Week 45 Athens - Delphi

 

This Monday, P-day, the Zone took a trip to Delphi

Delphi  Δελφοί, is both an archaeological site and a modern town in Greece on the south-western spur of Mount Parnassus in the valley of Phocis. Myths include traditions that Pythia, or the Delphic oracle, already was the site of an important oracle in the pre-classical Greek world (as early as 1400 BC) and, rededicated from about 800 BCE, when it served as the major site during classical times for the worship of the god Apollo. Apollo was said to have slain Python, "a dragon" who lived there and protected the navel of the Earth. (source)

"In other news the mission have transfers this week and Elder Teal will be leaving Athens to serve as the Zone Leader in Cyprus. Working in Larnaca and serving with one of his MTC group, Elder Dixon. 

I'm feeling good, I'm excited about it! 

"Elder Peel will be here in Athens which means it will be a full year now, but as President told me, we have all of eternity to enjoy ourselves!"

"We have one new AP, Elder Klestrup, who will be with Elder Leppard who has been there since Elder Boyce left."

"The trip was really good! It was beautiful weather and the scenery was amazing, 

I'll send you all of the photos!"

 

"I was at the hospital this morning for a check up as my right knee is slightly swollen. It's just got like a soft raised area above the kneecap like a padding under the skin and doesn't hurt at all, it's just weird. The doctor said it's prepatellar bursitis, or "housemaid's knee", and is caused by excessive kneeling. I've got a praying injury! HaHa ! He said it's not a serious problem at all, especially as it doesn't cause any pain, I just have to not kneel on it for a while until it goes away.The doctor said to take ibuprofen, and to put ice on it each night. but it doesn't hurt at all, it's weird because when you touch it it's really soft, like a gel pad under the skin. And I've been kneeling on one knee, which I'll carry on doing with a cushion under my left knee"

. 

"We said bye to H already and I will call him tonight."

"H was sad that we will be leaving, but happy as we will be able to help other people. I'm great full for H and for the friend he has become and also for his desire to share the happiness he has found with others" 

"Yesterday we were with Heracles, A's dad, and he taught us a load of Greek sign language. At the end he told us he's going to miss us a lot. And we have a lesson with A. today"

In an email to Elder Teal we told him that his blog was read in about 15 countries he replied with...

"I have had on several occasions now people come up to me who I don't know and are here visiting, and say "Hi Elder Teal!" before they've even seen my badge, it;s insane! And people have also told me "I know you but I don't you"

There are lots of pictures this week, clicking on any will make them bigger, and if you click HERE it will take you to the week 45 folder of our On-line storage so you can see more.

 

"At the end of the day, I'll do whatever I'm asked to do, and I'll do it happily. I love being a missionary and almost can't remember what it's like not to be."

Week 34 Athens

Transfers !!! Its been a busy week for the Greece Athens Mission. 

Elder Teal has packed up Elder Tornar and sent him to Cyprus.

Just kidding, but the two of them have left Thessaloniki and flown to Athens. Elder Teal will be staying in Athens serving as the Zone Leader and training again, this time Elder Burton an American from Iowa. Elder Tornar has flown on to Cyprus to serve as a District leader.

Transfers and new missionaries, means there is lots of opportunities to meet old friends at the office as people pass through. New missionaries get to spend a day or two at the office for training and orientation with their new companions. It was like a mini MTC reunion for Elder Teal as Elder Peel and Elder Dixon are training too, so along with Elder Tornar they got to share a room overnight at the mission office.  

In particular Elders Teal and Peel were reunited for a couple of days....

Old hands !

Not Fluent in Greek? The jokers decided to swap tags !

Elder Teal and his new companion Elder Burton.

About the move.

"In case you haven't already heard, I'm in Athens again! I'm training Elder Burton, and we're in Agios Dimitrios. I'm also the Zone Leader for the Greece Zone! I'm looking forward to the opportunity! It's been good so far, although it's only been a couple of days. For most of the week I was in the office waiting for my new companion and then having the orientation with him when he arrived. We got into the area on Saturday, and I don't know anything about it really so we're still finding our way around. Everyone says it's a great area though so I'm looking forward to being here!"

