A Video Call Home, from the Olympic Stadium

Where do I even begin?

I've actually started keeping bullet points in an email throughout the week to try and keep email from becoming a subject nightmare. Believe it or not, I'm trying to write some good emails. However, I won't promise anything.

Let's start back at the MTC.

There was a man in the Preston Temple that we met at a local Grocery store that we spoke to for like 30 minutes. Since I was the only native English speaker I think I was the only one that could really understand him through his STRONG Scottish accent. He gave a very fun way to place a Book of Mormon everytime, and told us an experince in the temple. He said, "If there is someone every yelling at you or just arguing with you and not listening to a word you are saying, say this, 'You and I have something in common. There be a day, when you and I draw our last breath. What happens after? It lies here in this book(Book of Mormon)." I thought that was really interesting. I'm not sure how well it would work here, but I liked the thought.

I think the hardest thing about the MTC was saying goodbye to the ESL district, the Ostlers and the friends made in the MTC. I will deeply miss them. I hope to see a lot of them again, but maybe some I won't ever again. It's a bit odd to think about.

The day we departed was a bit crazy and to be honest I don't remember a lot of it anymore. We took our 3 and a half hour flight, and sat next to someone from Crete. He spoke a little English, but he seemed very interested what we were doing. Half in English, half in Greek, we explained what we were doing and asked a bunch of questions about Crete. He asked, "What's one thing that makes your Church different than the Greek Orthodox Church?"Sister Hall explained that we believe that Jesus Christ, God, and Heavenly Father are separate beings. That intriuged him enough he asked, "Another." I explained to him that in the bible it states that Christ had other sheep of his fold to minister to and we believe one of those places was in ancient America. He just nodded his head and we talked about other stuff for the rest of the flight. Funny enough I think that was the nicest experience I've had with someone that wasn't a member!... I'm partly kidding. The people of Greece are full of culture and I am excited to get to know it. They may have a bit of a hard time with us, but that's alright.

One of the prettiest things I have ever seen was Athens from the sky at night. I don't think you get to see something like that very often. It was very beautiful.

We stayed our first night, after eating with the Burdon's (the mission president and his wife), at an apartment with Elder Jinkens. Gotta be honest, I didn't sleep much. And the next day, we would be finding out who our companions were gonna be, and if we would stay in Athens, go to Thessaloniki, or fly to Cyprus. Pretty restless night.

All the missionaries currently in Greece went up to Mars Hill (where the Apostle Paul taught in the New Testament) and had a testimony meeting. Only the 6 of us from our district in the MTC was to bear our testimonies, and in Greek. It was special and scary. Alas, we found out our companions. I could explain them all right now, but to say simply, I am staying here in Athens, and I am to be trained by Elder Paez. It's so exciting! The funny thing is, he is techically not done with his training. That's one way to end your training I guess! He's doing an amazing job though, I am very greatful. The first finding activity we did was whiteboarding. That is where you stand in the street with a big whiteboard, and write a question on the board. You talk to people walking past and try to get them to write something on the board. It was fun, but super scary for me to try and use my Greek. It was really good practice tho. Greece has a lot of languages too, so I think we had at least 5 different languages answering the questions and we all used the different languages we know, except Finnish (sorry Elder Huhtala). It's not super successful, but we always have good conversations with people. Planting seeds, I guess. It's like street marketing without trying to sell something. Just trying to bring Christ to people.

We also had institute that all the missionaries attend to support, and it was quite fun to go. There were two members there, and 12 missionaries. I think we outweighed the congregation, but that's alright. They both seemed to have a good time, and this very typical for the church in Greece.

