The Baptism of Mutu, Among Else

How do I start the email to one of the most crazy weeks of my mission?

I guess this is how!

Last last week, we went to the ancient city of DION, which is a city where King Phillip the Second, the father of Alexander the Great, celebrated his victory of uniting all of Greece under one ruler. It was considered a very religious place, and quite beautiful. During the Roman rule, they built a lot of buildings there too, and after Christ, there was a church built around 350 AD. Pretty cool. It's super moist there, and it's wonderful to see Mount Olympus in the background of the city. It was a sight to see. I was super thankful for the background that Elder Fronk gave on the site. His interest in the history of this area is a blessing. It gets me craving for learning more about all of this area.

The reason I mention something of last week is to set up the crazy of this week.

Because, goodness. I am tired.

DAY ONE:

Monday, we have gotten the knowledge that Elder Xanthos would be transferring to Cyprus, meaning that this would be last chance that we could go to Kavala to find information on his family history, his Greek side.

Right after the transfer news, we call the Thessaloniki chat on messenger with the sisters and the Fronks.

"Well, I guess that settles it, we're going to Kavala!" Elder Xanthos says.

Elder Fronk prepared a number of stops we have to go see before arriving to Kavala. This includes:
AMPHIPOLI
PHILIPI
THE BAPTISMAL SITE OF LYDIA

All of  these places have deep connections to Paul, so keep this in mind.

Amphipoli is the the place he crossed through in order to arrive to Thessaloniki from Philipi. In fact, there is the wall/gate where they assume he would have been through. The ancient city is situated on the top of a hill, providing a strategic advantage, as well as an outstanding view of the sea. There are a number of tombs located around the area, but we did not have enough time to visit those sites. We had time to me! It's really interesting because the area is just a small village now. After stopping to say hello to a very friendly dog that wanted to join us in our photo, we piled into the car, began making our way to the next location.

ACTS 16:13-15
13 And on the Sabbath we went out of the city by a river side, where prayer was wont to be made; and we sat down, and spake unto the women which resorted thither.
14 And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, which worshipped God, heard us: whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul.
15 And when she was baptized, and her household, she besought us, saying If ye have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house, and abide there. And she constrained us.

At the foot of Philipi, which Philipi is built also on a hill, there runs a river. It's quite green around about the river. When we missionaries went to her baptismal site, I can comfirm the water is actually pretty cold. The Orthodox church has built a small, yet beautiful, church illustrated with numerous depictions of baptisms contained in the New Testament.

When you see places like this, it's a lot easier to put a picture of it in your head.

16 And it came to pass, as we went to prayer, a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination met us, which brought her masters much gain by soothsaying:
17 The same followed Paul and us, and cried, saying, These men are the servants of the most high God, which shew unto us the way of salvation.
18 And this did she many days. But Paul, being grieved, turned and said to the spirit, I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And he came out the same hour.
19 And when her masters saw that the hope of their gains was gone, they caught Paul and Silas, and drew them into the marketplace unto the rulers,
20 And brought them to the magistrates, saying, These men, being Jews, do exceedingly trouble our city,
21 And teach customs, which are not lawful for us to receive, neither to observe, being Romans.

As we walked down this Agora, it made it so easy to imagine Paul, walking with is group, and a lady shouting he was a man of God. Naturally getting pretty annoyed at this, turns around and shouts, "I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her!"

Those around, seeing this soothsayer (fortune teller), who would provide income, suddenly becoming free of this demon. Then almost just as quickly, people trying to get Paul in trouble.

After walking around for a moment, we actually got to see what they presume is the jail that Paul was held in after preforming this act.

I'd love to talk about this site literally mentioned in the Bible, but I don't have a lot of time. Not a lot of time to be a wiki page, as much as I would like to.

Once again, we piled into the car again, and headed onward to Kavala. Kavala is where Paul arrived into Macedonia in the first place. Again, a pretty historical place.

As the sisters went on their adventure to find their teaching friends, Elder Xanthos and I stayed near the pier, waiting to meet someone he knew from his family. It's not really my story to tell, but it was really cool to talk to this, all Greek, person about the place we were in and Greek culture. It was really special. We even walked passed the church she was married in.

We got all the missionaries together, and got ice cream all together.

Who knew that Ρόδι ice cream could taste so good!! It was the best tasting ice cream I had ever tasted.

After which, we headed home super late, but having felt fufilled in what we set out to do.

Oh I forgot to mention, this was on September 2nd, my sister and I's birthday. Out of my choice, we ate at a sea food restaurant that I really loved. Everyone was always asking for my opinion on what we should do, and it was driving me crazy! Not actually, but it definitely pushed me out of my comfort zone. It was definitely the most unique place to spend a birthday, I must be honest.

