Today was a very sad day for our branch here in Debre Zeyit.  A darling little girl, Yohanna,  9 years old, passed away in the night.  She had been ill off and on for a few months.  She was one of our Primary girls and will be missed SO much.  We LOVE her family.  She came to Church with her Grandma Birhani, her younger sisters, Bitaniya and Sedona, and her Aunt Salem.  The custom here is to bury a loved one the day they pass away.  So everything happened very fast yesterday.  We are glad we could be there to help in any way we could....  Our love and prayers are with her family.

Yohanna is in the green, Bitaniya in blue and

Sedona in yellow.  Birhani is their grandma

and Salem, one of our Seminary students is

their aunt. What BEAUTIFUL girls they all are!

I took this in March of our Primary kids with The Friend

 that my friend did the cover for. Yohanna is in red on the end.

We framed the photo I took of Yohanna with

her testimony glove at Primary and gave it 

to her family.

We bought these yellow roses with baby's breath 

for her grave ~ the only flowers there.

These two AWESOME trees were right near the cemetery.

How grateful we are that we know what we know! We KNOW we will

see her again and that she is in a better place.  How timely the day after

Easter to have that comfort and peace because of the resurrection.

Our girls had no school today because of Easter yesterday, so we had three more from different schools in our Seminary class today to study Moroni chapters 7 and 8 with us.  Tomorrow we will discuss chapter 10 and will finish our study of the Book of Mormon!!  We LOVE the Book of Mormon!  After class, we took the girls to lunch at Get House.  They are so much fun to be with!  Here are a few photos....

Our girls ~ (L-R) Meheret, Gebriela and Salem

joined by Tigist, Meti and Rediet (in back)

Burgers & fries, pizza, and rice with veggies

Tigist, Salem and Meti sharing a pizza

It was a gorgeous day!  I LOVE the view from 

the window upstairs looking out behind our chapel.

"Party 'til the cows come home?!"

This is what we saw when we turned the corner to our house

today! (That is our house in the distance.) 

Cows were grazing all along our road!  

We never know what we will see!?!

Our front yard 

Our little geranium plant we bought has gone crazy!

Our friend, Abraham, planted tomatoes behind 

our house and he made a sprinkler to water our

lawn!  He is very creative! 

The building next to our church is where people pay their utility

bill.  We OFTEN drive in and park and have 15-20 people just

staring at us over the wall... I finally decided  I needed a picture! 

Happy Easter!! Ü

  Here are some photos I took today...  

These four cute kids were dressed in their traditional

holiday clothes in Primary today! The boys, Naol

and Feraol are twins and the girls, Edelawit and

Wongelawit are sisters a year apart. 

Gizework, in her traditional dress, was baptized

last Sunday and Bob confirmed her today.  She

is a chef in Addis.

Kaleab got our grandson, Ryan's birthday treat

today since the little boy I had thought of wasn't

at Church.  Ryan turned 10 on Thursday.

This is cute Kaleb with his brother,  Fikadu, who 

recently returned from his mission.

We were invited to Yeshi's home for lunch today

after Church with the elders and Abraham.  Gebriela

is pouring water from a pitcher for us to wash our hands.

Cute Yeshi spoke in Sacrament Meeting today and then fed us all!

She is a WONDERUL lady.  She kept filling our plates up the

whole time we were there!  Her husband died just 2 years ago.

This is the traditional Easter feast of injera, doro wat, cooked spinach,

potatoes, carrots and onions. The square thing on top is made from

a fake banana plant. I like the bread (dabo top right) so she gave us a 

HUGE piece to take home!

Bob's new Easter tie that we found in a little shop in Addis 

on Friday.  (My elbow is covering a little Ethiopian flag on it.)

This oven where Yeshi makes her injera is outside.

She showed me the BIG  baskets where she keeps the injera she makes.

Bob and Sister Meaza from Kenya clowning around

She was also at Yeshi's eating with us.

Euale Ayele got our grandson, Jaxon's birthday

treat today.  Jax turned 6 yesterday!

We were also invited to Efrem's and Yetimwork's

for dinner at 5:00 p.m..  I didn't take any pictures, but 

this one of their darling girls, holding the bag of

jelly beans we brought and wearing the bracelets our grand-

daughters, Amy, Ashlyn and Lauryn made for them.

Our fun elders are smashed into the backseat of our car!