On Saturday, I was feeling a bit down. I was thinking of a number of Christmas traditions I wouldn't be particapating in this year. I distinctly remember thinking, "I won't be watching Mr. Krueger's Christmas this year." It brought me a bit of sadness. However, the day continues. Since the Burdons were still in Athens, we had a Christmas devotional. We had a spiritual thought at the beginning, we played some, unique but fun Christmas games. President Burdon even put on a Santa costume! It honestly was really good for me. Then Sister Burden stands up and says, "Alright, now we are going to watch a short Christmas movie, then we are going to eat. It's an older one, but it was made by the Church a while ago." "It is called Mr. Krueger's Christmas."

I honestly couldn't contain my excitement, and I felt kind of embarrased afterwards. My arms just shot up in the air and I said fairly loud, "Yes!" And explained how it may be an older film, but I really like it. It is my biggest reminder of Christmas spirit, other than maybe some traditions with my siblings on Christmas Eve.

It's a weird way to feel love from Heavenly Father, but it was one of the biggest helps God has given me. Even in the smallest of things, he cares about us. I don't think even I knew how much that would mean for me. I would encourage anyone to watch that film this year.

Back tracking a little bit (because literally the days have blended together), Elder Paez and I went to pick up trash in the morning of one day as something for service. It was funny because as we were arriving, there were others that were doing the same. I asked if they were part of the same thing we were. My companion told me he thinks they are paid to clean the hill, which puts into perspective what missionary work is really about. I also realized that we didn't ask any one if we could or should clean Mars Hill, we just do. And that was that. It's something that I don't think the missionaries will ever get reconized or credit for that, and I think that is just right. Because that is not why we do it. We do it because we want to, and I personally think the experience of Mars Hill is better with less trash. It is remarkably beautiful up there, though. It's one thing to visit something, it's even better to go there with a purpose. I really enjoyed it.

Sunday was a good experience, and Sister Hall and I again, bared our testimonies in Greek. A congeration of 30 is just as scary at 200, it seems. Expecially if 75% of them speak Greek and you don't! Mine was short and sweet. A number of the people in the congergation work at the US embassy here in Athens, and most of them don't speak much Greek. So the meetings at Church here are abot 50% in Greek, 50% in English. This time we had someone standing at the pulpet, translating the talks from Greek into English as they spoke them. It was really cool for me because I could start hearing the differences between how somethings were translated into English. Baby steps, baby.

Today was P-Day, and it was good. We get the oppertunity to do 3 hours of missionary work in the morning rather than night, by aproval of the Zone Leader, and we went street contacting. It isn't very successful here. We wanted to ask people how they celibrate Christmas in Greece, so when we would say to people, "Can we ask you a quick question?" They would see we looked different, and often wouldn't even stop. We would say hello to everyone we passed though, and that was good.One notable person was I went to go buy a coke, and said hello, how are you doing, and my companion asked him what's something people do in Greece for Christmas. He quickly said no, no, no, and we left the store. It was a unique experience, I think I've realized that beyond the common greetings, it'll be hard to have a conversation much with people on the street. I think though, people that are ready will find us. we just have to feel the spirit to be in the right place.

After that, we planned to do something with all the missionaries in Athens(8) and decided to go to the Olympic Stadium. Those of you that knew me before the mission, might know I'm a pretty big fan of the Olympicsc so you can imagine my excitement to go to the first place the Modern Olymics were held in 1906. However, there was a conflict. We were supposed to get there at 2:30, and I needed to call my family at 3:00. My companion expressed his concern and asked if I would like to just stay at the appartment instead. I appreciated the concern, but I thought, "Well, we still get service there, right?" Hence, the picture below. Not a bad place to call on P-Day.

Also, we raced on the track, and I did not do so well. I blame the shoes lol.

We ended the day getting some food, and sitting on some stairs, talking all together. It was a good first P-day experience.

I hope you all have a good week! And don't forget, try to watch Mr. Krueger's Christmas!

Elder Dylan Hansen

PS: If any missionaries are receiving my emails, but I am not receiving yours, please add me if that's something you're okay with! I love receiving emails from other missionaries. My email is hansen.dylan@missionary.org.

Love you all!