We get home and spend a restful night in bed.

But the week was only getting started. Elder Xanthos and I really spent our time working on keeping the area progressing as we worked through other things. I really felt like I learned a lot.

I guess now is a good time to tell the story of Mutu! Mutu is a friend of ours, and we have been working the past few weeks on getting him married and baptized!

Simple enough, right? How about she's living in Cameroon? And the officiant is living in Utah?

Shout out to the Kiddles, senior missionaries in Larnaka Cyprus, who figured out how make this work without having to fly everyone to one location!

Long story short, the wedding is performed over Zoom, and it is technically preformed in the state of Utah. It's crazy, since the bride and groom don't even have to be in the same place! Yet it is a perfectly legal marriage. We have been working for a few weeks on getting this working, so two Thursdays ago you can imagine the stress Elder Xanthos and I felt when the wedding was supposed to be the next day and the paper work was incomplete and we were unsure if we could get an appointment for the officiant.

Elder Xanthos, sitting across from me, goes, "Elder, if this gonna happen tomorrow, it will take a fricking miracle."

"You are absolutely right," I reply. And in that moment exactly, we received an email explaining how to set up an appointment.

"There are times available for tomorrow!" Elder Xanthos shouts. At that point, we felt confident that was an answer to a prayer, and we were more confident our actions would be guided by the spirit. In fact, I testify to you, it was an answer to prayer. I would say that was a big theme of last transfer.

Keep in mind, that doesn't mean Elder Xanthos and I were free of stress.

Let me just say, I cannot stand the transport in this city! Driving is a nightmare, there is no such thing as parking, and the public buses are always crowded!

So it doesn't help the night of Mutu's wedding, as we were driving, the Prime Minister of Greece was coming though the city and they closed the main road! Elder Xanthos and I get caught in the middle of this, getting 'detoured' other directions. I'm pretty sure detours are not supposed to put you in a loop!! As our patience is getting tested, I'm trying to find a route to the paid parking at the church. A 15 minute drive ends up taking almost an hour. At a certain point, I cancel the Google Map navigation, going old-school, and begin shouting, "Left! right! straight one, left! Right! LEFT! RIGHT!" sounding no different than the train conductor guiding the Polar Express on an icy lake.

One final "RIGHT!" and we arrive at the parking 10 minutes before the wedding is supposed to begin. Needless to say, Elder Xanthos and I are running through the center of a rain-soaked Thessaloniki to make to our church. People are staring at us as we fly by.

We burst through the door of the church. Taking a look to our right, we see the set up for the wedding, and the Elder and Sister Fronk there to greet us.

"Where is Mutu?"

"In the backroom I think," Sister Fronk says. Surely enough, there he is, in the back of of church, scrolling on Facebook, and the sisters teaching our member, also the translator for the wedding, a western dance with music blasting.

"GUYS! The wedding is starting in like, 5 minutes! We should be in there right now!" I say.

We all file out of the room before I realize Mutu has no idea what I said, since he only speaks French. So I translate into French.

Again, to make a long story short, we begin the Zoom wedding, and Mutu's, well now wife to spoil the story, doesn't join the Zoom call. Turns out, the countless times we had requested them to download zoom, she had not downloaded it.

The stress in the room radiating from Elder Xanthos and I was like a balloon laying on a bed of nails. And here was SOBA in the middle of this, translating! He was feeling it as much as we where. Everyone was so curious as to what was going to happen. Stressed might be a better word to it.

The officiant is gracious enough to grant us a time an hour later to sort out all the technical issues, which we finally do.

Amongst all the chaos of this night, I glance over to Mutu, who is sitting, just sitting on the phone. He is the calmest one in the room! I aspire to be this man someday with my own concerns.

SO. the wedding began. Turns out, internet connection is terrible in Cameroon, and she keeps dropping in and out of the meeting. To equate it to an in-person wedding, she is stepping in and out of the room every 5 minutes.

Without a doubt in my mind, one of the most unique weddings I ever attended. In which, I thought that the wedding in Larnaka would take the cake!

Anyways, as the officiant is checking IDs, we sit in anticipation for their vows and such.

They exchange vows beautifully. My speaking French might not be great anymore, but I do understand well enough to know that Mutu's vow was one of the most beautiful.

The Officiant asks each of them if they will take each other as legally and lawfully-wedded spouses.

They answer yes.

Now, for those that know civil marriages, there exists more after this. This is not the end of the ceremony.

With that information out of the way, the Sisters, sitting in the front row, catch the "I do". The man who is standing behind Mutu recording the entire thing on his phone, begins flipping out.

