"December in Greece, orange trees everywhere, and sun over the sea. It's still freezing though!"
Teaching update..
"We had to drop G unfortunately. He wasn't progressing and didn't want to keep commitments, and at the end of the day didn't really believe the things we were telling him, he just thought they were nice lessons. He also has a lot of anger because he's had a difficult life and it's made him a bit disillusioned with everything. We told him he has the tools now, he has the Book of Mormon, he knows how to pray, he knows where the church is and he has the missionaries number, it's down to him when he is ready to actually make changes in his life.
B is still doing well. The only problem is with him coming to church, because he has responsibilities in his own church. He needs to understand Priesthood Authority and that it was lost and restored, that's his main obstacle at the minute. He really likes to focus on and talk about the grace of Christ, and wasn't a big fan of the scripture that says by grace we are saved after all we can do. He said it makes it seem like we have to earn grace, when really it's something that we are all given freely. I explained that what he calls grace we call the enabling power of the Atonement, and that Christ enables us to do all we can do, and then still makes up the difference when it's not enough. He really liked it, and I think it was a breakthrough moment for him.
This week we made a big effort with street contacting. In District Meeting last week we talked about how we can use the Book of Mormon better in order to turn our large number of copies given out into large numbers of lessons. As a result we tried a few new strategies with the book in contacting. I tried asking questions with answers that I could show people from scriptures, and it went quite well. For example
Why are we here on Earth? (Alma 34:32)
What is most important to you in life? (Alma 46:12)
What is something you learnt from your parents? (Enos 1:1)
It went really well! We also showed people the picture of Jesus visiting the Nephites and asked what they thought was happening.
We would then explain what was actually happening!"
From Home
We had managed to find a pop up nativity to send to Elder Teal
which appears to have made it safely to Thess.
"My little Christmas display, card from the First Presidency, and my bookshelf"
Light entertainment !
Due to Elder Lyttel being off colour on Sunday they spent the day in the apartment, seems missionaries find strange things to do, when they take time out !
"Fashion show of awful outfits based on the polo shirt Elder Lyttel bought in Cyprus for 50 cents"
"Apple face I carved whilst Elder Lyttel was ill yesterday (Sunday)
and we were inside all day.
He's fine now"
Elder Teal did confess to us that his fashion expertise let him down, when he arrived at a district meeting mistakenly wearing the jacket from one suit with the trousers from another ! !
Finally
Last week I asked Elder Teal to share his Testimony in Greek.
So if you understand Greek, this is for you.
As always clicking on a picture will make it bigger, some you may not want to though, this week !!!
