"Missionaries in their Natural Habitat: Mars Hill"

We were walking down to Solomon Square(the center of Nicosia) and a man just kept double taking as he looked at us.

"What is he looking at?" I kept wondering as we were about to cross the street. Finially, he walks over to us and put his phone into our face. I take a step back and let my eyes focus until I realized he was showing us our own Whatsapp contact information.

"Is this you?" he asked.

"...Yes? It is us?" After discussing, we finially found out it was a man we have been talking to on the phone for a few weeks now, but never met in person. by chance, here we are, meeting him in person. He discusses with us how he was going to go teach English to people of the Congo. I explained that we were about to do the same thing that day!

He thought it was really cool but he said, "That's great but... you know... you don't speak French at all... only English..."

"Eh bien, je peux parler en français."

And he stood there completely surprised that we even knew French at all. It was honestly pretty funny.

Moments like this are pretty common actually. People are often surprised where we come from, or what languages we have been exposed to. Most people are just surprised we are trying to learn Greek.

But as well, it's remarkable how many people you randomly run into on the street when you are walking around. I think it is one of the spirit's favorite ways to guide people to certain places.

Sometimes though, the spirit guides you into situations you feel not ready.

We went to Athens again this week! In our mission, we do something called Elder's Conference, and that is where all the Elder's get together and have fun and learn from the mission president and wife.

But before I discuss what we did there, I should discuss what the Lord did to me. Cause it caught me off guard.

All of the Cyprus Elders got off the plane, and stood at the metro station to Athens. This included me, of course.

Now, Elder Hiltunen being Elder Hiltunen, was already speaking to everyone we met. It's honestly quite impressive, his resilience and dedication to this. Without hesiation, he give a big Norse "Hello!" to a man standing at the stop near us. The man noddes and says hello back(Honestly this is kinda my assumption because I was behind everyone sitting down so I couldn't see).

"Where are you from?" Elder Hiltunen asks.

"Japan."

LITERALLY almost everyone turned to me with wide eyes.

Oh crap. I hadn't studied Japanese in 3 months. This was the first time I have met someone from Japan on my mission face to face. So I stand up and walk to see him. I ask him where in Japan he is from and he states, Tokyo.

"Where in Tokyo?" I ask. Because it's much like Athens, basically there are cities within the city. He answers and asks,

"You know Japan?"

"Yes, but I just took Japanese in high school."

"You speak Japanese?"

"Very little. I started studying Greek and I've forgotten almost everything." I say, expecting that would be the end of it. But the platform goes quiet.

"Say something!" one of the Elders say to me.

Oh crap, is the only thought that goes through my head. No Japanese.

"あの、私わアメリカ人です。”

”Eh?"

Crap.

"アメリカ人です。”

He nods and goes, "おおおお! You are Japanese Professor woah..." And we all start laughing. We keep talking for a moment until the train arrives. We say our goodbyes and board the train. OF COURSE THIS IS WHEN MY JAPANESE FLUDDES INTO MY BRAIN. Just the way life is.

I wonder if that was a moment to help me realize that I should try to become at least familiar with languages I may encounter on my mission. This mission has so many languages, and just knowing a little bit would be useful. So I think after Nine, I will start studying Japanese a little bit after nine.

I do think we will need to try our best to be ready for any situation in this mission. In August of this year, there will only be 8 Greek speaking missionaries in the entire mission, even after the mission split. The new missionaries don't arrive until September. We'll... see how that goes.

We spoke to President Burdon about it, and he turned to all of us and said, "Hope you're ready for 3 areas for each missionary!"

We all laughed from the comedic comment, but also out of pain. I'm still not sure what we are going to do. We'll see, I guess.

Elder's conference was a crazy fun chaotic nightmare. It was great. We went to the most intense laser tag arena I have ever seen, and honestly it was really fun. It felt like we could actually have a bit of skill with it because the guns worked a little differently.

After the two games, I went to talk to the person running it, and we had a long conversation about laser tag in Europe. I asked him about the guns, because they weren't typical plastic ones from the states.

"Yes-- they are more expensive, but it is worth it. The plastic ones break too quick. These are from Russia. The gun manufacturing companies sell the guns to people like us without any of the hammers-- basically the shells of the gun-- and we turn them into laser tag equipment."

Sooo... I guess it's not every day you realize that you were a bunch of missionaries running around a dark room with legit incomplete Russian guns retrofitted to be Laser Tag equiptment. Who knew? Not us before we did that. It was a lot of fun though and we don't regret it for a minute.

The next day, we did a finding scavenger hunt across Athens, organized by Elder Mueller and I. I was just praying the whole day that it would be good. Honestly, I think it was very good. There are members we met on Mars Hill from the States, and they took pictures with us. They made a post, which I thought was funny cause it said, "Missionaries in their Natural Habitat-- Mars Hill."

Only now do I realize it must have been pretty cool for them to see missionaries there where Paul taught.

The full gospel of Jesus Christ is back guys! It's pretty cool!

Honestly, I have a feeling these next few weeks will be something very special. I just have a great amount of hope for this mission, despite it's difficulties in many regards.

We met a return missionary at Mars Hill, and he asked, "How are the beatings?"

"What do you mean?" We asked.

"Are you guys not beat up anymore?"

"No, not for a while."

"Huh, that's good. It happened a lot for us," he explained. It's good times have change that quickly because he had only served 12 years ago. The Lord is protecting us and I think people are exercising their agency to keep an indifferent opinion about us.

Sorry this email is a bit all over the place, but with traveling, we haven't gotten a lot of opportunities to get our full 8 hours of sleep. With how busy our days are, it takes a toll.

I spoke at Sacrament Meeting for the first time since I have been a missionary, and I hope it went well haha. I was asked to speak 15 minutes and found myself speaking for way too long. I just hope God could communicate what I was trying to say. It isn't complete, but I would like to share it with you all. When you get to the end, I would like you to finish it for yourself in your mind. Think about the Savior's sacrifice.

I hope everyone is doing well at home! I honestly feel bad cause I said, "Summer is around the corner!" In like, Feburary, and it definitely wasn't. Now it definitely is! Hopefully I don't jinx it though.

Elder Dylan Hansen

NOTE:
April 10, 2023:  Elder Dylan Hansen has been on his mission for 6 months!