There is a place near our Church called Get House where we have lunch once in awhile when we don't have time to go home.  Here is what we got today for the first time ~ veggie pizza and lasagna! We usually get a burger and fries, rice and veggies, salad or spring rolls. But we decided to try something different today.  They sell Paco Ice Cream too so I took a picture of Bob's regular ~ scoops of all 7 flavors for about $2. It's not like real ice cream from home but is the closest we can find here!  We took pictures of the six cooks in the tiny kitchen having their OWN lunch and also our two servers.  We love these cute, fun girls!

Our Veggie pizza had carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage,

onions and peppers! It was pretty tasty! The sauce

in the little dish is hot pepper sauce. They have REALLY

spicy green peppers.

Here is the lasagna halfway through lunch.  There was also

a big spring roll that we had already eaten.  The yellow thing on 

the left was very different but kind of like a crepe! 

Bob's ice cream ~ vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, lemon,

orange, mango and pineapple (ananas).

The cute cooks at Get House 

Two waitresses at Get House

Happy Birthday yesterday to our grandson, Brandon

who turned 9!  Here is Grant in our branch,

who is also 9 with Brandon's birthday treat! 

Happy 35th Birthday TODAY, April 9th, 

to our daughter, Jamie!!

Spring is birthday time for our family!  Jeff's

Hunter turned 13 on Saturday, April 12th, so

here is Fita, a newly baptized member of our

branch, who is also 13, with Hunter's birthday

treat after Church on Sunday.

We have two MORE grandsons with birthdays

THIS week, so two more birthday treats will be

given out next Sunday (EASTER) after Church!

This little cutie was in Fuji Film when I was getting

prints made and I gave her a lollipop. We carry a bag

of them with us in the car. 

Well, last night was a FIRST!  We got on the elevator at the church with all our stuff, after our branch young single adults' Family Home Evening and the power went off!! We were stuck between floors for almost 30 minutes!!  : O  Thank goodness two of our elders had JUST left, knew we were coming down, saw the lights all go off and heard the alarm!  They came back into the church and told us they would get help!  They called Tesfaye, who is in charge of the building, and he came to the church to get us out!

While we were in there, we took some "selflies" and got our laptop out and played ABBA's "S.O.S" and Huey Lewis'  "Stuck With You" ("We've had our UPS and DOWNS")!  Haha!!  We had a few chocolate chip cookies left from FHE so had a little snack...

Oh no!! We're the ONLY ones here

and we are STUCK on the elevator!!

Here we are RELIEVED after hearing the elders' voices

telling us help was on the way!! 

Tenkir was the Amharic teacher in Debre Zeyit until

they discontinued the classes in Sept. 2014

Elder Christensen (left) and Elder Taylor (right) taught me

a LOT!  

I took this of Elder Salekielu and Elder Allen teaching,

 when we were in Meganagna one day.

We had a GREAT Sunday yesterday!  One of our Institute students,  Motuma, who was baptized last Sunday, asked Bob to confirm him a member of the Church.  After Church, our cute Yelamdar, who is 14, was baptized.  Her mother joined the Church a month or so ago and gave the talk on Baptism. Her sister, Elshaddi, who is 16 or 17, came to Church for the first time Saturday for institute and also Sunday for the whole block, the baptism and choir practice and told the girls she wants to be baptized too!  They were SO happy and so are WE!!  We also had a friend, Tesfaye, attend our branch for the first time yesterday.  His wife died in childbirth six years ago and he was very sick with what they thought was AIDS.  Friends of my brother, Rick, adopted his three children.  Tesfaye is now well and living in Debre Zeyit.  We have been in touch with him and he came to Church.  It was so good to see him there!  He enjoyed it and said he wants to come back.  We also gave birthday treats to Kaleb, who turned 11 on the same day our grandson, Carson did and to Yonaton and Dagim who are our grandson, Tanner's age, for his birthday on March 26th!

Motuma just before he was baptized March 16th

Happy Yelamdar in the pink and black, and her older sister,

(2nd from the left)  with some of our YW and Primary kids

Ylemdar with Elders Self, Taylor, Christensen and Ferrara

Cute Yelamdar after her baptism

Bob and I with Tesfaye the first time we met him

The group from Hope Arising, which is based in Gilbert, AZ

They are from AZ, Utah, California, Texas and Canada.

They brought us 25 CTR rings that Jamie sent along with pictures and notes from the 

grandkids and they also brought me a BIG bag of COSTCO chocolate chips!! Ü

Kaleab, 11, who shares his birthday

with Carson

Yonaton and Dagim in our branch, who are 

almost 15, the same age as Tanner

We had ONE last breakfast before Elder Self was transferred

to Awassa….