Easy Because Salvation Isn't Easy. What Can I Do To Make A Difference

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.

Love,

Elder McLain

P.S. Thanks for the abundance birthday wishes and emails. I felt VERY loved!

Happy Ethiopian New Year!

Hello!

Another great week in Ethiopia! I am really starting to love it more here. Zone Conference and Interviews really helped me out a lot too. Met with President Collings. That was awesome. I am doing well right now. 

Yesterday was Ethiopian New Year sooo no emailing because we were on lock down for the weekend except to go to church!

Well first I will just respond to some questions. Haha your thing about the Lion of Judah made me laugh. Yep, that is Ethiopia for you. Their Orthodox religion is just so confused and loves worshiping idols and all that. As far as Amharic goes, sadly I don't think I will be here in Ethiopia very long. Maybe 5 more months or so. So speaking on the streets is good. They also supply us with church approved language study materials that are really good. 

Well, as for the work things are still a bit slow. We have had a few random people just come up to us and ask us about our church. One guy is named Daniel. This guy just jumped in front of me as we were rushing to meet someone in the city and yelled "Latter Day Saint!" He also told us he read a ton of stuff online about our Bible and all these crazy false doctrines. I have some funny tricks for people like that and I settled him down. We are meeting with him tomorrow. We will see how that goes! On Wednesday we got in to a little tussle with a guy that ended in him getting a free phone and other things. :(( Fortunately phones are completely replaceable. UN-fortunately contacts are not. The worst part is there were a few investigators like Weynshet and Abel were lost when we lost the phone. Man we were devastated.... We went through the whole week having to restart some things. On Saturday we were sitting there at the house trying to think of what to do. We felt like we should just go walk this one direction for a while and see what we could find. Well as we were walking we found Weynshet and Abel boarding a taxi! I yelled for them and just ran up and gave them huge hugs. They were really confused why I was so happy to see them but that was our only way of continuing to teach them! We found them! That was a good day.

I do miss cars a lot and am really excited to come home to some work on mine and the others. That sounds so awesome!

I gotta continue on. Have a great week! Thanks for all the help. 

Love,

Elder McLain

A visit to Portuguese Bridge and Debre Zeit

Hey Everyone!

We had a good week and a lot of fun. Ethiopia is a really fun place. I am enjoying it a lot here and adjusting well. Right now I feel like I have everything figured out finally and I am settled in good. Yeah, Ethiopia is beautiful. It is really green right now. That little girl is our District Presidents daughter. She is Ethiopian! Thats how light they are. 

We found quite a bit of success and even had a few miracles. I am really happy with how the week went. All is well here. Not a ton happened. We did exchanges in Debre Zeit, that was fun and I learned a lot. On P-Day today we went to Portuguese Bridge. It was a really scenic place with animals like Baboons and stuff going around. Cool place! My companion and I are doing well. He is Elder Munsey from San Diego. Imagine Ryan, my cousin, as a missionary. They are the same exact person. We are getting along well. He doesn't really know the language and so we struggle with Amharic together but he knows enough. I am learning slowly but surely. Its a fun language and culture. 

Anyways, this week some cool things happened. Addis is a really cool city because it is decently developed and almost feels like a state side city sometimes. Minus the terrible traffic laws, bad roads, human feces on the sidewalk and Amharic written everywhere. Haha. This week a cool event that took place was some International (maybe continent wide) road biking race. They blocked off all of the roads and we were able to see teams from the whole continent flying through the streets of Addis. It was fun to watch. I am not sure what the race was but maybe you could look in to it!

We got some nice foods. We were fed by a recent convert some delicious food almost to the point of throwing up! Hahah. Also, the Moores, an Embassy family, gave us a ton of pasta and stuff from the US. Trader Joes actually. It was delicious. We still have quite a bit. So good!

We found some really nice investigators this week. A few seem very promising. It is good to get some investigators because before this week we had zero. We are still doing a lot of less active work but we had a few people come to us. The first is named Tesfaye. He is a Pastor for the Red Cross Church in Saris. We were walking past his work one day and he approached us with some fire. He actually wanted to confound us a little but we just calmly answered. We set a time to meet with him and later that week he came through to the church. As we met he quickly changed his attitude and the lesson was incredibly spiritual. Long story short by the end of the lesson he was jumping up and down in his chair and telling us he knew he had been wrong. He literally bore his testimony on the authenticity of the Book of Mormon and thanked God in his prayer that Christ's apostles restored the Priesthood to Joseph Smith. It was soooo awesome! He couldn't thank us enough. He is a great guy. The other is a family of 4. The parents are Abul and Weynshet. They have a 13 year old and 8 year old, both boys, and are pregnant with a 3rd. Their lesson was extremely spiritual. They found a pass along card a long time back and just decided to call the other day. When we talked about eternal families it led in to the Plan of Salvation. As we explained that the Fall of Adam and Eve was not a curse but a part of Gods plan, Weynshet told us that she completely agreed and now the Plan made so much more sense. They loved the lesson and love the church. We are praying for all of them right now and hope they can avoid outer influence and come unto Christ.

