I went upstairs to the bunk room, and sure enough, he was locked in the bathroom. There is a knob inside of the bathroom that you twist to lock the dead bolt, and then on the outside, you use a key. He had turned the knob, and taken a shower. When he turned the knob the other direction to unlock it, the knob turned, but the bolt didn't move. I have about 100 keys in the mission home, but I only know what a handful of them are used for. I brought up my bucket of keys, and one by one, we tried all of them. There were a couple that seemed like they might work, but ultimately, we were out of luck. The missionaries were all so helpful. They tried to remove the door handle, which came off, but still did not move the bolt from it's locked position. They were worried about how Elder Trippe was holding up, and so a few of them started singing hymns to him through the door. At one point, they all stood together and said a prayer that we would be able to get the door open. There is a small window over the door, and we thought about breaking the glass and having him climb out over the door, but there is also a metal bar that runs right through the middle, and the space would have been too narrow to fit him through. There is almost no space between the bottom of the door and the floor. You could only fit a piece of paper of a small card through the crack.
Missionaries doing what they can to help and comfort their brother.
After using all the options we could think of, President Collings made a phone call the the Church FM Manager. He sent Edward over to take care of this for us. I felt so bad. By the time he came Elder Trippe had been in there for an hour. It was 11:30 at night. We went through all the options we had tried, and even looked at cutting the bar at the top of the door... no luck. We decided to try to pass tools to him through the window. This room is on the second floor of the mission home. All the windows have bars welded to them. The missionaries took a long PVC pipe and attached a hammer to it. They raised the pipe up to the open window where Elder Trippe could reach it. They did that again with a screwdriver, and pliers. Then Edward instructed Elder Trippe on how to remove the pins from the hinges on the door. The pins were very stiff, and we weren't sure if it was even possible to get them out. After a lot of hammering, twisting, and pulling, the pins were removed. All the missionaries pushed on the door, and it came open!! We were all so happy. He had been stuck in there for two hours.
Edward, taking the time to come at 11:30 PM.
He's out!!
During the process I somehow promised Elder Trippe that if he could get himself out, I would make him some homemade brownies. He did it, and wouldn't let me forget my promise. This was 12:30 at night, but because of other things going on, I wasn't ready to sleep anyway. I went ahead and made a pan of brownies to celebrate.In the meantime, we had other issues we were dealing with. As I said earlier, President Collings had been doing interviews of some of the zones. Earlier that day he interviewed Masaka Zone. They finished interviews at around 3:00. The Zone Leaders stayed at the mission home to attend MLC the next day, but the other missionaries went back to Masaka. There were not enough vehicles for all of them to drive back to Masaka, so some of them took a bus. Five of them took a truck and started the trip back to Masaka. The driver had never driven that route before, but two of the elders riding with him had been in Masaka for a few transfers and knew the way. There is one important turn that you need to take to get to Masaka. It's one that if you miss it, you will end up in Fort Portal, which is directly West, and near the border of the Democratic Republic of Congo. (President Collings and I accidentally took the wrong turn at the beginning of our mission. you can follow this LINK to read about that adventure) Well, apparently the right road was blocked, and the missionaries thought they could just go another route and would make it back to the right road.
Fast forward a few hours. I know they had been communicating with their zone leaders all along, but these missionaries finally called President Collings. It was 10:00 pm, and they were lost. President asked them if they could tell him what town they were near so he could look it up on GPS. They said they were on a dirt road, there were no towns or villages around, and no people to ask. He told them to stop the first person they saw and get some answers. Well, throughout the next couple of hours we found out that they had taken the route that leads to Fort Portal. I don't think they realized they were on the wrong road for a couple of hours. They decided that instead of turning around and retracing their steps, they would just turn off the road and hopefully find a dirt road that connected to the road they needed. The road they needed was going directly South, and they were going directly West. When we figured out where they were, they were 50 kilometers northwest of Masaka on a dirt road. They had a good two hours drive before they would make it to Masaka. We made sure their level of gas was okay and spoke with them on the phone several times an hour just to make sure everything was okay. President Collings and I finally went to bed at 2:15 am, after the missionaries were safe and sound in their own apartments. We decided that this was going to be an extra special Mission Leadership Council because of all the weird distractions we had leading up to it.
