Seek out the lost ! Well they thought there was only one MacDonalds in Greece, but they found another. (There is probably several just not in the areas missionaries cover.)
Mission Life
"it's been good! We've done a lot of street contacting haha, we only had 2 lessons unfortunately! It was a good week though and we've worked hard. There were a couple of days when we had 6 or 7 hours of street contacting, which is very tiring physically!
Our teaching pool is more of a puddle if I'm honest, we don't have many people to teach at the minute. We do have one family who we're excited about, and they have three young daughters. We had one lesson with them and went back for a second but they were busy and asked us to come back next week.
We also had a lesson with a Muslim man (he had to have an interview first with President Everitt), but he isn't really interested in changing, he just wants to learn academically. That's not why we're here though, so we won't be teaching him anymore. He came to church yesterday which was great though, and he's a really nice man, he's from Syria. He was a teacher/economist there and has fled from the civil war. He also got separated from his family who are still in Syria. Hopefully he will continue to come to church and when his mind has been opened he will be ready to learn.
That's so great that you'll be baptizing someone! I know it's not the measure of success but I really hope I'll be able to have at least one baptism whilst I'm here. just to help be a part in such a life changing event in someone's life. I was a witness at Artemis' baptism in Thess but it wasn't us that taught her so it wasn't really the same. I also had a baptismal interview in my role as District Leader yesterday, which was a big responsibility. It went well and the man will be getting baptised on Saturday all being well! He has been being taught by Elders Morgan and Dickenson in Peirias."
Note,
All around the world, the responsibility to determine if someone is prepared for baptism, always rests with the missionaries in leadership positions, rather than the local church leaders.
Ilion (North West Athens) A little cold but much better than last week
Church
"We were in the Greek and English branches yesterday, in order to be in the English branch for our Muslim friend. We don't have as much to do no, the members teach usually in the Greek branch. It's nice because I can just enjoy it, and it's also a great way for me to learn more Greek!"
The Greek speaking Branch Elder Teal is assigned to meets in the morning and the English speaking branch meets in the same building in the afternoon.. They have both as a significant number of church members in Greece do not speeak Greek as a first language.
Highlight
"I really enjoyed my exchange with Elder Morgan this week, it was a really good day. We had some good finding experiences. Spiritual highlight would probably be yesterday in the baptismal interview, the interviewee left the room and myself and Dimitris (from the Branch Presidency) prayed to know if he was ready. And he was!"
Favourite Scripture
"I like the scriptures from chapter 43 (I think, you should check), of Alma, where it talks about Moroni preparing his many with armour, and then inquiring of the prophet where they should go. If we prepare physically and spiritually, we cannot fail!"
"I really like the section in Preach My Gospel as well at the end of chapter 9, where it talks about how No Effort Is Wasted, we have raised a warning voice, and we have done what is required of us "
Next Transfers
Elder Seluhin completes his 2 years of missionary service in 10 days so there will be more changes.
"He goes into the office on the 22nd which is a Thursday, and then he will go home on the following Monday. All the going home missionaries will have some fun activities and trips with the President in their last couple of days, so I'll probably get my new companion on the 22nd, but I have no idea where I'll be! I could be here or maybe even in Cyprus, i have no idea! I think it's more likely however that they'll reshuffle things here in Athens and I'll stay here. As 4 elders are leaving it also means that 2 proselyting areas will have to close again for a time, I don't know which they'll be though."
Finally
We love receiving comments on the blog, and wanted to make them easy to find in the future, so we have created a page for them all to be collected to you can find them HERE or have you noticed the Menu bar across the top of the blog? There are lots of pages to look at including Teals, Mission Boundaries, The Church in Greece/Cyprus and more.
