Often new missionaries have the chance to visit Mars Hill as part of their induction, due to delayed flights this wasn't possible for Elder Burton. So Elder Teal took him to see the site mentioned in the Book of Acts as a P-Day activity last Monday. The weather wasn't brilliant and it was a little quiet, they were however stopped for a chat by an American LDS family who hadn't realised there were missionaries in Athens.
"It's been a good week! We had one lesson with a man called K, and it went quite well, but he had a lot of questions about things he'd read on the internet. If nothing else he left the lesson wanting to learn more, and he said that he's searching for the truth, so that's a good place to start!
I'm really enjoying being back in Athens, it feels like the heart of the mission where the most things are going on, and you get to see the other missionaries a lot as well. I also love being in the Greek branch, I had a talk yesterday and it went really well, it was great to just be able to speak Greek without having to wait for the translation as well!
My clothes and things are fine, but today I think I will buy some trainers for running. Elder Burton likes to run and I want to get back into shape (I've ran once my whole mission), and although we do a lot of exercise with weights I'm pretty sure my cardiovascular fitness isn't that great. When I ran in my flat Adidas shoes it hurt my feet quite a lot, so I want to buy some better ones today.
And I'm going to get another shirt out of my suitcase which is in storage, as I only have seven with me. But I have spares in my suitcase so it's fine. And all my other clothes are fine as well, but I think I will buy another cardigan at some point as it gets warmer and I won't be wearing my coat,
The weather is getting better, and the forecast for this week is looking great!
I haven't had any packages yet, but I may get some this week as I will be going to the other district's district meeting to see how they're doing, and the Assistants are in that district so I'll ask them to bring my mail with them.
I was the final speaker at church on Sunday, the topic of Missionary Work. I shared some scriptures and sections from PMG, and it went great!
The branch is bigger than Thessaloniki, but not huge, I'm not sure in terms of numbers.
We will watch General Conference on the 12th in Halandri Chapel. I'm not sure what language it will be in, I'd like for it to be in Greek though and we will have a meal together with all of the members afterwards!
The highlight was probably my talk, or the lady that gave out sweets in the street, you can read about that in my journal!"
"As we approached the apartment we met a man who said he knew us. I explained how we have transfers and that the old missionaries had left. He was a really nice old man, he just kept saying over and over that we're such nice guys, greetings to your parents, may your siblings live long, may we all have health and love, and other Greek niceties that are funny when translated into English."
"At one point we were talking to a man when a little old lady came up and sad "sweets, sweets" (In Greek) and gave each of us a sweet. The man we were talking to seemed to know who she was, so he was laughing as we had a really funny conversation with her. She said she couldn't read but wanted to take a copy of The Book of Mormon anyway, saying that her children will read it to her. When I asked why she was giving out sweets she said "to sweeten the world!" The whole conversation was hilarious, she was such a sweet crazy old lady. It's at times like that I absolutely love being on a mission, there's no other way you'd get to have such funny experiences with so many weird and wonderful people. We got the Metro back and at the stop there were a few guys from Senegal, selling shoes and handbags. I had a conversation with a couple of them in French."
"At the mission home.. There was a funny moment when we 4 missionaries accidentally locked ourselves out, in the back garden, when we went out to look at the (empty) pool, and President came down to find us all standing there on the outside of the glass door,"
Finally in this week running up to Easter we would love you to watch this 2 minute video that speaks of the reason we celebrate. This is part of a series of media that the church has produced in 2015.
Click HERE to see events in Jesus Christs final week.