6:30 came too soon the next morning. It was the day of Mission Leadership Council, and it was a great day. President Collings focused his training on the October 2014 Conference talk by Elder Lynn G Robbins, titled Which Way do You Face? Follow this LINK to read it for yourself. He taught the leaders how to help those they lead and do it the Lord's way. Not fearing man more than God. He showed examples of how to correct with love. Then he spoke about the importance of obeying the mission rules. Any time we choose to do our own will over the will of God, we are boasting. We must be willing to accept the counsel from our leaders and be willing to repent and change. If we are doing it ourselves, those we have stewardship over will see by our example and will begin to change as well.
Our Sister Training Leader, Sister Mutamburigwa taught on Setting Prayerful Goals, and introduced a new Standard of Excellence for the mission. She said as we set our goals in harmony with the Savior's command, we are helping to bring to pass Heavenly Father's Goal which is stated in Moses 1:39. She talked about relying on the Spirit, and focusing goals on our Key Indicators.
Elder Yemoh, one of our Assistants to the President talked about Relying on the Spirit. He said that having the right to the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost must always be our ultimate quest. As the Lord's servant, missionaries are to do His work in His way and by His power. Then he talked about being equally yoked with the Spirit. Size and strength are not enough, we need to have unity between the companionship and the Spirit.
Elder Barrington, our other Assistant to the President talked about Using Time Wisely. He asked each of the missionaries to ponder these questions and write down their answer to keep with them until the end of their mission: What do you want to say you have done as a missionary? What do you want to have become? What differences do you want others to notice in you? Then he asked how using time wisely relates to what we want to become as missionaries. This is the time to choose and work towards becoming who we want to become.
We had a lot of great input from all the missionaries, and we felt like they were all edified and uplifted.
Mission Leadership Council February 2018
We arrived Friday evening, with just enough time to get some sleep. Saturday morning we went to the church in preparation for the meetings. I was able to introduce my parents to the missionaries, and show them around the compound. My mom took this picture of me standing in front of the mission office in Addis Ababa.
Elder Wright meeting the missionaries
On Saturday we had three sessions of District Conference. There was a Priesthood Leadership session, and at the same time a Women's Auxiliary Session. During the Auxiliary session, we heard from the District Relief Society President, the District Young Women President, and then I got to speak. There were women representing every branch and every organization, which was wonderful to see. The priesthood session was well attended, and the men had a very good discussion. The spirit of the meeting was very good. That afternoon we had the Adult Session, and then Sunday morning was the General Session. The main focus of the meetings were preparing ourselves spiritually to attend the temple, and reading the Book of Mormon. There were about 175 people in attendance, and the Spirit was wonderful. There are really strong members of the church in Ethiopia!
A wonderful experience I wanted to share. A few weeks ago we were in Debre Zeit. I have previously told this story, but we found out there is more to it. While sitting in sacrament meeting, President Collings said a silent prayer, asking that they could have a miracle in that branch on that day. His prayer was answered as 4 people just came in off the street and asked to know more about the church. Each of them said that they just felt impressed to come into that building, and didn't know why. He felt like that experience alone was the miracle that he had prayed for, as several of them were baptized. After the meetings that day, there was a woman who requested that he give her a priesthood blessing. She had had some serious abdominal pain, and it had caused her issues for quite some time. The doctors were unable to help her. We went together into a room where President Collings was able to give her a blessing. He didn't hear from her anymore until District Conference. She was there at the meeting, and told him that she had been completely healed. President Collings didn't realize it until Sunday, but that day in Debre Zeit, there were two miracles! Heavenly Father really does answer our prayers, when we pray in faith.
After the General session, we went out and took a District Photograph. We took it on the side of the church building and had to do a panoramic photo because there were so many people there. I stood back as far as I could, and still had to stand on a chair to get everyone in the picture.
Elder and Sister Wright
On Saturday, we wanted to let my parents experience a little of the Ethiopian culture. We took them to dinner at a cultural center where they were able to eat injera with all the wot (or sauces/stews) that goes with it, and they were able to watch musicians, singers, and dancers perform different pieces from the tribes all over Ethiopia.
Funny thing about my parents. It seems like everywhere I try to take them, they end up on stage, dancing! Not sure how that works, but it's pretty fun to see.
