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| Elder Tornar said this outfit was "very British", so I had him take a picture |
"It's been great, we had 5 new investigators.
We had 3 in church, and hopefully we'll have even more next week.
We've been really blessed this week! We weren't able to have a lesson with our Lawyer friend but he was at church with his wife for the first time in 8 years of contact with the church, so that was great!
We also had another man at church who has a baptismal date as well and is progressing really well towards it already We had a lesson on Monday with a couple from Nigeria, and the husband is a pastor in the Pentecostal church, and he had a couple of concerns about if the Book of Mormon detracts from the Bible, so we'll talk to him about that again.
And our new investigator C. has some different beliefs, but as we teach and bear testimony you can see in his eyes that he believes what we teach, and is changing already. It's like in the Book of Mormon when King Lamoni tells Ammon that he will believe all of his words. We teach in English so that Elder West can be the member present more easily, but at one point in the second lesson I had the impression to bear my testimony in Greek and tell him that God loves him and is so happy with the progress he's making, and I could tell that it meant a lot to him, it was so amazing."
"I also enjoyed translating on Sunday, especially in Sunday School. Studying the New Testament has helped me to learn lots of words and phrases that sound really good, and I was able to use some of them this week"
"Our Teaching Pool isn't a puddle anymore, It's turning into a teaching ocean!"
"A group of stray dogs joined us for our white boarding on Tuesday, they weren't interested though unfortunately"
"So yesterday we helped Brother Todi with his FamilySearch.org as it doesn't exist in Greek, and he's not great with computers anyway. We put in the information he had and requested ordinances for when he goes to the temple with the Tantos later in the month. We were able to request 8 B,C,I,E and 3 marriages, as well as 3 sealings to parents, it was so amazing! He was really happy and grateful afterwards, and said to me that we have "put a stone into the building of his family's salvation", which meant a lot"
As Latter-Day Saints we believe that ordinances such as Baptism and Eternal Marriages need to be performed for our ancestors on their behalf. This is a Vicarious work, it does not mean that our ancestors have to accept the ordinances, but it gives them the choice. Interestingly although we are the only faith that does this, the idea is not unusual, just forgotten The title Vicar comes from the same root and a time when working on someone else's behalf was more common.
"The bikes on the front balcony, thought you might
be interested to see them. We've been using them a lot more recently"
Journals. We love that Elder Teal wants to share so much of his mission. Each week he takes pictures of each days journal entry and emails them to us. He doesn't write with the intention of sharing or blogging, so often we get to see more of his daily life and feelings. As he continues to serve he is seeing success for his weeks of obedience and finding. He has always tried to live mission rules with exactness believing it would bring blessings. He is happy for us to select bits to share here.
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"I love this country, this language, these people and I am so indescribably happy."
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"We dropped Elder Tornars suit jacket off at a dry cleaning place, and whist we were there the lady asked Elder Tornar where he was from. I then said, and I'm from England, and she was really surprised. She said she had assumed I was Greek from my accent, which I was incredibly happy about afterwards. A goal I had for this transfer was to be easily mistaken for being a Greek, so that there exists no communication barrier at all, and I’m starting to get there."
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"...we carried on and I asked an old lady if she knew the address. She went out of her way to walk us right to the door, and we had a lovely chat as we walked. She gave us her phone number which we will pass to the Sister missionaries, and left us by wishing Gods protection for us and lots of other nice things. Once inside the building we couldn't find the man we were looking for so we knocked a door to ask. The man who answered didn’t know him either, so we told him about the message and he gave us a phone number and said we should come again when he’s not as busy"
