Happy New Year

Christmas Eve was a wonderful day and we got to share our testimonies with other in the form of Christmas carols on the street and we watch a movie called "Silent Night" about Joseph Moor who wrote the beloved carol. It was very sweet and nice time together with the other missionaries.

We had a great Christmas! On Christmas day we had a lunch (Curry Rice) with the members of the Branches here in Athens who don't have family with them. We enjoyed the company and had some great talks and experiences. Then we missionaries went to mars hill and shared our testimonies with each other as our gifts to each other. It was nice experience for all of us. In the evening we watched the Muppet Christmas story xD Which was hilarious and had a good message.

On Boxing day we wanted to do some service projects but in the end they didn't work out, sadly... So we gathered in church and we got to hear about patriarchal blessings from Elder Elks (who's a patriarch) and about Adam-ondi-Ahman from President Freestone (who lives right next to it). It was quite interesting and cool. On Boxing day we also watched a movie called "Front of the Class" about a guy who has Tourrette's syndrome and manages to become a teacher despite great opposition.

We had some great experiences this weekend that I'd like to share. I really saw the Lord working in these. I think the Lord led us in our decision to do our weekly planning session this week on Saturday. Because that day it was raining all the day and we avoided the great part of it and the Friday before we were able to effectively work and help many people. That was the first thing in which I saw the Lord's hand.

We decided to call a few Greek-speaking former investigators to come to church and two said yes. Then in the evening in YSA a young Greek-speaking Albanian joined us for YSA and we invited him for church. He accepted. So we had three people saying that they'd come to church. On Sunday morning, two of them came and we enjoyed the service with them and I hope to teach both and help them progress forward on the path to Salvation.

In the afternoon we had another 2 miracles. Henry, one of our new Ghanian friends surprisingly announced to us that he'd come to church. The others had been telling us that they couldn't come this week because of financial reasons even thought they would like to come. That was awesome to have him there, even if we had to go pick him up at the bus stop because he got lost and were thus a little late for the meetings. Heavenly Father wasn't done yet. Before the sacrament meeting concluded our dear friend Daniel walked into the church with Ernest. We've been teaching Daniel for a while and he always expresses lots of love for the gospel and the Book of Mormon but we've never managed to get him to church. So we'd dropped him the previous Friday and told him we couldn't help him if he didn't come to church.... Well, it worked and he showed his desire and did his part to come to church. That was the Lord's work I'm sure.
Now, let us turn to the new year 2013. I wish you all a very happy new year! I hope you've got your new year's resolutions ready. Otherwise you'd better get cranking, As there are only a few hours left.

No pictures this week as my camera is broken (again)... So hopefully next week.

Remember to leave a comment if you liked this week's report.

Coming up: New Year's, Delfi, and a new Assistant to the President. This and more...

Merry Christmas

A very merry Christmas to you all out there! Enjoy this sacred holiday and I wish you all to enjoy friends and family. I have a small Christmas video recommendation for all of you. Let the Christmas Spirit enter your lives with these Good Tidings of Great Joy.

We had a great week! We met with a lot of success and wonderful experiences. Our dear friend Ahmed was baptized on Saturday and he was confirmed on Sunday. We had a wonderful time teaching him. He made great progress over the weeks that we've met with him. He's so eager to learn and study. He always comes to us with questions from the things he's read and studied. We had a very nice and spiritual experience.

Elder Uhlig, Ahmed and I

Honored Guests

We had a good week. It was dry and sunny weather for the most part. It has turned very cool though. We need to bundle up nicely to survive the arctic 10 degress out there. xD We had some great experiences this week. We met with some nice new investigators that we hope will start to progress soon. We also had a special training with the area president Elder Teixeira. It was very inspirational.

I saw the hand of the Lord in my life this week in many things. I was blessed by specific and clear answers to my prayers and questions through the training with Elder Teixeira. The days coming up to the training I had been praying for a specific and clear instruction from the Lord on some matters concerning my effectiveness in missionary work. I'd been asking for a way to be a more effective and a especially a more spiritually led missionary. As we started the Leadership training with Elder Teixeira he was soon already addressing that very topic and issue. I'm so very glad that the Lord uses other to answer our prayers.

The main meeting with Elder Teixeira was great and I felt encouraged to improve. I'm sorry to say that at first I felt a little overwhelmed by all the things he told us and I was starting to get a feeling of inadequacy and fear. However, after the meeting I was blessed by the Lord with respect to that fear. We had an appointment fall through and then we decided then to to contacting until we had the next lesson at the end of the evening without returning to the apartment to drop off our books and packages. It was heaving loading but we were blessed for our dedication. The Lord blessed me with a great love for the people at that time and I was able to cheerfully and openly approach people. We gave out many books in little more than an hour and I was blessed with an outpouring of the Spirit encouraging me that the things which Elder Teixeira had said were possible.

