Busy but great!

Hey guys,

So sorry but I am only on for a couple minutes today. We got a call this morning saying that we are going to go and serve the refugees all day today. Then we are on an exchange with Elder Ceizla tomorrow so no email then either. So sorry I am not going to be on until Thursday probably I will see if I can get you pictures today but I don't know if I am going to have time. I am sorry I wish I could email today so much exciting stuff has happened but I guess more exciting stuff to come today. I just wanted to make sure that you know I am alive and having a good time and I will talk with you Thursday! :)

Love,

Brig

Mom note:  For P-day this week Brig was able to go to Corinth. That is why there was no email. Today he emailed us this quick update. Looks like he had a great time and saw some amazing things. Hopefully more to come Thursday.

Another Great Week in Greece!

Hey Everyone,

Wow what a good week it was here in Greece!

Last Monday, after p-day, we went to Syntagma and did a whiteboard. We asked people who their heroes were. It was amazing! So many people said there Mom and Dad which was surprising, but really cool, because that is just the Greek people. We had a lot of success with getting contacts and people to follow up with. It was a really good night.

Tuesday, there is a Greek holiday on Saturday called όχι day. The branches are doing something and they want all the missionaries to sing. I don't know who would ever want that - but oh well. It was a funny night cause the lady that was in charge started to roast one of the missionaries because he was breaking the rules and flirting with her daughter last Sunday - yeah that was fun. This night we got Elder Albertson in our companionship because his companions were leaving to Thessaloniki for a week. Elder Albertson was with us until Saturday.

Wednesday, nothing to interesting happened except I had to wait an hour and a half to get my metro pass. Cause they changed it all and we got a call saying we had to do it this day - yeah that was pretty fun.

Thursday was a fun day. In the morning we got to take over the other companionship's job at the Salvation Army handing out clothes. They are all refugees and they have nothing but they don't take any of the clothes that you try to give them. It sucks and it made me sad. We brought all of the baby clothes for this lady and her son up. She didn't want any and them. We had to tell her to leave but she said she needed clothes. We told her we brought them all and she then just stormed out with nothing it was weird.

Friday, was a good day we got to have a lesson with Ralph which is always exciting. Then there was a baptism for a little girl in the English branch. We had one of our less actives there named Manolis. He loved it and even came to church on Sunday - so that was good.

Saturday, the only exciting thing that we did was change back companions so we were back to just having two of us again.

Sunday was a really good day. On our way to church we again got stopped by Zoe, an old lady we met last Sunday. She had called us to talk with us during the week. She just loves us for some reason it is really fun.  She even offered to clean our apartment for free, which was a little weird, and gladly we have rules so she can't - haha.

Me sitting in the kings chair

Today was an awesome day, we went to the original olympic stadium. It was so cool! The track is really weird shaped it is elongated - so yeah it was weird. I got to run a lap on it so that was cool! This was the stadium for the 1896 Olympic games. They have a museum. They have all of the torches from the summer games since then which is really cool. As we were leaving the stadium we ran into a couple that stopped us. They were Mormon and really nice. We talked and they bought us some gelato - that was cool. 

Spiritual thought from the week. Go and read Alma chapter 5. It is so amazing! I read it this week and it is so awesome we need to apply all of the principles from this chapter.

Sorry for the long email but it was a good week.

Love,

Elder Halverson

Pictures and Videos from the Olympic stadium

Nerf Wars last Monday

We drew pictures for each section of lesson one of preach my gospel for district meeting

Crazy Week!!

Hey Everyone,

Hope that all of your weeks this week were amazing because mine was great!

So last Monday we were able to go to Demetria's house and give her a blessing. She just wanted to know what her Heavenly Father wanted her to do. It was a good blessing. She came to church this week for the first time in a while because she has been less active for about a year so that was cool.

Tuesday we had district meeting and I had my first exchange. I went to another area within Athens with Elder Puckrin who is from Ireland and then with Elder Albertson, it was a good exchange. That night we went to George's house who is a less active member but only because the church is so far away. That is a big problem here in Greece is that the church is just so far away. But he was a really nice guy. He just kept offering us food that is what it is like with Greeks. If you say no they get offended so we had like 3 drinks a frozen banana and two gyros it was good but I was stuffed haha.

