Week 63 Nafplio Corinth and Mars Hill

This week Elder Klestrup and Elder Teal have been among other things, assisting President and Sister Heder to host  a visiting General Authority of the church. Elder Hamula , who serves as member of the First quorum of the Seventy and was accompanied by his wife and Brother Neilson the Assistant Church Historian. Their visit was part of a tour of church history sites.

Their tour took in Nafplio a coastal town to the south of Corinth, Corinth and Mars Hill. 

As Elder Teal pointed out in his emails, church history predates Joseph Smith. The group visited places the apostle Paul had been

"We were the first stop on a Church History Tour, which are conducted by representatives from the Church History Department twice a year, about the time of General Conference. They'll also be going to Turkey and Albania"

Nafplio

 

  

 

 

 

 Corinth

 

 

Mars Hill

 

There were far too many pictures to include all of them this week. More can be found HERE

Yesterday the saints in Greece and Cyprus watched last last weeks General Conference broadcast

"It was really strange to watch conference and have it be my own voice for some of the talks. You know how when you hear your voice recorded and you don't think it sounds like you? Try it when you're speaking a different language! I kept kind of forgetting it was me talking and then realising again, it was so weird. 

We watched the two Sunday sessions, and I'll read the rest in the conference issue of the Ensign if you'll be able to send it to me? We'll get the Liahona here for the apartment but I'd like to have my own copy."

Other News

"We're at the minute coming up with Standards of Excellence which we will set for the mission, and goals that will stretch us and raise our faith. We'll discuss it in MLC (mission leadership council) on Wednesday"

"Unfortunately we didn't have any lessons this week, between a small teaching pool and having very little time, we weren't able to schedule any lessons."

 There is always time to share the gospel though as this journal extract shows...

"We got up early to get ready but we were running a bit late to meet President and Sister Heder. We went to get fuel for the van and it turned out that it was perfect that we were a bit late as the woman that was working there had met missionaries before and was keen to learn more so gave me her phone number in the 30 seconds it took me to pay for the fuel. It was a great reminder that when you're on the Lords errand and doing your best, you'll always be in the right place at the right time." 

We asked Elder Teal to share his reasons for serving a mission, his reply 

"I think my reasons for serving a mission have developed and gotten deeper as I've been serving. Before, I knew it was my priesthood duty and it was something I really wanted to do, but as I've been here it's become something I'm doing because of my love for the Lord and Heavenly Father. I've realised the happiness and comfort that comes from knowledge of the gospel (and I mean the actual gospel, faith, repentance, baptism, holy ghost, endure to the end, not the general use of the word), and of the Plan of Salvation, are things that most people simply don't have in their lives. I do have them, and I want other people to as well. I've also seen people change their lives for the better, and it's the most fulfilling and meaningful thing I've ever done by far."

Week 39 Athens, Corinth and Thessaloniki

"The Temple of Zeus the Olympian" Apparently if you leave the Acropolis chapel, cross the road and into the park you come across this rather grand historic site. Construction started in the 6th centenary  BC and it was intended to rival the more famous Parthenon. For various reasons the temple was not completed until around 132 AD but its glory was short lived and it was in ruins by 267 AD. Much of the stone being used to build churches and houses around Athens. More HERE

In other news Elder Teal went on splits with the missionaries serving in the Piraeus district of Athens. "I was in Piraeus for one night this week as Elder Velasquez (our DL) had an exchange with Elder Burton here in Agio Dimitrio so I took his place in the threesome over there. I really like that area, it's very pretty, and there are lots of busy areas for street contacting"

Elder Mead and Elder Donker

Coming up this week, he is going back to Thessaloniki to spend some time working with the missionaries there. 

One of the roles of a Zone Leader.

"Tomorrow (Tuesday) afternoon we fly to Thessaloniki for exchanges! We'll be there until Friday morning, so will each have two exchanges whilst we're there, one day with Elder Deighton and one with Elder Clarke. We're looking forward to it! "

"We had so many small miracles as usual, but I wanted to share one in particular. We met a man on the metro earlier in the week and got his phone number, but were never able to reach him on the phone. A couple of days ago we were door knocking in a completely different area, and who should open the door but the very same man! It was incredible, such a huge city and we found him in his house!"

"This week we had a lesson with H, the French speaking guy who's learning with the Sisters, but we had a lesson with him as well, it's a complicated story! But he's doing really well and loving everything that he's learning, and is very excited to get baptised on May 2nd! Wooo!

We also had a second lesson with A, who is the man who has parents in America who are church members, He is Christian Orthodox and knows a lot about it, but is very open to learn. He speaks very high Greek and it's great practice for my Greek, I love it! We had a really good lesson, and he's going to come to church on Sunday"

We haven't had any food news recently, but this week we have.

"Some Greek food we cooked ourselves at home this week from scratch, 

but we bought the pittas and fried them ourselves"

"We had a nice chat with a man who said, since you've given me a gift (The Book of Mormon), I will give you a spiritual thought and proceeded to talk briefly about the change that Saul/Paul went through. I think this mission is quite unique in the way that it's people are so religious, within a minute of talking to someone you can have jumped to quite a complex theological topic sometimes"

"We had a nice conversation with a woman from Kenya and I said the only phrase I know in Swahili which she liked a lot... Akuna matata, it means no worries !"

"Both of our talks went really well Elder Burton did a great job to say it was his first time, he spoke for 10 minutes" (Sunday Sacrament meeting in Greek)