What is True Testimony?

The amount of stress and anticipation filled the room like thick syrup as we waited for our transfer call this week. We had heard from the Assistants to the President of our mission that transfers were going to be announced that night. So, of course, you play cool about it. Apparently, transfer calls usually occur after 9:00 pm, which is after work hours for us missionaries. I still have the image in my mind: Elder Paez was playing the guitar in the corner, and I was spreading Nutella on bread in our kitchen --both of our phones out on the table between us-- waiting for President to call.

The reason we were waiting with so much anticipation was our own expectation. Elder Paez had been in Athens so long now, he had to be going to Cyprus. And my experience with French, we thought I could either be staying here, or going to Cyprus as well. It was also my first transfer, so that added a bonus level of stress. I've really enjoyed being trained by Elder Paez.

And of course, the complete unexpected happened. The call never came.

What that means is we were not getting transfered. In fact, out of all the missionaries in Greece and Cyprus, only two missionaries got transfer calls.

We were actually glad! We get to continue laboring in our Vineyards!(If you remember from one of my prior emails, Αμπελόκηποι means, "Vineyards")

We also found out we'll be staying here until March. It'll be a long transfer but it'll be a good one, I believe.

I'm gonna be honest, this email is going to be a bit of a shorter one than usual, just because things happened this week, but maybe not so many things that would be interesting to share through an email, or maybe that I should.

A lot of people make the assumption there are a lot of beggars in big cities, which is right. But this number is grossly over estimated. Often, it is that same people going to their usual places, which becomes apparent the longer you live somewhere. Sometimes, we missionaries can mention a certain person and the area they ask for money and then everyone knows exactly who we are talking about. Now, there are definitely people that are asking because they really need help, and I don't write this to discredit them. But I will say, street begging is almost like another job here. As we did another whiteboard this week, I vividly remember seeing a beggar, lying on the street, covered in a blanket, shaking (his cup perfectly placed in front of him however). About thirty minutes later, he stops shaking, stands up, takes the cup, folds his blanket, and walks like he just finished his shift. Someone else, a few weeks ago, had both of his legs missing, and he'd sit in a wheel chair, crying that he could not get a job and he needed help. Which may have been true, but about an hour later, someone came by wearing very nice clothes to pick him up, and he began discussing how the day went in the sense of street begging.

I guess what I'm trying to say with this, be careful, and someone who is really needing help will be just as willing to take a small meal from McDonald's than money. That's kinda how you can tell, usually.

I'm going to be honest-- I have felt my Greek is not progressing as well as I would like. I expressed to my family already, but here in Greece, if you don't speak Greek fast or smoothly enough, you don't really get to speak it. We were told in the MTC to use as much Greek when talking to people as we can, but as soon as you try, they would rather speak in English. In Greece, everyone pays for additional English classes outside of the regular education system, so most people have a good understanding and ability to communicate in it. But worry not! I have been assigned this language, and I know we will do our very best to learn it, and the lord will aid us to learn as much as we need to.

This week, we had two whiteboards, and I'm remembering a particular moment from the second on. Elder Paez and I spent the whole time talking to one person. She had a lot of ideas and views that made it a bit hard to talk to her at first, and in fact, at times she was rude to me. However, we kept trying to change the topic back to gospel related stuff. I shared the Book of Mormon to her and she didn't take it. We continued to discuss and listen to her, but I felt I should still try to give her a Book of Mormon. I kept waiting for the right moment, until it finally opened.

She said, "In life, everyone just wants money. That's not what life is, life is the moments I get to smoke, I get a drink, or laugh..."

I saw the moment, and if you know me this is really out of character for me so it really was by the power of God. I held out the Book of Mormon with two hands and said, "This is one of those things for me. I truly believe you have a good heart, and I know this book can answer a lot of questions about today. I would be honored if you took it."

She smiled and took it, thanking us. I wish I could take credit for that, but honestly I can't.

Finally, the thing I was dreading all week happened: Language Club. Elder Paez found a club here in Athens having to do with languages. The idea is once a week, people that want to practice a certain language meet at a Cafe or something. Another day of the week, there will be a meeting of a different language. The group currently has French, German, Arabic, Spanish, and a few others.

Now, the page of the club explicitly says, no talk about religion, or politics. We thought since we are missionaries, we could not participate, but we tried joining the Facebook group anyway. We were half right. For some reason, Elder Paez got in, and I got blocked. Sooo... We took our chances and went to the French meeting.

I could not stop thinking, "We are going to get kicked out... we are going to get kicked out..." as we entered the Cafe. After a bit of searching and guidance from a waitress, we found the table. There sat three people, casually talking in French. They saw us, obviously also seeing our tags, and welcomed us to sit with them!

For the next hour and a half, we spoke nothing but French to a bunch of people learning French (minus the one guy that was French and was there to moderate, basically). The irony is this was the first, normal experience I've had as a missionary with Greek people. Since French is a language I am more comfortable with, I really felt I could start to understand people a bit more and see their personalities a lot more. And since we were all trying to learn French, there was no, "Oh, let's switch to English, it's easier." In fact, one moment I didn't understand/hear what someone said, until he finally switched into Greek just to make sure I understood. I didn't know how to tell him he might have just as well said it in French again because I had no idea what he said in Greek! It was awesome because it really forced us to communicate in another language, and I loved it. They asked us a lot of questions about our religion, which we were not expecting. I kept looking at Elder Paez as they asked us questions because we were thinking, "isn't this against the rules to be talking about this?" He ended up teaching the latter-half of the Plan of Salvation, IN FRENCH. We haven't even done that in Greek, or even English. It was utterly remarkable. They asked us if we were coming next time, and we answered with a firm yes!

We left feeling super good. I was originally dreading it, and it turned into the highlight of our week.

We read the Book of Mormon with a member we don't see very often because of his situation. We think he's misunderstood. Despite what his situation is, he surpised me. He has a real testimony, and has read the BoM many times, which not a lot of people can say here, if I'm honest. I picked a chapter for us to read before hand; Alma 30. As we said Alma, he expressed he really liked Alma's conversion story and surpised us with how much he knew. The most powerful testimonies come from anywhere, and don't think for a second just because someone looks a certain way, or does a certain thing, they have a weaker testimony. God knows their heart, not us. We just have to love them.

I nearly cried as I saw heard his testimony. The face he had as he set down his copy of the Book of Mormon is worth a million words. It is everything he had. Somehow, being in the lowest of lows, he is one of the richest people in the world. And its just because of that book, and his testimony of it. That is a powerful testimony.

I wish I could write more, but there's too little time and too much to say.

I love you all, and I thank you for reading my emails. I hope this works, but I've included a little piece of my personal study. Now, unfortunately, I somehow broke the Pdf and I can't edit it without removing the links of the scripture verses. So, you are getting kinda a draft version of what I was working on. I'll see if I can finish and send it out some time, but no promises because it would take a lot of work.


Από τόν,Πρεσβύτερος Ντίλαν Ίοαννης Χάνσεν

Here's the link to my study:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YsdWcs3hd5la_646tjxUKUWeFxfQyEoX/view?usp=drivesdk