October 27, 2014

It is good to hear that from America to Asia it is far. So they worship on Saturday there?  Hopefully one day I will watch. Wow! Sounds like a good bike ride. Three days?! Wow. It is not easy, yeah, it is too hard for both of you. Try small, but not too much. Mt Everest is a big mountain. It sounds like a nice trip. We had somehow good week. Just trying to find new people to teach. One of our investigators is looking forward to her baptism, but she sells alcohol and because her husband doesn't want to stop selling, so for her she said I don't want to get baptized. Now because I will baptize if she stops selling alcohol, she is talking with her husband about that. We will follow up, but we are praying that he will understand her.  I want to share a lot but because of time I am going out. We have zone activity. We are going to have FME with our Bishop and his family. Thank you so much for all things. Say hello to all.  Please enjoy your time in India. 

Love much

Elder Birresa  

October 20, 2014

I understand sometimes you will be busy. Don't worry. I will keep sending my weekly letter. Wow! It is so good to travel. I hope you will love India. For me, I love their music. No package yet, but I know I will get it soon.  You know what? My last companion just received a package and he said God bless my family! You don't know how much it makes us happy to have something special from our family.  Now it is my turn to say GOD BLESS MY FAMILY! Thank you so much for everything. You are so special to me. We are trying to take members with us to our investigators. We will continue to do that with the members in our ward. We are having a wonderful time in our area finding new people to teach. There are many who are waiting for us. We really had wonderful week. We baptized Brother Philip and we are looking forward to baptize others us well.  We did contact with the Book of Mormon this past week. It was nice. Many people went to know more about the Book of Mormon. It is chance for us to share our message at the same time using church materials, like DVD. One of our investigators is looking forward for her marriage, but she wants to be baptized first, then to be married. Her marriage day is  6 of November. She talked to Bishop about that. We talked with her and hold baptismal date in the 4th of November. Her husband is coming from Austria. She and we want him to be there in the baptismal program so he will be witness. He is not a member but she is working on him to help him to understand about the Gospel. I hope things will be okay for him. We have other investigators as well, as we are working on them, and we have one family. They really like our teaching and understand but, you know, sometimes many people, they know it is true but they don't want. Except I really don't like dropping people when they know it is true. They went to join the church but the husband, he doesn't want to be baptized. He is telling us that this church is not the only true church in this earth. I don't want to drop them, but they are dropping themselves. We are planning to see them for the last time, then to drop them. We are praying that they may understand why we need them, but  I know they will get baptized one day. We met another new family, a mother and her 2 children. We visited them yesterday after church. They provide there local food for us, we enjoyed it. We had good Sunday today. We went to shop food.  I met my next companion, he is nice guy, good missionary. It is good to do that. She is going to school at BYU? That is good. Wow! So good to run. I like running. I am not really that much good. You know we have great run 2 times every year in Ethiopia. More than 35000 people will run Ethiopia. It's a  great run. I hope you will come there and run with me one day. You will love it. It was so nice.  I did last year, and it is so fun. Yeah, I  am looking forward to take care of myself and my family. It is not easy to do that in Ethiopia because life is so hard. To get a job the payment is not really good. You know in U.S. at least $7.5 an hour. In Ethiopia to get this you have to get your degree.  But I will never give up. I will do my best to overcome all things with my GOD. You and your whole family are so special for me. Always you will be my mom, my family and grandmother to my future children. Thank you so much for being good for me. Please give my love to all.

Love more

Elder Birresa 

October 13, 2014

Hello!  I hope all is well with all of you. I am  still waiting for my  package but hopefully  I will get it this coming week. For me it was very good week finding new people to teach. We are blessed always with new investigators to teach. We find family, they are very interested about the Gospel. We contact the husband on Thursday and talk with him small and meet him again on Friday. We spend small time with him  and we invited him to worship with us. I just invited him because  I have to. I was surprises when he come to church with his wife and children. They enjoyed it. We are going to see them again on Wednesday. Even we had other investigators. She is so nice. She is looking for the truth. She has a baptismal date on 16 of November. Hopefully we will help her to be baptized. Even she is keeping the commitment.  We have five people in sacrament meeting, even our mission president attend with us. All the meeting that was nice to see him in our ward. He is nice mission president, we have baptism next Saturday. His name is Philip. He is 19 years old. We had lesson with since July, now he is ready to be baptized.  We lose Joseph because of his family, his wife and his mom against the church even he wants to be baptized. But it is not good, so we talk with him so  we will see  for the future. He will be baptized one day, maybe in this life or next life. For Eric we try to help him but he is not helping himself.  He know that he have to be baptized and leave his church but he don't want to do that. So for last time we are planing to see him this week. We had zone conference last Tuesday. It was nice meeting talking about the Book Of Mormon. We have to use the Book Of Mormon when we teach. I really like teaching from the Book Of Mormon. It is nice and simple to understand. Even  we are teaching from Doctrine &Covenants. It was nice. No one is going to stop us to testify about the truth. I got athletes foot .  It is not  easy thing, too much walking.  I change my socks every day and wish  my foot every night and morning, but it will be okay. I hope so. We are working with this people for now, but we  keeping looking for those who are ready but the world is getting bad every day. I saw some news talk about the new  Marburg, a virus similar to Ebola, has hit the radar in the African country of Uganda. I don't now what that means. It is very close to Ethiopia. Sound like we are in the latter days. We pray that all will be okay.

LOVE

Elder Birresa  

October 6, 2014

Wow! Sound good. Not yet, but maybe we will watch soon. I remember we watch the last conference after three weeks, but I love watching the conference. Sometimes even missionaries in our apartment  have  ipod  downloaded with the past conference.  We enjoyed watching together.  That was nice for me, I just listen because it new for me. When I was home I will just watch conference from 2010. Gone before. Not much. I have long way to go. It always new for me, but I love watching general conference. That is good. So what is his name?  How old is he? I am sorry. It is not easy to lose anyone. But it is good to be ready all the time for everything. Is that every year or just sometimes? It is good to talk and help them to save each other that is good. That is good to do that. I have been there one time with Jason, it was nice. So are you planing to go back there again?  What are you thinking? How do you want to help them? Maybe small about my week, we had transfers on Wednesday, so we went at the office on Tuesday. My formal companion used the time to visit the members and investigators. We try to find new people after Wednesday. We had nice lesson with Emmanuel and his wife. We watched the restoration DVD. They are really happy about all things. After, we asked them if they believe in the Book Of Mormon as scripture and another testament of Jesus Christ. They believe on it and they said yes, they received their answer. For they pray and then he visited us yesterday. For her, she somehow busy, but she will come next week and we are going take them with us to the members house. Today for family home evening we will go at 6pm.  We had 3 investigators at the sacrament meeting yesterday. That is small about my week. I did not get my package yet.   I hope  I will get soon. It takes more than two weeks to reach here from there. Thank you so much for your love and care as family.   I really want share with you about my week but the connection is soon bad. It takes three hours  to write this letter. Say hello to all.  I can't wait to hear the general conference. Wow, sounds good. Thank you so much.

Love

Elder Birresa (Jote)