Week 60

Clicking on any of the pictures will enlarge them.

 

 

 

 

This week Elder Teal and Elder Dixon had the privilege of being involved in the baptisms of two men they had been teaching. They each baptised one. There are 6 in the water as each baptism has to be witnessed by two other priesthood holders.

After the highs of the Baptism on Saturday night, Sunday was a little sadder as Elder Teal had to say goodbye to his friends in Larnaca Branch. It was his last Sunday before a transfer back to Athens on Wednesday. He has been assigned to serve as one of President Heder's two assistants, or APs.

I'll be leaving on Wednesday for Athens, where I'll be serving with Elder Klestrup as an AP. I'm excited to go but sad to leave, but at the same time I feel like I've done my work here and it's time to leave it for other people to carry on! And Elder Dixon will be staying, so the branch is in safe hands

"The new ZLs will be Elder Dixon and Elder Deighton, together here in Larnaca. 

It seems I was the last of the one man ZLs!

I think the APs live in the old apartment of the Everitt's, which is really nice!

APs also help the President with his scheduling, meetings, training missionaries and that sort of thing. And they have a car! A little bit nervous to be honest, but I think I'll be okay. The car is an automatic so it should be easy, but it's on the wrong side of the road! Elder Klestrup drives as well so I can just do a bit at a time until I get used to it.

I'm excited too!"

 

  

^ Two new Branch Members ^ 

Goodbyes 

 

 

  

Week 59 Larnaca

  

What are you doing today? 

Today is a day for the Lord.

What does it mean to you?

This weeks white-boarding message, both pictures thanks to Panayiotis.

"It was a really great week! We had the sand storm yeah, well it wasn't so much a sand storm as a big cloud of dust that got collected in Syria and dumped on Cyprus. We had 2 or 3 days when we weren't out and about in the street, but we were able to get lifts from the Jacobsen's and from Panayiotis, and it didn't slow us down at all as we were able to fill our days with helpful activities anyway!"

"E. and R. will both have their baptismal interviews on Wednesday, and will hopefully both be baptised on Saturday! We're really excited! And yesterday Pavlos brought his sister M. to church as well as her 14 year old son M., so altogether we had 7 Cypriots which was fantastic!"

"Great to hear about the homecoming talks this week! In sacrament meeting yesterday we finished 15 minutes early and I was conducting, so I gave an impromptu talk about prayer and scripture study with examples from the New Testament and Book of Mormon, I actually really enjoyed doing it.

we.... speak in English here in the branch, as the majority don't know Greek (we have translation equipment for Greek). But to be honest I'm actually better at talking about the Gospel a lot of the time in Greek, and am always aware of the brokenness of my English when I give a talk now! It was funny because I only had my scriptures in Greek with me, so I read some from them and then had Elder Dixon run up to the stand with English scriptures"

"And then either Sister Indelicato does the translation or I do, depending on if I'm conducting or not."

"We had a really amazing lesson with R. where we taught about the temple and then watched the DVD about the restoration. I loved the opportunity to bear testimony afterwards about how the restoration means that I can be with my family forever, and how grateful I am for that."

"Okay I'm gonna get going now! Have a great day and a better week, I love you all! Hopefully I'll have pictures from two baptisms to send next Monday!"

Last weeks P-day visit to .....

"Some from the mosque we visited on Monday 
(I absolutely loved not wearing my shoes inside on the carpet)"
Its the little things, like walking on carpet for the first time since being in Greece/Cyprus !

The normal blue skies were gone in Larnaca this week due to dust clouds.

"The dust apocalypse"

"The sky above the lake isn't dark and grey because of clouds 

(they don't know what clouds are here), it's dust making the sky dark"

A surface in the flat

"The salt lake here in Larnaca, it's dried out at the minute so you can see all of the salt."

"We had a lesson with R. We taught about temple work, eternal marriage and family history and it was one of the best lessons of my mission. R absolutely loved it and he had perfect questions at every point of the lesson."

Week 57 Larnaca

It's been a good week, its passed really quickly as usual.

 Looks like you had fun in St. Andrews and that's great how you met the new Elders parents.

 We had a couple of lessons with P's father which were really nice, but he's in an old people's home and is very frail so probably won't be able to come to church.

We also saw President this week for special training about the bikes, and for interviews which were good as well....as of now the bike maintenance will be the responsibility of missionaries so we were trained how to do different things like oil the chain, patch a flat tyre, change the tyre and things like that. It's how they do it in other missions in the world.

Europa Fountain, Favoured spot for white boarding

Larnaca

We found a lady who said she's searching for the truth, she took a copy of The Book of Mormon and gave us her phone number so it seemed promising. 

We had a lesson with E. We taught about the Word of Wisdom and it went well. He said that when he prays and comes to church he feels good. 

Week 56

It's transfers this week but it isn't affecting Elders Teal and Dixon. They will be staying together in Larnaca. Elder Teal as Zone Leader and Elder Dixon as District Leader. Along with them in the district is a senior couple and a companionship of sister missionaries. There are 5 new missionaries leaving the Preston MTC tomorrow (Wednesday) to increase the mission numbers. 4 elders and one sister. I met 2 of the elders at the Preston Temple last week, they are excited to be flying out to Greece, after 9 weeks at the MTC

Week 55 Larnaca

"We had 6 investigators at church this week which is the most I've ever had in one week, and it was great! R. is doing really well and progressing towards his baptismal date on August 29th. Unfortunately we won't be teaching A. But we're still teaching the family of 4 from Bulgaria, and they've started to develop relationships with the Bulgarian members of the branch too which is so important."

"I really enjoyed reading 1 Corinthians 2 this week, it's a great chapter. I've also just read 1 Nephi again, Nephi is such a good writer and you can learn so much from what seem like insignificant details. For example, I learnt about having trust in the Lord this week from the tiny section where it talks about how they loaded the boat with all of their supplies and most of the people and then launched it, having full trust that it wouldn't sink as it had been built with instruction from the Lord, down to how much stuff they had to put in it!"

"I miss going to the temple, it's easy to forget how much of a blessing it is that we live so close, and I intend to go often after my mission!"

"Today we're going to Panayiotis village as well as another one, it should be fun!"

Thanks to Panayiotis for looking after the missionaries so well and sharing these pictures of the visit to his village later in the day!

Elder Teal continues to send us pictures of his daily journal entries, here are some quotes from them..

"Missionary work is quite different here in Cyprus than in Greece as there's usually nobody to talk to out on the streets. We need to focus on finding new ways to find new investigators as door knocking is not extremely productive either."

"We had a lesson with R, with M as the member present. R is great, he really enjoyed learning about the plan of salvation."

"In language study I started to translate the section of Handbook 2 that talks about primary for Georgia. I found its quite a quick process but the strangest part is is deciding how to translate set phrases like 'Sharing Time.' I'm learning a lot about the way Primary is supposed to be run, shame I can never be Primary President.  Also I'm learning new words in Greek which is good too."

Finally a whiteboard from this weeks District Meeting in Elder Teals hand writing