Right now things are going great. Satan is working hard against us in a way. We have had a few intense scares over the last week but we have come together as a district and are fasting and praying to over come it. And we are. I am doing a lot better every day and am liking the work a lot more. Thanks for the email this week dad. I am glad all is well at home. Have a great week. 

Love you so much!

Elder McLain

 Portuguese Bridge

 In the Ethiopian Fog

 Debre Zeit Chapel

Eating bread

Ethiopia is cold!

Hey everyone!

Hello again from freezing Ethiopia. I want to start this week's letter by encouraging every living thing to do some real research on Ethiopia and learn what it is really like here! At least for me and what I can remember, when we would talk about Ethiopia back home we would talk like it is the most stereotypical African country with black people and a hot sun and no food. WELL...I was super wrong! This place is far from that! Ethiopia is developing well, there is good food AND it is freezing cold! This week it hailed a few times and I haven't gone outside without a sweater or jacket in two weeks!

Hmmmm this week was pretty normal. Sadly we didn't get to spend a lot of time in our area for a few reasons. Monday we just finished emailing and went to Branch President's house to meet his family. He is a great guy named President Desta. He works for the Police here and is pretty high up. He can be a bit straight forward and harsh sometimes but he does a great job. His family is so awesome and loving. His wife made us a great meal of Injera and shiro. They have two kids who are so nice as well. I love their family. Tuesday we saw a few investigators. We have a few right now but to be honest we dont really have any strong investigators progressing right now. We met with Ayu. He is very heavily orthodox. He told us he doesn't want to join our church but he wants to meet with us every now and then to keep him "spiritually in touch"... Hmmm. Anyways, we are still just meeting him and sharing mostly from the Book of Mormon in hopes he gains a testimony of it. He is a nice guy. The other investigator we saw is named Nardos. She is a younger lady. Super polite and speaks very good English. We had a great lesson with her filled with the Spirit. I can promise she felt the Spirit and loved it. Later that night she texted us and simply said she is content with Orthodox and doesn't want to meet anymore... Bummer. So that is honestly all for right now. Wednesday-Friday were spent in Meganagna area with Finding and District Meetings. I fell sick on Saturday. I got a pretty decent cold/flu thing and had a bad sore throat. That kept us in most of Saturday and even Sunday we weren't able to attend church. That was a bummer. Especially when you are serving in a branch that literally relies on the missionaries. We play an active role in the branch and missing church is hard for them. I think all went well though. We had no investigators at church and attendance was 30 with about 12 native Ethiopians and the rest American Embassy families.

Ethiopia is doing okay. It is improving from last year. Last year the country had something like 11 or so baptisms. This year there are for sure more but along with that many are falling less active. We are just working to reactivate everyone right now.

On Wednesday night i was invited to the Francom's house for dinner. They are an Embassy family. Let me tell you how cool it was. First, they live in the nicest house I have seen in my life. 6 story mansion outside of Addis Ababa. They cooked for us mexican food. It was my first time seeing food like this in a year. On top of that, all the food is imported from the US so I ATE TOSTIDOS HINT OF LIME CHIPS!!! That was insane. SOOOO awesome! Another cool thing that happened there. They invited a returned missionary named Omat. He served in Manchester England. I talked with him for a while and found out that he knows my uncle!! He served under the Liptrott's brother in an area near them but he said for sure he knows Daniel and met him! He is the one in the picture I uploaded to Google Drive.

As of now we are just doing a lot of street contacting. There are two difficulties in street contacting though. About 90% of the people you contact do not speak any English. Ethiopians are funny with culture. They see accepting English as forsaking culture so people quite literally try not to learn the language. So 1, most everyone only speaks Amharic. And 2, people here are very honest and straight forward. They do not mind one bit ignoring you or sticking a hand in your face to say they are not interested. Now, the one upside of that is when people actually stop, they will be genuine investigators, not fake investigators. You can usually go about 2 hours of street contacting and talk to maybe 5 people. We don't really knock doors. Missionaries for years have seen no success with that and also it can be a bit dangerous when you generally are not wanted in a country. The other day we entered in to a member's house to visit and a man came out with a megaphone and was literally trying to cast us out as if we were evil spirits. So entering in to compounds or houses is not the best thing.

The Ethiopian culture is extremely touchy. Most everyone hugs on greeting or shakes hands followed with a should and cheek touch. It can be sort of weird as a missionary pretty much kissing girls on the cheek all the time but I love the culture and it can be fun. ha!

The Harlines are our senior couple. They are fun people. They live about an hour from us. It's not that far but this is a crazy city so it takes a while to go short distances. They are working in the office. Elder Harline is a really outgoing guy and is good to serve under. Sister Harline is so nice. They take care of us very well here. The Elder they mentioned is Elder Chandler. He has an amazing story! There are currently 4 native Ethiopians who have been reassigned to serve here. Right now my companion was raised far from Addis Ababa but President told him he could one day go visit his family. Amazing is right!

