We're enjoying Addis Ababa and working in the Mission Office.  We are attending a different branch every week while we are filling in here.  The first Sunday we were here we attended Meganagna Branch and got to meet Pres. Eyob and Mesi's new baby "Daisy".  She has the CUTEST curly hair!
They just got her passport to go be sealed as a family in the Accra Ghana Temple in June!

                                  These next two photos are from the Beklobet Branch last Sunday...

I played the keyboard in Primary and taught the kids the song

THE FAMILY IS OF GOD.  They gathered around

the keyboard and really sang from their hearts!

Ines Bujingo, Primary President with the four

Primary kids who were there on Sunday

Yvette and Ines in Beklobet Branch

Ruth and Yeabsra stopped by our house to see us and invite us

to their school exposition.  They are darling sisters who

used to live in the neighborhood and loved visiting the Preators.

These are two things we don't see in the U.S.... a guy carrying 

his suitcase on his head and three teenage boys holding hands, all

walking down the road in front of our house the other morning.

These are our neighborhood rooster and chickens.  

They wander all over...

We have been driving down this road on the way to the office

watching them lay the cobblestone and today they were filling

in the sand between the stones that were placed the past couple

of days.... It's so interesting the way they pile it up and then sweep

it with push brooms into all the cracks around the stones.

Women were filling bags with the black sand from a huge pile

at one end and carrying it down the road to dump it at the other end.

This is blurry but a common scene I have wanted

to get a picture of.... a guy "dancing" his sheep down

the road! 

Our Meganagna elders: (L-R) Elder States,

Elder Fuller, Elder Calhoun and Elder Melton

and Elder Christensen (below right)

Just had to show what we found today at FANTU market!!

Woo hoo!! Things we don't usually see in Ethiopia!

The day before we moved to Addis, Sat. May 10th, we had the FIRST General Women's Meeting Broadcast in Ethiopia in Amharic at our Debre Zeyit Branch!!  Eight Young Women and seven Relief Society sisters met to watch the broadcast and the Relief Society served lunch afterwards. (We have only two Primary girls over 8. They are sisters and one passed away a few weeks ago.) : /    Here is a photo of the group. That was the first meeting of its kind for our branch sisters!

That afternoon, Bob took me to lunch at Babagaya Resort on Lake Babagaya and we took our four Elders too for a "Good-bye" lunch.  It was fun!

We moved 1/2 of our things to Addis on Wed. 7th and drove up after Church on Sunday with the rest of our clothes and food.  We visited with the Preators, then bid them good-bye as they headed home to Wyoming.  It was Mother's Day.  I was sick and had to say good-bye to our branch friends and then to our mission friends.... A very hard day!! We bore our testimonies in Sacrament Meeting, I taught RS and did Primary music and we bought roses to give all the mothers even though they do not celebrate Mother's Day here.  We decided to do Adam's, Nathan's and Maybree's birthdays, since we are not sure where we'll be for Church at the end of the month and we know the Debre Zeyit youth best.

We spent four hours Sunday night, (until I started throwing up at midnight), getting moved into the Preator's house.  We're here!  We have been in the office for five days and it's going well.

Our Debre Zeyit Relief Society and YW

We miss our CUTE young women and Yetim!  Yelamdar,  (right front), 

a recent convert has been bringing her sister, Elshadday (2nd row

left) and she is being taught by our missionaries!

Babagaya Resort

Lake Babagaya

We felt like we were in Hawaii with the banana

trees  and the plumeria!

Fasika, Primary Pres. doing Sharing Time on

Sunday

Meti (new convert) with Maybree's 16th birthday treat.

Meti will also be turning 16 this year.

Eyob holding Nathan's 12th birthday treat.  He is

turning 12 and will become a deacon on May 25th!

Eyob is also 12.

This is Sammy, one of my keyboard students from the

high school, with Adam's birthday treat.  Adam

turns 15 this month!  Sammy asked me about the

pictures in the Primary room one day and I gave 

him a pamphlet about the Church. The next time

he came we talked for an hour and he was SO

excited to hear more.  He is reading the Book of

Mormon and attends Church every week!  The

missionaries are teaching him at Meti's house since

he is a neighbor of theirs. He is a GREAT young man!

Some of my CUTE Primary kids wanted a picture

with me after Church.  (Edelawit, in pink and white

took this of me with my camera ! Haha!)

A "selfie" with the Preators before they left

(I was SO sick.... : / )

One last photo in Ethiopia.....We will miss them!!

The board we did for the entryway of our mission office

(It fell down but I took a photo anyway....)

After watching General Conference on DVD and having a great lunch of injera and shiro wat with tibs at the church, we were invited to Amen's 1st birthday celebration at Tesfaye's and Marta's.  Our grandson, Cooper, turns 2 on May 28th, but since we are moving to Addis this week, for 3 months, to take over in the mission office for the Preators, who go home this Sunday, we decided to make and take cookies for a birthday treat for Cooper's and Amen's birthdays.  Next Sunday is our last Sunday in Debre Zeyit.  We will REALLY miss our friends and branch here!!! : /  We will be visiting a different branch each Sunday to keep in touch with the missionaries and branch presidents, so we will be back a few times to visit! Here are a few photos from Amen's party...

Amen, in his traditional Ethiopian clothes,

 with his dad, Tesfaye

Celebrating Amen's 1st birthday and our grandson

Cooper's 2nd birthday (in the photo) with Holiday Nugget cookies

Amen's birthday bread with a 1 candle in it

(They do bread instead of cake.  The water bottles are filled with a

 special holiday and birthday drink made from barley. 

We had orange Fanta instead.)

Our plate of birthday goodies

There was popcorn too but it got eaten first.

Elder Wold with Edalawit (3)

She LOVES to copy the faces he makes! 

We opened the gate to back out of our compound yesterday and 

this is what greeted us! We never know what we will see in our

neighborhood! The cow was looking in our gate but moved by 

the time I got my camera out! (Bob is wearing a new Ethiopian

tie with a pattern representing one of the tribes down south.)