At the Gate in Frankfurt Airport

Seth at our Gate - Thank goodness for DS!

Ihr Handgenpack

Our gate B58 - very tired at this point.

Grateful Hearts!

GRATEFUL HEARTS

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life.

It turns what we have into enough, and more.
It turns denial into acceptance,
Chaos to order,
Confusion to clarity.
It can turn a meal into a feast,
A house into a home,
A stranger into a friend.
Gratitude makes sense of our past,
Brings peace for today,
And creates a vision for tomorrow.

I wanted to start off with a poem that was given to me from a close friend. 

I am very grateful for all the things I took advantage of, including:

• *A spatula - after turning pancakes with a large knife and a fork! (the wooden fork in the picture is the closest thing I have to a spatula)
• *Clean water to drink and bathe in.
• *Clean grocery stores! And everything found pretty much in one grocery store. 

I took my first outing to get veggies, fruits and meats. We had to go to four stores or sidewalk stores as I like to call them.  The first store we bought strawberries(very small)! (In Ecuador we couldn't eat them - so I'm a little hesitant) and bananas and butter. The second store I found yogurt (it is thin and runny), cream, and cheese (I bought Gouda, which has a really good taste and melts well).The third store I bought papaya, lettuce (gourmet! Not just the regular iceberg lettuce!), the fourth store was a little more modern - when I say modern - it was more like Ecuador with sliding doors when you enter, things are not so crowded and are nicely put on a shelf, and you have a small wheeled cart! We bought ground meat, canned corn, canned mushrooms, and bread. They have a lot of pasta here, but not the sauce.
I spent a total of 650 Birr about $38 for quit a bit of food!

I prepared a meal and it took me half the day to prepare (We are definitely getting a cook - I know I'm spoiled). You have to soak your veggies and fruits in bleach for 30 mins. That means each lettuce leaf has to be soaked and cleaned separately. There are a lot of different bugs (amoebas) here. I have to be very careful because I am an amoeba magnet! The motto here is "Boil it, Peel it, Soak it, or Forget it!"

Our Hotel Front Room

Looking Left off our Deck on the 5th Floor

The best store in Addis!

Ethiopian Construction

Our Hotel Kitchenette

We're Here!

After a long hard wait, we are finally here in Addis Ababa! We arrived 10:30 p.m. local time - 1:30 p.m. D.C. time, 11:30 a.m. Utah time! :) We flew eight hours to Frankfurt, had a four hour layover then flew eight hours to Addis. It took about a half hour to go through customs. When we went into the Diplomat customs line, there was a man with a sign with Jeff Wright written on it - I waved very enthusiastically letting him know that YES! The Wright's have MADE IT! He was a very nice man, (can't remember his name) but he got us through Customs and outside to meet Dave (Jeff's boss) and Melaku (our driver). He drove us to our current hotel. The very next morning they had Melaku pick us up and take us to the Embassy. We went through a series of briefings - that I will never remember because I was so dead and jet-lagged! I wish they had given me a couple of days to sleep! But it has paid off because of those briefings we are able to access our unaccompanied baggage and commissary! Thank you Dave! They told us that it takes the same amount of days to get over jet-lag as time zones (7) and it's true! It's just been over a week and I feel like I am rested. The altitude is about 8000 feet, so I am having a hard time catching my breath. I went up my first set of stairs yesterday and it took it all out of me! The health unit told us that it could be three months before we got used to breathing here.


Our first Sunday we went to the Bangladesh Branch. It has about 75 members of which about 50 attend. The meeting is in English and is translated to Amharic. They had eight missionaries in our branch, but were told that two were called on a mission and before they go they serve in this area for a month or so. They usually only have six. Dave and Annette were in this branch, but he has been called to serve as a Branch President in another area :( Brother Leishman is the Bekalobet Branch President. He stopped by Jeff's office and asked Jeff if I wouldn't mind serving in the Relief Society for support. They had a baptism after church that day. The baptismal font was a metal box they used a ladder to get in and out of. The water was freezing and the young women getting baptized was terribly cold!
But the LDS Church in Addis is growing rapidly! 

Ethiopia Here We Come!

We have a date! Jeff, Seth and I are to be in Ethiopia by September 25th!