Our investigator Ahmed from Sierra Leone had his baptismal interview this weekend and he's going to be baptized on Saturday! This is super exciting. He is very special as he had some difficulty with meeting us regularly and keeping his commitments in the beginning. But after a week where we didn't manage to meet him he'd changed by the next time we saw him and he's been giving 100%. I'm so proud of him.

Also, Richard, who got baptized in our second/third week here in Athens passed the Sacrament for the first time this Sunday. He also showed up in a suit that was nicer than anyone else's including the missionaries. He looked absolutely brilliant and he did such a great job of passing the Sacrament. It was really wonderful to see.

After District Meeting with Elder Bernskov (Denmark)

This is where the true joy of missionary work comes from. Teaching lessons is nice and you get some satisfaction from it, but to see someone progress in his Gospel understanding, make covenants and move forward in his service to others (in the Priesthood) is great. The scripture in D&C 18:10-15 rings true in my ears!

Don't forget to leave a comment if you liked this week's post.

The Lord is in the Details

This was a nice week.We set up our Christams decoration in the apartment (we found a small bag of it in a corner). And we had a specialized training on Tuesday. We discussed some great things. We've been instructed by the Area Presidency to focus especially on (1) praying more and on (2) using the Book of Mormon as a springboard to revelation and lastly to realize that (3) we must come to church to stay i.e. we must become converted to the gospel. We had some great discussions and I learned for my personal improvement and how I can share that with the people I teach.

Our epic Christmas tree!

The Lord is in the details of our life!

I surely saw His hand in my life this week. I had some wonderful experiences. This week we met in the beginning of the week with Ahmed (investigator) and he'd been teetering on the edge of stopping to learn from us but on Tuesday we had an amazing lesson with him. We taught with power and authority given of God (not as the scribes xD). The spirit was thick in the room as we discussed the importance of scripture study and prayer just hours after having discussed it in the training. He felt the Spirit and you could see how He was teaching Ahmed. When we only mentioned church, he started bringing up excuses for why he didn't come, then he said he knew he should have come and then he committed himself to come every Sunday from then on forward without us having to say anything. It was truly the Spirit working on him. I know it was real as he came to church this Sunday and was there even before us!

Karim (member) who's preparing to go on a mission and I.

One other time where I saw the Lord having His hand in my life and in the life of my investigators was on Thursday. We had a lesson with a young man named Daniel. He lives here with his mom and has family in Africa still. We taught him the plan of salvation at a member's house. He's made quite some progress from the time we began teaching him. He grasps the gospel much quicker and he's growing in his desire to do good. As we were ending the lesson and we wished to share one last scripture, his phone rang and he picked up. After the phone call he looked shell-shocked. His sister in Africa had just died! All of us in the room went very still and you could feel that reverence that enters the hearts of men when they learn of the death of a loved one. Just as I felt that I didn't know what to say the word of President Monson came to my mind and I remembered his account of a similar situation and the scripture he shared. I turned to Alma 40:11 and I read it to Daniel. Then Elder Uhlig and I bore testimony of the truthfulness of that verse and the reality of life after death. He nodded and seemed to pull himself together and Elder Uhlig offered up a fervent prayer on his and his family's behalf. I know that the Lord placed us with him in that hour and he inspired us to teach him that doctrine in this time. He is looking out for His children.

Let us count the blessings we receive from our Father in Heaven on a daily basis and we'll come to see that we've received far more than we could have ever imagined from our Father. In the words of President Monson: I have found that, rather than dwelling on the negative, if we will take a step back and consider the blessings in our lives, including seemingly small, sometimes overlooked blessings, we can find greater happiness.
As I have reviewed the past 49 years, I have made some discoveries. One is that countless experiences I have had were not necessarily those one would consider extraordinary. In fact, at the time they transpired, they often seemed unremarkable and even ordinary. And yet, in retrospect, they enriched and blessed lives—not the least of which was my own. I would recommend this same exercise to you—namely, that you take an inventory of your life and look specifically for the blessings, large and small, you have received. (from: Consider the Blessings - Oct. 2012)

It is my prayer that we may heed the counsel of the Prophet of God!

Coming up next: Dinner with the Coleman's, Training with Elder Texeira and Ahmed's baptismal interview...

The Lord Will Provide

This was a really good and wonderful week. We had some wonderful experiences where the Lord had His hands in our lives. We also had a a baptism on Saturday. Sarfraz, from Pakistan, got baptized by Elder Uhlig. It went very smoothly. We also managed to have a really good District meeting with a wonderful Spirit present. But I'll focus on two extraordinary experiences this week.

Me, (Jesus), Sarfraz and Elder Uhlig