Ethiopian Winnie the Pooh

Hello everyone!

I won't clickbait you this week, I'll get straight to the title. 

One of our favorite friends is an old guy from Ethiopia. He calls us on the phone almost every day, and his voice sounds exactly like Winnie the Pooh. My companions told me that in my first week and I thought it was funny, but actually talking to him I realized that they were 100% right. He's super sweet and nice and he gets really excited when we call. He calls us "the ambassadors". We don't know what he looks like because he has a flip phone and we haven't met in person. He is old and forgets some things we teach, but is really receptive to the gospel. We can't go to his apartment because of Covid restrictions but we can meet at the church, but we've never successfully got him there, he has always cancelled last minute. We really want to get him the Book of Mormon! He was really excited when we said we had one in Amharic. There are so many Ethiopian restaurants and markets here, we want to try it some day but our friend said it was really spicy so I'm a little scared. 
Our ward boundaries changed so we have to pass him off eventually and we're so sad about it! :'(

Last P day after I wrote my email we went to Jones point park, at the Potomac river, then we walked halfway across the bridge to Maryland (the other half is out of our mission). I have some great pictures. 

We did service this week at our usual place, habitat for humanity restore, and we also went somewhere new! We helped at a food distribution drive though, putting boxes of food in people's cars. It makes me really sad to see how many people need extra food for their families and I am grateful that I have food.

We had a training about using Facebook. We will start finding on Facebook rather than tracting. Until now, our only source of finding has been referrals or calling random people in our area book or in our phone contacts. I don't have access to my Facebook yet because I'm new and need to do a training first. Our area page is "Come unto Christ Mount Vernon" and we make content for it every week. We made a pretty good video this week but had to change the music because of copyright issues. Side note- did you know Owl City has Christian songs? I didn't until my companion played them. 

Sister Harrison and I want to go to a new restaurant every Friday. There are so many authentic foreign restaurants. This week we went to an Italian kitchen that was close but a little too expensive. Google maps said it was one money sign (Google's rating of 'less expensive')... We shared an entree of spinach ravioli and it was really good.

We have a golden referral! His name is Firas and he is from Iraq. His manager at work is a member and he was really interested and they talked a lot about the church. He's great! He reads the Book of Mormon every day, with the Arabic version and the English version side by side. Yesterday was the first day we had a lesson with him, the elders, his manager who referred him, and a member who speaks Arabic. His English is really good, but he feels more comfortable when she's there because she understands his culture and background. It went really well! He had a list of questions about specific verses he read (he's in 4th nephi!) Well we were going to teach about the Doctrine of Christ but his questions took up the whole time, for an hour! The member kept going way in depth about his questions, like about the nephites being destroyed and the lamanites and native Americans, family history and the vaults in salt lake, 3 nephites, etc... after the lesson was over Sister Harrison said, "members like him are great, but it's like feeding a baby a steak." You can't just give a baby a steak to eat, they need nutrients and soft food then work their way up to steak. We still need to teach him basic doctrine! We are so excited to teach him. The sister who speaks Arabic gave the prayer and I understood none of it but felt the spirit super strong! Also I mentioned our ward boundaries changed, this new friend is in the part we gained! It's a miracle. 

It was my birthday yesterday and it was great. We had chocolate cake and chocolate ice cream. Twenty! Double digits! hehe

That's all!
Love, 
Hermana/Sister Smalley

Pictures! I've got quite a few pictures. One of my weekly goals was to take at least a picture a day. 















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