Wednesday I went back home. Then that night we went out and did some basketball finding and were able to make two new friends that want to play with us again! 

Me and my comp in our service gear

Thursday this night we were able to do some finding at Syntagma. We were able to find a new friend she even said that we should call her and have a meeting with her sometime when she isn't busy which was awesome!

Friday, so we first went out around the neighborhood and did some service which was good.  Then that night we went and played basketball and I made good friends with this guy who likes American sports. He said that he wanted to meet up again sometime so that was really cool. Unfortunately that night I rolled my ankle really bad and still today it is like 2 times as big as it should be so that is bad.

My swollen Ankle

Saturday, first we walked up the mountain to talk to our less active member, and that was not good for my ankle at all. We talked with him and we find that this member is only in Athens every two weeks because he lives on the islands and has a house in Athens. He is never here on a Sunday so that is hard. Then we had a lesson with our investigator Dharmen and he is a really nice guy from India. He speaks English and not Greek so that makes it easy for me haha. We hadn't seen him for a while actually his first lesson was before I came to Greece so we just took some time and caught up and then we talked about the Book of Mormon and he really wants to learn more so that is something cool. Then we went to Ralph's and we had a lesson with Ralph who is one of our less active members and he is a good guy but struggles to get to church so that was good.

Sunday, it was a good day and I was able to make friends with many people in the ward Then I also was able to give a blessing to a man from Oregon who had his wallet stolen and had no way to get home. That was really cool, and then in the evening we had a devotional from Elder Ballard who was speaking to all of the Adult members in the Europe area. He said what we need to do is just to find a quiet moment and contemplate the gifts that we have really been given it was awesome.

This week in my personal study I was able to read the story of Alma the older and the people he baptized in the waters of Mormon it is such a cool story. From it I saw also that Abinadi taught those same people that Alma was able to convert and I was able to learn that the lord has a plan, and because Abinadi had no success with the people. Alma was converted and he became a great prophet it is a cool thing that shows that God really does have a plan and He knows what He is doing so trust him!

Love,

Elder Halverson

Συναρπαστική εβδομάδα

Hey everyone!

What an exciting and busy week it has been I hope my email doesn't bore you all because it might be a little longer today.

Ok so last Monday night we went to Syntagma and we did a whiteboard. It went really well we made a couple friends and then we had someone who asked for a BoM. She said she was going to read it and then call us. But we were able to get her information and have been in contact with her so hopefully that goes well.

Tuesday we had district meeting earlier in the day. Then that night we went looking for a less active member. We didn't know which buzzer was theirs on the building so we just pushed one and somebody opened the door without even asking who it was. We went in and then apparently the lady was expecting someone else cause she yelled at us to leave and went upstairs. We just waited a couple minutes and then went to our less actives door because we knew which was theirs. But sadly they saw who it was and didn't answer the door.

Wednesday we went and tried to do some basketball finding but nobody showed up so we went home. Then we went and did some finding and I was able to make a really good friend. Sadly he is a Muslim so we have to do a lot of interviews with him to just be able to teach him. So right now we are just friends and he wants to meet up again sometime which is really cool.

Thursday nothing to exciting happened. We did have a meeting with the CES (Church education something I don't remember) leaders for the area and it was cool, they taught about how we, most of the time, do not see the results of our efforts in the mission field which is true especially in Greece.

Friday was a really good day but it had a rocky start. Thursday night, since we have zone conference today, we had some missionaries from Thessaloniki that were staying with us. Which was interesting I couldn't understand their Greek or English because they had such strong accents they were from France, and Finland I think. So we left our house 30 minutes earlier than usual so that we could get to the church on time for the meeting. But we got stuck at the metro for 40 minutes just to have them tell me I can't buy a monthly pass because they changed how they do it. Because now the Metro is owned by the Russians so there are certain security things they added so that was pretty dumb. It ended up that we had to run from the metro to the church and we made it only 2 minutes late when we thought we were going to be about 15 so that was good. They had waited to start the meeting cause I was supposed to give the opening prayer haha. Then we had zone conference and it was really good and fun, we did a scripture chase in the middle for a little break I will send a picture it was pretty fun.

