Ja das ist dank

Merry Halloween! Hope the festivities are going well back over there in the land of spooky season. I've missed the super decked out houses and the trick or treating, but hey, there's always next year. Even though Cyprus isn't super big on Halloween, the Limassol branch put on a trunk or treat last night, and that was fresh. Got about 4 pieces of candy and I'm satisfied. The branch president and his wife are american, and they ordered tootsie rolls over. I ate 2 of them and I am definitely going to be able to make it through the rest of the mission now. I'm filled with determination and grit thanks to those candies. Eat some tootsie rolls for me everyone. 

In the spirit of Halloween we also had a party at district council. Though our costumes weren't much, we had some great food. I spent 2 1/2 hours the night before making up a ton of mashed potatoes and sloppy joe stuff. Gave us some good leftovers for the rest of the week. 

Other than that, I honestly don't have too much to report. Teaching and finding is going well as always in Cyprus. The Lord has a lot for us to do and it's a great privilege to be here doing it. We met a couple more cool dudes from Cameroon this week, and we had a good lesson with them. They even came to the trunk or treat with us last night which was way cool. So did our homie Steve. 

Our work these days requires a lot of driving back and forth between Limassol and Paphos, but it's honestly kinda nice because it keeps things interesting. We just trek back and forth teaching our friends over there and here. The Lord has a lot for us to be doing it seems. 

On a more weird and random note, Elder Nilsson and I found out we can use the projector we have as a blacklight when we reflect it off our wall, so we've been having some fun with that. Created some good album covers. 

Also I am staying in Cyprus for at least another 2 weeks I think. Κιο εστ σχουμ ε μιρ

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Driving Stick On the Wrong Side

Hey bros and not bros! In case you are bored and don't have much else to do, here is an email of some random happenings from this last week. Please enjoy. 

For those of you interested in the happenings of the work, we did a cool little experiment as a mission this week. On tuesday we had a mission-wide finding day where we did all of our studies in the morning and then between the hours of 10:30 and 9 all we did was find. No lessons, no naps, just finding new friends. It was pretty cool, though it was a long and tiring day. We had a lot of success doing a book of mormon stand by the marina and made a cool friend from afghanistan. We might not be able to teach him much since Afghanistan is not a friendly place for the church, but he loves the Book of Mormon so far. We've also been having mega success doing online finding. It's kinda been a little overwhelming really. The work rolls on. 

I also had an exchange with my homie Elder Garrick in Nicosia. In Nicosia they drive a nice manual ford van. Very fun to get the hang of, especially in nicosia which is kind of a hilly city. Having to shift gears with my left hand was kinda whack but it got my adrenaline going and it was fun. Also got to play soccer with a bunch of africans that just smoked us. I was hoping to get better at soccer on my mission, but I don't think it's working. The people we play with are just way too skilled. Nicosia is also a divided city. The north side is occupied by turkey, so we wandered up there for a few minutes for fun. Kinda cool. 

We actually went back up to north cyprus today as well. We drove over with the elders and sisters from nicosia in the van because it had the insurance, and we saw a cool castle. We also ate some relatively affordable food so that was nice. Most places in south cyprus are frickin rigged they're so expensive. Anyways, it was a party. Gotta love these pdays with the homies. 

My time in Cyprus is running out though. I think I'll probably be moved here in a couple weeks or so. We'll see!

I also got access to some calvin and hobbes I've been reading in my spare time. I included some favorites. 

Also also don't think we're apostate for not wearing tags in the pictures at the castle. Tags aren't allowed in Turkey. How inconvenient. 

Photos

I got deported

HI GUYS yeah it's been a month or so. I could update you on the last month, but honestly this last week is all that is coming to mind because that's just how dope it was. 

So, I guess I didn't really get deported, but it seemed like it'd be an interesting title. I did however voluntarily leave the country by plane and got quite a few more passport stamps. Those few of you that are my fsithful followers will remember that a while back we heard Elder Bednar and some other seventies would be coming to visit our mission. Well that day was Tuesday haha. To keep it simple, just know that when your mission comprises 5 different countries, travel is not easy or short. We left Cyprus on Sunday, stayed in Athens, and then left for Albania super early Monday morning. Man I have missed Albania. Of course I'm enjoying Cyprus, but Albania is just built different. We had a mission-wide pday in Tirana after we arrived and it was so so so dope. Ultimate frisbee and board games with all of my mission friends in one place. A highlight for sure, but that was just the beginning.

As I said, Elder Bednar and 3 seventies came to meet with us and the albanian members on Tuesday. Early Tuesday afternoon, we had a meeting with just us and them, and it was so incredible. I have gained so much respect and love for these men. They love the Lord, and they are so genuine. The fame they have in the church hasn't gotten to their head, and it's clear that they don't think themselves better than any of us. They were loving, ready, and willing to help each of us in any way they could. Rather than just hearing them give talks, it turned into a discussion with all of us involved. We had studied different talks in preparation for the visit, and these talks became the basis for the spirit-led discussion we had. He had us voluntarily share our own thoughts and insights we learned. He spoke individually with each of us that shared, and it was so inspired. Something that he emphasized a lot was how we need to act as agents, rather than be acted upon as objects. He shared that the spirit can't speak through someone who isn't using his/her agency and how we need to share insights and thoughts of our own free will, rather than because we've been called upon. It was really cool to see how the spirit led that conversation as we shared the things we were hearing but weren't being said. Lots of insights and inspiration came from that meeting. Elder Bednar is definitely an apostle of the Lord. Amazing. 

Seeing that we were all in the same country all together, President Burdon used the opportunity to put together a mission-wide conference. Messages, pizza, a massive beach service project in the rain, and an incredible spirit-filled testimony meeting made it another great day. Definitely my highlight from that day was our bus ride after the service project. I was sitting at the front of the bus, and so I asked the driver if we could use his microphone to tell stories as we drove back to the chapel. It turned into a great hour and a half. I even did a little karaoke! I love this mission.

Anyways, it turned into a long week for us south country missionaries because we didn't fly out of albania till thursday afternoon and didn't get back to Cyprus until Friday. This meant we basically had a second pday with the AP's looking at bunkers and albanian history and then spent another night in Athens. The rest of the week kinda went to crap too haha because Elder Nilsson woke up really sick on Saturday... oh well. I guess we had already had too much fun that week. 

Other cool thing: we visited a russian church and a nordic church right next to each other. Cool pictures.

Enjoy catching up on the last month of photos!

Paphos/Limassol Week 3

Paphos/Limassol Week 4

Paphos/Limassol Week 5

Paphos/Limassol Week 6/Mission Conference