Sister Martin Treks the Mountainside - Elders move out - BYU Pathway

Picture in the third sister's home...

Sister Martin volunteered to do some ministering visits with our young Relief Society President of our small branch. The RS Pres. is going to school so they were able to go on a weekday in the daytime. 

The Adventure:

They first took a taxi van, then walked to a Bajaj 3 wheel taxi, then walked up a mountain to the first sister that they had visited before. Then all three went to visit the next sister.

First, they walked up a steep hill to a Bajaj taxi, then they had to walked up a long steep road and other streets to a taxi van to a round-about, there the sister came down to meet them and they walked up some dirt roads and a trail together and finally arrived. 

Then all four sisters walked along some dirt trails through the trees for about 10-15 minutes to the 3rd sister's home. Coming back home was a little easier. 15 minutes along a dirt road where they caught a ride on a big bus which took them all the way back to Shiromeda round-a-bout, and then a taxi van to 6 Kilo, near our apartment. 

Picture in the first sister's home...

    

    Inside the Bajaj

The Ministering Visits:

All three sisters were very happy to be visited in their homes. They talked about how hard life is for each of them. They each try to do things to make a living as single mothers. They have no bathroom and no running water in their homes. They had a bucket or water container for their water supply. They all had one lightbulb hanging from the ceiling in the middle of their little one room shack. 

Each had the scriptures. However, none of them know how to read. So the RS Pres. read and discussed scriptures that Sister Martin recommended about Jesus Christ from our current "Come Follow Me" studies. They wished they could have a visit every day so someone could read the scriptures to them.

They also prayed together during these visits. 

Interesting note: The first sister kept leaving to go get things to cook some food for them. They asked her to please stop doing food prep but she wouldn't listen. Then Sister Martin said they had to visit 2 other sisters and didn't have time so she was finally Ok with that and asked if she could join them and show the way to the other sister's home, since they were all friends. This ended up being a great help since the RS Pres. had never visited the other two sisters. These sisters had become friends because they met at church.

Picture in the second sister's home...

The trail to the 3rd sister's home.

Video of the neighbor making thread for the traditional Ethiopian Habesha dresses...

Picture in the third sister's home...

After about 5 hours, Sister Martin returned and thankfully before dark. They had very uplifting, needed and fun visits.

Our language teacher gave Sister Martin one of her Habesha dresses. This is an example of the kind of fabric they weave. This is a basic design. They make extremely elaborate  designs as well.

Since the young Elders were moving out we had them all over for a big curry chicken dinner.

I made a big pot and they finished the whole thing. But I made a small pot for leftovers this week for us.

Sister Martin made a bunch of garlic Naan bread and they ate every piece.

We always have fun volunteering for English tutoring at the after school program.

We attended the BYU Pathway and Institute graduations.

Our RS President....

The BYU Pathway program helps so many gain a higher level education that they would otherwise be unable to receive.

During the graduation there was a big transfer. Two missionaries went home and about 13 new missionaries arrived.

So many are so enthusiastic to spread the good news of the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ.

We saw this interesting buzzard on the church grounds near Elder and Sister Woodbury.

I invited a couple of the missionaries over to help call all the members in our branch. We made about 150 calls, over 2 days and many hours, some connected and some not. It was a great success as about 12 appreciated the call and said they wanted to come back to church. Several of them did.

We were there into the evening so Sister Martin made us a great Spaghetti dinner.  

 

We'll show pics of the sisters that moved in, on our next blog.