Saturday was another good day. To start off with a good morning we went and cleaned on Mars Hill. It was really cool but it is also sad how dirty it is. We also found a hobos house up there so we cleaned up all of their trash for them haha. Then that night we were able to watch the Priesthood Session from general conference and it was really good I really liked President Eyring's talk on priesthood leaders it was really good and really true.

Sunday was amazing, so we had the two other sessions of conference that we didn't get to watch with both the English and Greek branches. I was lucky enough to get to watch it in English. Holy cow that last conference was amazing every message just had a great message and it was great, I would recommended reading through those talks again. Then in between sessions that day we had a pot-luck. It was sooo good we had a mix of Greek, philipeanian (sorry don't know how to say that), and American food it was really good. The Greeks had brought this pasta thing and they put like cream and cinnamon on top and then some meat inside it tasted really weird. Then we had rice cakes, they are surprisingly good. It was overall just a good time to be with everyone. 

Then today I really haven't done anything so sorry about a boring day.

Spiritual thought this week comes from General Conference, I am sorry I don't remember who said it but they said "Love without Service is like Faith without Works, it is dead" It is really true. I am starting to realize that on my mission as I serve people I gain a real love for them. Well that's all for today sorry again for the long message.

Love,

Elder Halverson

Καλά Εβδομάδα!!!

Hey Everyone,

So my week hasn't been as eventful as last week but it was still a really good week. I was also able to give out my first book of Mormon this week it was actually pretty cool the guy also said that he wanted to come to church. He gave us his number we tried to call him and the number didn't exist so yeah. We were supposed to have 6 appointments this week and only 2 actually went through. They were the two that we had with members. We were supposed to have 3 lessons with investigators two had work come up which is understandable and we should be meeting with them soon. The other one we called the day before organized the lesson and then she didn't show up. I guess that is the life in the GAM.

Contacting was good but tuff. We did another whiteboard and made a friend which was good. Then we did a lot of bench contacting where we find someone to sit by and then ask if I can practice my Greek on them. Most of the time when they see you are trying to learn Greek they are really understanding which is cool. We also did basketball again. Before we went a friend we made last time called us and asked us to go with him which was awesome. We are going to have a meeting with him soon so hopefully that goes well. His girlfriend wants to come as well which is also awesome!!

Last Monday after I emailed all you guys we went to the church where we met up with all the other missionaries in Athens. We played some basketball and had a barbecue which was really fun. Apparently just the fact of being an American makes you good at basketball. I am really not good but compared to everyone else I was actually pretty good. I guess that is what you get when you play American sports with Europeans. 

Tuesday we had district meeting and a member named Heidi from the English branch made us a lunch of Chinese food. Holy cow it was soooo good.

Wednesday ok so in Greece they have some really good juices but they have it in like every fruit flavor that you can think of. So this week I decided to go with strawberry and banana so I decided to mix the two. If any of you have ever had danimals smoothies it was like the exact same as that so that was pretty cool. 

Thursday, well really nothing happened on Thursday except we went down into Glyfada which was an area that was shut down as its own area and integrated into ours because it had no success. I can see why we went to visit our less active members there and got yelled at a couple times which was pretty fun.

Friday, again we didn't do much except we did basketball contacting again. We met up with one of our friends who plays there. We are going to meet up with him again sometime soon which is cool. 

Saturday, nothing to eventful happened except for this night we were able to watch the Saturday morning session of conference Live!! Holy cow there were so many great messages and we should all definitely try to apply the teaching from conference because they are totally applicable to all of us in every aspect of our lives. I know that we do have a prophet and apostles that lead and guide this church today and that is such an amazing thing to have.

Sunday, was really busy for us. We got up and went to church. It was fast Sunday. People got up to bear there testimonies and I couldn't understand but it was good. There were so many visitors that returned to Athens that served here 10-12 years ago. That is when the mission was apostate and you could really tell by some of the stories that they told us haha. After church we had a dinner appointment with the Thorntons. With all the other new missionaries. They are from America and work at the Embassy so they get all American food. It was awesome! We had some Hawaiian Haystacks and they were really good. It felt just like home there haha. After dinner we returned to the Church to watch the Sunday Morning session of conference which was again amazing.

That is all for this week, I would like to leave you all with a challenge for this week. I would challenge you all to pick one thing from this last general conference and apply it into your lives. I can say that it really will make you happier in your life as you do so. I love you all.

Love,

Elder Brigham Halverson