Oracles and German

This has been a great week. I loved it! We had some great experiences. What just disturbs me is that the time is passing by faster and faster. I can't really keep up with it. Especially here in the office days can zip by like nothing.

We had some lessons with Sean this week. We came to a really interesting point with him. Earlier in our lessens a week ago or so, we asked him what he thought about the BoM. He told us that he knew it was true and good. We were kinda happy to hear that. We asked him how he knew and after his answer we were a little less happy. He said that he had his ways.... He wouldn't tell us at that point what his way was. This week we came to this topic again and he shared that he consulted an oracle (in form of a book). We explained to him that we didn't believe in these kinds of things. He was saddened about that and he said that he didn't really want to stop using this oracle because it helped him. It seems that we've reached an impasse with him. It was a very interesting conversation but a little saddening.

We did a lot of work inside this week. We prepared many things for the training we'll have with the missionaries next week. One thing we had to do was really funny. President Freestone asked us to copy a quote from President Hinckley and to make some nice cards and laminate them to put in the scriptures for the missionaries. Elder Jensen wrote it up on the computer and printed everything out. Then we laminated them together and cut them up and everything. Just as we were finishing up Elder Jensen asked me if I wanted to check the quote for spelling. Well, I did and I found some typos. Great! President Freestone spotted them too later on and we got to re-do everything again. So we'd just wasted two hours laminating and cutting. That was a great moment. xD

We had an exchange on Friday with the Elders in Akropoli. That was tonnes of fun. They are three together so I got two of them for the exchange. We had fun startling people as we walked up to the people to contact them. Three big guys coming up to these small Greek people xD We also had some great lessons in the afternoon. We taught two brothers from Kongo (separately). One lesson was in French and then the other we taught in German. That was really cool. Elder Kopischke speaks German too. This was my first full lesson in German. This man from Kongo lived in Germany for a long time and because of that he speaks almost perfect German. We taught him the message of the Restoration. It was quite good. We gave him a baptismal date in the end. I was really happy about those two brothers. They are both really good.

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Corinth and Number plates

We had a great week. There were some wonderful highlights this week that really touched my heart. We went up to Corinth again, this time with President Freestone, Elder Wilderspin (went home this Monday) and Harry (Greek new member). Wow, that was a great experience! It was actually quite cloudy and rainy that day. However, we didn't let that put a damper on our spirits. I'm very grateful that I was able to go. What warmed my heart was to see Harry so light hearted as he was on that trip. He has a lot of trouble here in Greece. He was divorced just very recently and he gets to see his two children only every 2 weeks. He quit his job because of harassment he suffered there. So, he doesn't have a lot to smile about right now, but that trip to which we invited him really was a treat for him. Or so it seemed. He was joking and laughing and just all-round happy throughout the day. That just made me really happy...

Elder Wilderspin, Me (instigator of this pic xD), Elder Jensen

I'm grateful for the moment when I saw Emmanuel in church this week. We'd had a lesson with Emmanuel, a less-active member the week before last together with President Freestone. He has been a member longer that I have (since 1991) but he somehow just lost the fire of his testimony or something and he decided that he didn't need to come to church any more. With President Freestone's help (he did most of it) we convinced Emmanuel that we needed him in church (which we do) and he agreed to come to church again and give it another try. What a highlight! He stayed true to his word and I know he'll be blessed for it. I hope he continues on this path and that he'll actually re-find that fire for the gospel in his heart. I know it must have been there once and I'm sure it'll come out again if he only does as he's supposed to. The Lord will look out after him.

Me, Harry, Elder Wilderspin, Elder Jensen

Another highlight of my week came this morning. We had the group of missionaries leaving this Monday (5 pers.) in our apartment for the last 3 days. We had to host them for those days. It went alright. We had a fun time with them. Even if they made a mess of our place. And they were very loud. XD So, we dropped them off at the airport this morning and we won't see them for a while at least. Then we went to the police station to pick up our number plates. Finally! We got there, and we'd called them earlier in the week to verify how, when and where to get them, and then they told us that we had to go to another police station across town (the main one) for those plates. But we told them that we'd called and talked to them and they'd told us to come to the place we were right then. They wouldn't have any of it. So we had to drive across town (without GPS because it broke just two days earlier for some reason) and get to the station there. It was the main one, we had to go through a security check and everything before we got in. But finally we obtained those number plates. We are once more FREE to drive around with our car! I've very grateful for that mercy of the Lord.

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Tickets and Illness

Last Monday Elder Jensen and I were in for a treat. We had to help President Freestone with some translation in the morning with the guy that brought the heating oil and afterwards we sorta invited ourselves to his house to watch a Disney movie. We watched Aladdin and we got some sandwiches and stuff from Sister Freestone. It was a very simple and humble pleasure but I enjoyed it nonetheless!

Also, we had another great experience on Wednesday. We were invited by Tasos (member) for dinner with him. The dinner was really nice. We ate at a small restaurant close to his house and we had these delicious snails. They were to die for! After the dinner we made our way back to the car where we were in for a nasty shock. We'd gotten a parking ticket and they (the police) had taken our number plates! This wasn't very nice for us. Obviously we thought we had to leave the car there and take the metro back home. We were worried, of course, about leaving the car in Athens. Especially for such a long period. So, as we were getting on the metro I felt impelled to read the ticket we'd received very carefully again. As I was going through it I came to the second to last point and I realized that it said that we had the permission of with that slip of paper to drive our car back home on a direct route. So turned to Elder Jensen and explained this and we turned back and were able to drive the car home. I'm grateful for this small mercies the Lord shows to us even in our infirmities and when we err.

On Thursday we had an exchange with the missionaries in Agios Dimitrios (south of Athens). We set up a whiteboard on the street  in the morning and we contacted people and used the whiteboard as a means to gain some attention. We spoke with people about family prayer (3 Nephi 18:21). It was heart-warming to hear that a lot of the people we spoke to actually prayed in their families and felt that it helped them and blessed them. One young couple (twenties) was very cute when we asked them if they would like to be together forever they both immediately said yes. xD

On Saturday Elder Jensen and I, as well as Elder Clark (Senior Couple in the office) got sick with the flu. It his us all at the same time, which was rather strange. We were down and out for a day and a half. We laid low all of Saturday afternoon and Sunday. Not very fun. Yesterday we stayed home all day and we had the chance to watch a good movie about President Thomas S. Monson. But luckily it's passed and we all got well quickly. I'm feeling great again and so is Elder Jensen. Elder Clark is feeling a lot better but he still needs some rest.

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