Honored to Defend Thy Work, o Lord

To throw things into perspective (these numbers are estimates from asking Elders about their own missions and the mission areas they live in), the France Lyon Mission currently has about 160 missionaries. The Paris France Mission has about the same, give or take. Apparently, this is about what you can expect for a mission in Europe. The missions are broken up into zones, and then districts.

In the ASM (Adriatic South Mission), there are two zones across Greece and Cyprus, if I am recalling correctly. There may be one more zone in Cyprus. I doubt this, however, because of the numbers I'm about to tell you.

Currently, until my district of six gets there, these are how the numbers stand:
As of yesterday, there are nine missionaries in the country of Greece.
There are 8 missionaries serving in Cyprus, and only 4 of them were assigned the Greek language. The others learned Albanian. Albanian is not widely spoken in Cyprus.

We have our work to do. If my district was to only be sent Greece after completing the MTC, we would increase the number of missionaries in the entire country by 75% of the original number of missionaries. Many times when contacting those in the field, they would say, "We need you guys!" and I thought that was just an expression or something.

Nope. Sometimes our district feels stress from responsibility, but we are humbled by the fact we are to "Invite others unto Christ," or "Προσκαλέστε άλλους στον Χριστό." That's the main part of our message. And we will do everything in our power to do so.

Πρεσβύτερος Pettitt and I are the ones that are most excited to get out of the MTC and serve in the field. I personally feel I learn a language better by exposure, so I can't wait to accelerate my learning and loving the people. As we've learned more of the celetual language (you're welcome Sister Campbell, I said it) the more our love for these people we have never met grows. Those of you about to serve missions, keep that in mind. Even if you are not serving with in a foriegn tongue. Learn of the people where you serve. Love them, and God will let you feel the love through them. Strive to be worthy to feel that love.

Yesterday we did a English Fast (No English, only Greek). We made it through a lot of the day, but didn't entirely succeed cause our conversations would get too complicated. Not only that though, is when other districts do a fast, most people can mange to understand them because there are enough similarities. Greece is just too different at times. There are a lot of similarities to other languages as you learn Greek, but the ending of each word often makes the language appear unfamiliar.

For sports time, we either play Basket Ball or Volley Ball, almost exclusively. Since I'm playing these games almost everyday, I've gotten pretty good at getting a basket, if it isn't raining, and almost never miss a serve in Volleyball. However, something I never miss in is throwing the basketball out of the court into the rose bushes. I'll get better, hopefully haha.

If anyone has contact to Erik Bayles that teaches in Pleasant Grove High School, please tell him ありがとうございます! (Thank you very much!) for me. I don't think I could be doing this if he hadn't let me take Japanese 2 my last year of highschool. By taking that class, I knew I would struggle catching up cause I didn't take Japanese 1. Before then, I literally never had studied a language more than like, 20 min a day at the most. Though my Japanese is, honestly, horrible, I learned how to study something unfamiliar. My district is a remarkable group of people, and they have an earnest want to serve and learn the language in the fullest. This can get overwhelming for everyone. However, since I already experienced this in the first semester of Japanese, it's almost like going back to that. I'm the mediator of everyone, which I think is a good and bad thing. I try to set an example of what to do when you're in a stressful situation like "Greek in the MTC". I hope I've been able to help a little bit. I've wondered why I studied a language in High School, and I think that be part of why.

I've gotten a couple of opportunities to use my Japanese though, there is a Thai sister here in the MTC that's studied Japanese, and there have been a couple moments where I felt we could greet each other better in 日本語 than in English! My Greek though is so much better than any other language I've studied though. It'll be weird the day it surpasses my French.

Every missionary will say their teachers are the best, but ours are really awesome. Brother Turner is literally Spiderman, and Sister Campbell has invested so much into being able to teach at the MTC in Greek, it's unbelievable, especially cause of all the problems we cause them (sorry Sister Campbell especially, you said you always get in trouble, and we are your trouble I guess lol).

I conducted Sacrament Meeting last Sunday, as one of the Zone Leaders. It's harder than it looks man. Thank goodness I didn't have to do it in Greek though. All the talks in the MTC are given in the your mission language, and your companion comes up as well, to translate. Satudays and Sunday's can be stressful cause we don't know who will be giving a talk until we are in the meeting. This forces everyone to get a talk ready in there mission language. Often Sacrament Meetings end with the President giving the last remark, and everytime he says, "The rest of you, you are safe." And the congregation lets out a shy almost every time.

I hope you all are doing very well. Winter is coming for a lot of ya'll so I hope you bundle up lol.

Υεια! Αγαπάω σας!

"I love where I am called. The Lord needs me there today. Dawn will call me away."

Πρεσβύτερος (Elder) Dylan Hansen