"... the plane from Cyprus had arrived with Elder Dixon and Elder Peel who will both be training. It was good to see them, especially Elder Peel whom I haven't seen for a long time! And it was good to be able to have a real conversation with him in Greek, as at the beginning we couldn't really speak to well. He speaks really well now, and its interesting to see how he has Cypriot figures of speech and I have Thessalonian, or more generally Greek as their isn't a very strong dialect or accent in Thessaloniki"

".. Elder Peel and I still have the same sense of humour and had a lot of fun catching up. Hopefully at some point we will serve together, or at least in the same country, but saying that we will probably swap countries in the next transfer Ha Ha

" Elder Burton was understandably a bit nervous but also excited to talk to real Greek people. The first women we started a conversation with gave us her name and phone number, which was absolutely great, and a good start to the transfer . We continued to talk to people and it went fairly well. Elder Burton said people talk a lot faster than he expected them too! I remeber in the begining when I couldn't really understand what people were saying at all, and it wasn't fun. He did really well though and didn't have a fear to talk to people which was great."

"......just before we had to finish finding we decided to knock on a door right near our house. They immediatly invited us in and asked us to sit. It was a young Georgian family with a small son. We didnt have time to teach a lesson as we had to get home, but we introduced ourselves, gave them a copy of the Book of Mormon and set an appointment with them for tomorrow evening..."

Week 31 Thessaloniki

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"

Week 30 Thessaloniki

"The highlight would possibly be yesterday's branch conference, we had 5 great talks! President Freestone talked about how Paul established the church here in Thessaloniki, and how there are still faithful saints here today, which is so true. It's strange to think that really we're not trying to build up the church here, we're trying to rebuild it!"

"We had two lessons this week, out of a scheduled, well, a lot more. It was really good to have those two though and they were both really good lessons, One was with the lawyer with whom I had a lesson when I was here with Elder Lyttel, who you may remember from last time. After 8 years of contact with the missionaries he finally has a baptismal date! The difficulty is that he is scared what his peers will think of him if he is baptised into another church, and he worries that people will use it against him (he is a lawyer), as his reputation is important. He tried to come to church yesterday and spent an hour and half trying to find the church (he's 83 years old). He rang us this morning very apologetic as he had said he would come and didn't, and didn't want us to think that he had lied to us. He is very keen to have another lesson this week, which is great."

"The  Book of Mormon and modern revelation support the Bible"

"I'm really loving studying the life of the Saviour in personal study though. I've started studying from the Bible in the Greek now that I can understand it, and I really love it. I've been using Jesus the Christ as a study manual, following along the story with the two, and I love it!

We have the My Family booklet in Greek as well, we are still trying to come up with ways to use it effectively in missionary work. I wonder, would you be able to send me some small pictures to stick in on each of the pages for the different people? If you have time that is!

I'm glad you had the chance to go to the temple with "Auntie Lizzy" 

It was so good when I was in the MTC and we had the chance to go to the temple every week, I miss it a lot! I plan to go as often as I can when I get back, I certainly won't take it for granted after seeing how difficult it is for the members here to go!"

"Church was really good, we had branch conference, so the Freestones and Everitts were here. I did so much translating that by the end of church I struggled to have a conversation in English with Sisters West and Everitt, it was very strange. In my mind I was still trying to translate, even though it wasn't necessary." From Journal entries we learnt that at church, Elder Teal translated the English Speakers and teachers into Greek and the Greek speakers and teacher into English. 

