The week has been good. It’s been weird trying to settle into a new area and especially since we don’t have a translator which makes things very hard because the words I can say in Amharic don’t lead to any personal connection. I hope we get some members or a local to start working with us soon. We’ve also been traveling daily from Shashemene to Awasa as they are getting a new house to move into. They found a new house, which is the picture I’m sending you and it’s very nice! It’s about two floors with a balcony on the third floor with an amazing view. It’s very large and will be a nice place to crash in the evenings.

Sunday Elder C and I stayed in Shashemene for the service there since we needed someone to run it. There were only 13 people there, all members, because there were no missionaries there at all to invite people or do any teaching which is kind of a bummer. There were only 20 in Awasa though which has 4 missionaries teaching all the time… I don’t know why it’s struggling so much but we hope to see that number at least double by the end of the next couple of weeks.

Today we were able to play some rugby again but the Ethiopians still didn’t understand the rules. I was surprised to see that they were doing worse on the rules than they were last week haha. It was fun and is giving me a good exercise on top of the 30 minutes I’m doing in the mornings.

The work is going well and I hope to be able to do my best to get things better than when I found them. I just want you all to know I love you and that I can’t wait to see you all soon. Keep the faith. Be awesome. And make good decisions. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do (and don’t do some things I probably would do). Haha playing.

Elder Welch