Sister Veshuure pulls out the biggest party popper I have ever seen in my life and fires it off. Confetti goes EVERYWHERE. Mutu ducks like he's getting firebombed. The officiant is trying to figure out if we had just gotten attacked.

"IT'S NOT DONE YET, THERE'S STILL MORE" someone says.

With everyone covered in confetti, the meeting proceeds, and it's completed.

The relief is insurmountable.

It was chaos, but I will say, it was wonderful.

The next day, Elder Xanthos and I are running every which way to get Mutu's BAPTISM ready! Also Zone Conference, which was in a few days.

Needless to say, it was a crazy day and the roads were still closed.

The baptism is delayed by an hour and a half-- delayed enough that Mahalis goes and gets sandwiches for everyone. Vilgot, one of the kids in the Branch, is walking around in his underwear, having taken a swim before everyone arrived. Soba is sitting on a rock, preparing himself spiritually to baptize Mutu, listening to a talk.

The baptism was beautiful. I wish you could have been there to see it. The most emotion I've ever seen Mutu express was moments after he came out of that water. A new person. It was the first time I have ever been involved in a sea-baptism as well. It was special.

Then began the adventure of getting everyone home. Soba, Mutu, Elder Xanthos, and I pile into the Fronk's van and begin the trek to driving home. A drive that was supposed to take 30 minutes takes us an hour and a half, and we find ourselves, starved, soaked, and tired at 11pm.

"Should we stop at Mc's?" Elder Fronk asks. Funny enough, Elder Xanthos and I were about to stop on the way back from the wedding.

So here we are, my companion and I, wearing all white, soaking, and walking into a McDonalds.

What a sight to see, certainly for those around.

But man, those McNuggets are hard to beat at 11pm.

The next day, Monday, is not a P-day as usual, but rather a work day. P-day was moved to Wednesday in order to have a Zone p-day all together.

That day turns into taking care of a ticket that Van had encurred, basically planning the entire Zone Conference, and taking care of loose ends. We were basically working until the moment our heads hit the pillow.

I was impressed with how quickly Elder Xanthos was able to pack.

Next day, we spend 3 hours at the municipality, which significantly delay our departure out of Thessaloniki. Nevertheless, we eventually get on the road!

"Look at this, this is great. We have the ticket taken care of, the Sisters are on the train down to Athens and we are on the ro-- does that say 2 o'clock?" is a near direct quote from Elder Fronk. It had me laughing so hard.

On our way down though, we take a small stop and visit the the city where Paul departed from to get to Athens. We discover the ruins of an ancient church that had even been turned into a castle by the Franks at one point. A wonderfully kind Greek man showed us around that place, and it was wonderful.

5 hours later, we get to Athens at almost 8pm, and take care of all the luggages in the Athens church building. Elder Xanthos and I drive to the airport to pick up the missionaries coming in from Cyprus for Zone Conference. Needless to say, we are pretty tired. We get to our apartment at about 11pm. The next day, we get ready to go to play Lazer tag, and have an absolute blast. It was honestly the best Lazer tag I have ever played. I felt like I was in Black Ops 3 or something. We all had a blast.

The next day, we had Zone Conference, which next week, I think I will explain the topic of our training next week, since I really felt passionate about it. It was my last zone training as a missionary. It was an interesting feeling. People said they liked it, so I hope that means something.

Now, here we are, in Thessaloniki, Elder Morgan, Elder Bonney, and I.

I really like to include a spiritual aspect in these, but I just have such a hard time summarizing the week, since there was so much to include, yet so much that I couldn't even mention.

We saw a lot of history the last few weeks, and a lot of preservation. I was reading a book from Elder Fronk's library, and I couldn't remark at the brilliance of how well the idea of what a museum or history is explained. The phrase included below was translated from Greek into English. Which I think it even more impressive.

"Death transubstantiates. Whatever ;died; and was buried, accompanying the deceased in his tomb, whatever the earth kept for centuries in its embrace, may perhaps one day return to daylight, but it will never be the same as it was. The finds, no longer usable but nonetheless useful, raised on their pedestals become monuments, fragments of memory, ideas rather than material objects. Without their owners they become possessions of us all. They are exhibited in such a way that they are at once accessible and inaccessible; touching them by the living is prohibited, yet they are invaluable witnesses of the touch of those who have lain dead for hundreds of years."

The conclusion of this week, or arching idea: do not underestimate the power of prayer. I have not had that confirmed to me more than this last transfer. Oh, what a powerful, yet simple, form of worship.

I love you all, and hope the weather doesn't cool down too much for you! It's getting to be perfect down here. Not too cold, but not too hot.

Love ya!

Elder Dylan Hansen