Elder Teal pointed out that they are mentioned in the picture section of the Bible  

"Missionaries were sent from Athens to other parts of Greece"

The cooking seems to be going well.. Pancake day was celebrate and the French skills of Elder Teals companion, at making and tossing crepes was very useful

Homemade cottage pie, made, eaten and washed up in the allotted 1 hour meal break

"I love you all, and I'm so grateful for your love and support! Have an amazing week! Elder Teal"

Week 29 Thessaloniki

"Brother Todi and I! 
If you recognize the tie it's because it's the one I
 gave him last transfer when he told me he really liked it"

How has your week been and how is church?

"Yeah I'm kept very busy translating, with Sacrament, Priesthood and Sunday school, but I love doing it though so it's no problem. As I speak Greek much more often than English now, it's gotten to the point where my natural instinct is to speak in Greek, and I have to exert effort to switch to English, instead of the other way around. it's so strange! I have moments when I finish a phone call or conversation in Greek, and I'm just so happy that I have been blessed with the opportunity to learn this language. I think I will miss it a lot when I come home!"

"It's so strange for me as well, I have some days when i don't speak English all day, and to think that all of you back home would have no idea what we were saying if you were in the room with us is so strange. Sometimes I have conversations with people in my head, like memories or something I'd say to someone (not in a crazy way, I'm pretty sure everyone does that) and it's in Greek, and then I stop and think, wait a second, that person doesn't speak Greek. it's so strange!"

"During the week Elder Tornar was ill with a cough/cold, so we were at home for most of the day for 2 days, but apart from that it was a good week. We didn't have any lessons unfortunately, despite planning 11! All of them were either no-shows or last minute cancellations unfortunately. We had a man in church though which was great, and hopefully we'll be able to have a lesson with him this week. We also had one of the best weeks of my mission so far in terms of names received, so hopefully they'll turn into lots of lessons for next week!"

"Haha it's the best mission in the world, I wouldn't choose to go anywhere else! It's so weird when we watch The District and see them planning a week with 34 lessons hahahaha, that would be insane here. It teaches us to see every small victory as something miraculous though, and give us a positive outlook on life!"

"The very English meal I cooked for Elder Tornar, 

Chicken, veg, mash, and onion gravy, it was so good!"

"An ill Elder Tornar keeping warm in the bathroom (it's the warmest room). It wasn't even cold in the house, I was in a short sleeved shirt, he was just feeling really cold whilst he was ill."

 "And he's feeling better now, this is him reading from the BofM in Greek this morning."

"The case I made for my Greek Preach My Gospel"

"The red mark on E. Tornar's head after he had an argument about 

personal space with the automatic door on the bus."

  

"and my new books!"

"Just to let you know, I got my books bound this week. When I dropped them off he said he would sort them out and didn't know how much it would be until he found the leather and things to do it, but that he would do it for a "good price". They are real leather and have fancy embellishing, probably fancier than I would have chosen. They are really very nice though and will last the rest of my life, so I will definitely make good use of them." 

Elder Teal used some money sent for Christmas and Birthday for these. The church doesn't publish a Bible in Greek, so he had his Greek Bible and his Greek Book of Mormon bound to match.

Some journal extracts about meeting people.

"...At Brother Todi's house we had some of his home made juice, then we had to leave in order to be home on time. As we were stood at the bus stop I knew we wouldn't be on time with the bus, so I said a prayer for a taxi to come. One did almost right away so we got in, and we had a really nice chat with the driver and left him a book..."

"We spoke to a man who took two copies of the Book of Mormon, one for his Mum, In return he gave us two drinking straws in packages? and told us to get coke because that's the best, or Fanta or Sprite?

Its so funny when we meet crazy people !"

"I had a man shout at me for being English. He asked me 'how many people did your Father kill in Vietnam?' Which doesn't make sense for quite a few different reasons"

"We talked to a lot of the guys who sell things in the street, as a lot of them are from Senegal and speak French. I was able to understand a couple of words from the conversations but I wouldn't be able to speak enough to start a conversation myself. So that's why its good that I have a French Companion !"

In other news Elder Teal informed me today:-

"Thess" is very English, Greeks say either Thes/niki or Saloniki! Just a fun fact ;)"