Tomb of Barnabas, the missionary

You know how sometimes things that need to be done just need to get done? That was this week in certain ways.

We had Zone Conference this week, and it was my first as being part of leadership. Of course, I didn't realize how much goes into those until we were doing it. It's interesting sometimes because it feels as if you get an assignment but are not told exactly how to do it. So we were assigned to do, what we call, "Accountability Presentation", which consists of all the numbers from the prior transfer.

However, because of how busy, we were unable to do this ahead of time. So on our way to pick everyone up in the van and drive to Zone conference (3 hours of travel time), I was cramming on the Chromebook in the car to finish the slides. For my fellow motion-sick-prone friends, you know this is a bad idea. However, sometimes, as I said, you must do things to get things done. So here I was, about 2 minutes away from the meeting, and I just barely finish the side show (no grammatical mistakes either!) And I'm probably the most motion sick I've been in years.

We proceeded into the building right on time, and I run to the restroom really fast, proceed to throw up twice, exit the bathroom and join the Mission President and his wife in the front, playing it off. I start the meeting about 30 seconds after stepping out of the bathroom.

I can testify God gives you strength in hard moments because I should have not been able to conduct that 2 and a half hour meeting, and yet, there we were. Only till about 10 minutes into the meeting I informed my companion, Elder Mueller, about my state of being.

It's been a few days now and I'm still getting over my motion sickness now, but it's gotten a lot better. Every once in a while I get a chill.

Just to warn you right now, this email won't be as long as usually just because I haven't felt that is what is needed this week. However, I will include some key points I've kept in mind and on my draft email.

Early this week, we got a call from the Sisters informing us that they met someone on the bus that was apparently was very cool and really liked the vibe of our church. So, they proceeded to refer him to us. We decided to meet at the church so he could see it. When he stepped in, he expressed that something felt right about it. He had visited a lot of different churches in Cyprus, and he expressed this one felt the most correct.

"Awesome!" we expressed.

Then he dropped something I have not heard yet. "And so... what do I need to do to get the baptism? Hana?" (Hana is how, in his native tongue, you say something like 'you know?') Which we explained the process and how we would continue to meet with him to help him get ready.

So he thanked us and went on his way, with plans to meet again.

Fast forward to this last Sunday, Elder Mueller and I were doing Weekly Planning at the church building so we could focus. It was about 6 pm, and Elder Mueller decides to call him to see how he is doing. We were expecting him at church, but he didn't show up. We wanted to make sure he was doing okay. However, he did not answer.

About 30 minutes go by, and he called us! Elder Mueller answers. Through the garballed sounds of a phone call in Cyprus, we hear, "fsda;dshlfdslkjh.... At the church tonight...;aslkjfsdi;oe" and a few other words until I realized, Wait... he's here at the church right now!

"Elder he's here right now!" I said to Elder Mueller, running to the front door, and swinging it open. There stood a short, devout christian Indian man, with a strong faith in Jesus Christ.

We invited him in and had a very clear Restoration lesson with him, and he nodded as we continued to teach him. We invited him to pray on the the Book of Mormon, and he promised he would.

Again, God aids you when you are in need, because we did that completely on the fly. The spirit was very strong in that moment. I just hope we can keep meeting with him or he doesn't move away or something. I have been honored with meeting some awesome or unique people on my mission. I have learned so much on my mission about so many different things, it really changes you. I think when I get home though I will be the same person but, to quote Interstellar, "A little older, and wiser."

This week though, in a lot of ways, for better or worse, I felt a lot like myself. We were working a lot on content creation for social media this week and editing, what I have come to call, my Preach my Gospel Videos. The idea is people, online, can take very simple lessons in an entertaining but spiritual video form. I spent quite a bit of time editing it this week, and I'm really excited to release the first one as a test run. The thing is, there isn't a lot of resources for Greece. Honestly, if you switch your language on Gospel Library to Greek, it's plain sad. My hope by the end of my mission is we can create decent video content for missionaries here in Greece and Cyprus to have for various uses.

One of our ideas is to have "History Night with the Missionaries" and go to certain history sights in the various places we serve. We really thought about this when we went to the church of Barnabas this P-day. We heard, that this was where Barnabas, Paul's companion from the bible, was burried. Some of the apostles brought his remains back to his homeland, Cyprus.

So of course, we wanted to see if this was true. So we went through the church there, and couldn't find anything. So Elder Jenkins goes to one of the Turkish men there and asks very simply, "I heard Barnabas was buried here?"

The Man nodded and stands up to lead us somewhere. He points off in the distance to a small building about 200 yards away from the church sight.

"He's over there." and he returns to where he was sitting prior.

Of course we book it over. Inside, we go down a very dark set of stairs and look over to our right. And there he was. Right next to us.

Honestly, it was a very special moment, and it really put into perspective what we were trying to do here. Here lied, another one of us. A missionary. And here was the fullness of the gospel, back in Cyprus after 1,900ish years.

I love you all and I hope you are doing well. Remember, summer is just around the corner!!

Elder Ντίλαν Γιάννης Χάνσεν