Well, I hope my letter is good. I am still getting caught in frequent rain and hail storms. Its cold! Right now I am also on an exchange in Debre Zeit, the town where Aunt Julie and Sam were! That's a crazy thought. It is a great place with a beautiful chapel. Maybe try to google Debre Zeit LDS Chapel. You might find some crazy false doctrine in the process. Well, all is well here. Just adjusting fine and working to be better. 

Have a good week everyone!

Love,

Elder McLain

I am in Ethiopoia!

 Me and Omat

 My companion

 The streets of my area

Beautiful Ethiopia

Where am I ?

Hey everyone,

It was an insane week for me. I left Uganda and headed up to Ethiopia. It was a two hour flight. Hard to believe I can take a two hour flight over 3 countries and still be in the same mission. It might be the same mission but it doesn't feel like it!

Wow my life is crazy right now!!! I still feel like this is one giant dream and not at all real! I am living in Ethiopia!? It's a really crazy place and the missionary work is completely different here. I am honestly not even in an african country anymore. The people are light skin like Arabs. The language is crazy and sounds/looks like Arabic. The country is really cold! I have worn a sweater every day! Man, Its all just crazy. I have only been here since late Thursday so I don't know a ton.

The missionary work in Uganda was so fruitful. The people there are so prepared. I loved Masaka and the work there. Ethiopia is a little different.... The culture is overtaken by the Orthodox church. The Orthodox religion is about 65% of the population. You should read in to the religion. It is quite insane. The people here really have no desire to change and are so deeply rooted in the Orthodox church that growth for our church is really hard. Right now the church is struggling a lot in Ethiopia but especially Beklo Bet. Last week church attendance was 38 BUT over 20 were Americans. The perk for missionaries in the Beklo Bet branch is that it takes in all the American Embassy workers. Many are members. Without them, there were I believe 17 native Ethiopians at church. The church service is in Amharic and the English speakers (missionaries and embassy families) are translated to Amharic. The branch is at a low point right now. I arrived at church to find that the person giving a talk was not there. I filled in and gave a talk. I pretty much just bore my testimony as powerfully as I could summon that this was the true church and the members should not fear being here. I will explain later that issue. After that we went to the second hour where I was asked to fill in and teach Gospel Principles class. Not my first time to do that so I was fine with it. Yeah, that's church here. Not easy! But a great experience. 

My area is pretty much the ghetto of Addis Ababa. It is an outskirt town but still heavily taken in by the city. I live around sky scrapers. The city reminds me of a very dirty Seattle in a way. I really like it. I live in a place I am not sure of the address. The best way I can describe my address is if you take the main train that goes through Addis and get off at Temanja Yazh stop. We live on the left side of the road in a small little house. Its a good house but its a bit beat up cause missionaries have been in it for a while. The cool thing is we leave our gate and literally are on the main road. Its a good house. I have had worse on mission and better. I love my shower. I don't have to cup my hands and splash it on me like I have before and water stays warm for more than 3 minutes! The house is big and nice. I enjoy it. The downside is power has been out at our house for 3 days but I am used to that. No biggy...

We don't have a car here. We use taxis or the train that goes through Addis Ababa. I am sure you can google the train. 

The Language is nuts. I thought it would be sort of like Uganda where everyone speaks Luganda but also speaks English.... NOPE. Even the more educated people just don't speak any English. Most cant even respond to "How are you?".... I have to do language study every day. My companion picked it up fast because he lived here until he was 9 and then was adopted in to the US.. He can speak enough to get us around. I don't know much of anything. It sounds a lot like Arabic and even looks like it. All signs are in Amharic. All church material is in Amharic. Everything.... Amharic. 

Food! It is awesome. I am really lucky to grow up in a family where we ate a lot of odd foods. It has helped me transition a lot here. We eat a ton of the staple food. They don't have much variety here. They eat injera with everything. Its a sponge like round thing that you tear a piece off and use it to pick up sauces. Its made out of a fermented flour thing. Its sour and good. I will send pics of some things I have eaten. I love the food! Today we went out to lunch with a returned missionary. He is pretty wealthy and took us to the nicest restaurant around and we got real greek pizza. It was amazing!!!

My comp is great. Funny and nice guy. I have been lucky with good comps. 

That is about it. By next week I should be a little more comfortable in my new home. I would love some prayers on my behalf. It is a tough place here and it will take much effort and prayer to soften the hearts of these people. In return I will pray for everyone back home. I want to thank you all for loving me and making my mission the best. Stay great.

Love,

Elder McLain

Addis Ababa

The city!

My area

Me and Elder Haines

Me and Elder Smith

Saying goodbye to Kuhbeka : (

Pamplets in Amharic

Me and Gitachew.

Old man good man

Last dinner with Teddy 

Injera with Dulet. 

It's just raw meat with some feta cheese. So good!

Greek pizza at MK's Addis Ababa Pizza

One of the best meals I had on my mission!

Amharic coke!