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

Έλλαδα!!!!!(Greece!!!)

Mars Hill

Hey Everyone,

Holy cow what a crazy time it has been. We left the MTC at 4 a.m. on Tuesday morning to head to the Manchester airport. We were scheduled to get to Greece around 3 in the afternoon.  But our flight was delayed an hour out of Manchester and that then caused us to show up right as they closed the gates for our connecting flight to Greece out of London. So we were then stuck in the London airport for 5 hours until we could get to Greece.

We got to Greece around 8 o'clock at night and from there we drove to the mission home to stay for the night. That night we got our first gyros and they were really good. We got up the next morning and headed out for Mars hill. At Mars hill President had us all bear our testimony in Greek. There were some missionaries that were leaving on Thursday that also bore their testimony and holy cow I have a long way to go with my Greek. Then we went to the church building and had some training, and I got my new companion. Then Me and my new companion, Elder Goodwin, headed home to Ahgios Dimitrios which is the area in the heart of Athens which is crazy. That night we did some studying and a little shopping to get us through the rest of the week.

First Whiteboard

Thursday, my first full day in the mission! We had studies in the morning and then in the Afternoon we were going to visit a member named Manolis. It was interesting, his Greek is really hard to understand for everyone. So for me I understood nothing that he said but the lesson went well and I bore a little testimony, and feel it went pretty well. That night we went and did a whiteboard. We wrote the question "Does something exist after death?" and we would ask people for answers. It was good but we had no success with getting contacts which was sad but we tried so that's all that matters. 

Mars Hill with my area behind me

Friday again was studies in the Morning and then we had a Zone training in the afternoon where we talked about how to find people. Which was good because we have to get creative now with how we do our finding. Then that night we went with the sisters from our area and did some basketball finding. We finally had success my companion Elder Goodwin has a broken toe so he sat on the side. He made a friend with whom we have a meeting on Friday and I made three new friends with whom we are going to play ball with again on Friday. So we count that as some success which is awesome.

Parthenon With Elder Goodwin

Saturday, we didn't do much. We made some cookies to give to our neighbors because President wants us to know all of our neighbors by name. We had good success. We met Sophia and then Vasili.  Vasili is about 65 and he is very Greek but he let us in and we had some juice and just talked for a little about life. He said we should come back sometime so hopefully this can go somewhere. He also offered us some cigarettes. Ha ha the first time in my life I have been offered a smoke was on my mission. I thought that was pretty funny. On this night the assistants came and slept over at our house because they were out with an investigator late and would have gotten home at 10:30. So they came to our house around 9 to stay for the night. It was really fun they were cool guys, their names are Elder Viner and Elder Menis from England and Italy. That was fun to get to know them.

Parthenon With President and Sister Heder

Parthenon with APs and Elder Goodwin

Sunday, In the morning we went to church. It was good. I am assigned to the Greek branch which is interesting but it went good. Sacrament meeting was first and then Priesthood. In between Sunday School and Preisthood meeting we got pulled into a relief society meeting between the Greek and English branch so that we could translate. It was so weird and the ladies were pretty harsh to each other. After that we went to the Parthenon which was so cool. So the story is that it was free Saturday and Sunday. We got a call on Saturday from the APs that said if you want to go to  the Parthenon on either of those days for an hour you can. So we went with the APs to the Parthenon on Sunday. The funny thing is while we were there president called us and asked where are you guys? We told him, then we talked for a minute. Then he said look up. We looked up from the bottom of the acropolis and saw President waving at us. He was there which was cool so we got a picture with president at the Parthenon which is pretty cool and has never happened before.

Sorry this email is so long but a lot of stuff happened this week. I will leave you with a spiritual thought from the week, I have found that throughout 2 Nephi in the Isaiah chapters there is a recurring statement "his hand is stretched out still". That is a really cool promise that we have been given in life that it doesn't matter what happens we can still repent and the Savior will bring us back into his loving arms.

Love,

Elder Halverson

Greece!

Hey everyone,

I am going to go through my day. To start I got up at 3:15am. I actually got really awesome sleep so that was good. It was hard to leave President and Sister Bunker they were awesome people. We went to the airport and all my bags were good I got through fine. Our flight was delayed an hour so we missed our connection to Athens and got on a flight 5 hours later. While waiting I got a 10 pounds voucher from the airline. I went and got the best meal that I have had of ham and pancakes. It was awesome! We finally get to Greece and Meet President and Sister Heder and the AP's they are amazing. We went straight to the mission home because we got here late and just hung out. I love the Heders they are so amazing and awesome. I am going to love them so much. Then we found out our areas and guess who gets to serve in the heart of Athens? That is me. I have to leave now but my p-day is Monday so I will email then. Love You Guys I will talk with you on Monday!!

Love,

Brig

Also send letters and packages to

P.O. Box 66038

GR 155 10

Cholargos
Greece

Elder Halverson with President and Sister Heder

Elder Halverson and His Companion

είναι ώρα!!

This week has had some cool things happen. I will not be able to get a big email out today because President said just to email family today since it is not a p-day. If you want to add stuff on to my blog from this email feel free to do so.

Wednesday I was able to go to the temple again and was able to spend a good amount of time in the celestial room. It was just a really good and relaxing time I am really going to miss the temple. 

Thursday this was the Day that I facetimed with Daniel. We had two other lessons in the day. The one right before I facetimed Daniel was amazing I was testifing of the power of prayer and I just felt the spirit so strong. Then I had the lesson with Daniel it was amazing we taught so much from the first lesson and were able to answer all of his questions, then I testified at one point of the prophet Joseph Smith and I just felt the spirit so strong especially as I recited the first vision it was amazing.

On Friday, it was a weird day because everyone went to Manchester but us 3 Americans. President said we could do whatever we wanted. We went up and started packing and it was nice because we had to adjust weight. I really hope that goes well. That night we skyped with a returned missionary from Greece. It was supposed to be with another member but that didn't work out. So we got to talk with him and it was really awesome. He was such a nice guy. We talked a lot about how he liked the mission  all in Greek that was good.

Saturday, it was my last session in the temple until I am home. It was also a cool session we were in a deaf session. There were two people sitting in the corner and signing the whole time. It was very interesting but also cool. It was a very good last session. It was our last night with Brother Peel which was sad but also not because he is coming to Athens in a year. So some of us will get to see him when he comes.

Cool spiritual thought of the week. This morning we watched a mormon message The Will of God you should watch it. In the message once the gardener cuts down the plant it says "why did you cut me down I was doing so good on my own". I feel like that is what the lord is doing with me. I was cut down like the bush so that I can grow not as big for myself but to grow fruit for others. It has been cool to see that as I am building myself back up I am not building around my needs but the needs of others. I feel that I can testify so much more with the spirit that way it is so awesome.

I love you guys so much. Thank you for all that you have done for me and how you have helped me so far. 

Love,

Elder Halverson