Heder Mission Moments: 800 Hygiene Kits for the Refugees - Cyprus trip

Hello from Greece,

I’ve spent Thursday through Sunday in Cyprus. The Assistants and I went on Thursday to begin exchanges and visits with missionaries. Aside from interviews, I did companionship study with one companionship and then daily and weekly planning with another companionship in Nicosia, Cyprus. It was good to observe their efforts and guide in little ways.

On Friday evening I picked up Lee at the airport in Larnaca and we were able to spend that evening with Elder and Sister Jacobsen from St. George, Utah. Elder Jacobsen serves as First Counselor in my Mission Presidency. He's a retired football coach and teacher and has been invaluable in his service and devotion to keeping the mission operational in Cyprus. With all the banking, visa and apartment issues that arise there, I would almost have to live there half of each month were it not for Elder Jacobsen attending to things. We are looking for a way to bring the Jacobsens over to Athens so that the rest of the mission can meet him as part of a zone conference soon.

On Saturday Lee and I drove back up to Nicosia and did zone training for all the Cyprus missionaries most of the day. That night we had the baptism of a Greek-speaking Romanian man. He will actually be a member of the Larnaca Branch, but chose to travel to Nicosia to use the one baptismal font in Cyprus, rather than go out into the ocean. The ocean water would have been warmer. The water in the font could not be heated, (even though the senior couple in Nicosia had used every available pot and pan to heat water on the stove and in the microwave). So when Marcelo stepped down into the water he began to hyperventilate. It took some tense moments and a lot of encouragement for him to agree to go forward with the baptism. It was only at the urging of his two Romanian friends, one who is a member and the other who is not, (the non-member friend was calling, “do it for Jesus!”) that he went ahead with the service.

Happily he survived, and he bore a sweet testimony afterward. He was confirmed in the Larnaca Sacrament meeting the following morning.

Sunday involved traveling between Larnaca and Nicosia, Cyprus for two different Branch Conferences wherein I reorganized the Branch Presidencies, held the sustaining vote for all local and general church leadership and then set apart the newly-called officers after each meeting--all before dashing off to the next meeting. We finished by racing from Nicosia back to Larnaca to set apart the newly-called District President (who had traveled one and 1/2 hours to meet me there) before we raced to the airport to catch our flight home.

By the time I landed in Athens in the gathering dark, I had almost cleared my head, but Lee and I were just missing Alinda and Marie. I've become addicted to having them around. The "forced" family dependence of this experience is one of the sweet blessings of this mission for me, but it will probably be the curse of their future. I'm afraid I'll be a very needy, whiny father in my old age, unable to be happy if my daughters don't live close by and don't come sit with me daily and say nice things, even if they don't mean it... :)

Bill O. Heder
Greece, Athens Mission

I flew to Cyprus on my own this weekend to meet President Heder and do some specialized training in Nicocia with our missionaries in Cyprus. On our way to the hotel there is a massive pond that is called Salt Lake, and there were thousands of flamingo's in this shallow lake. We later found out that they migrate there for the next 3 months. I wish I could have gotten a better picture for Alinda, she is crazy about flamingo's. We had some great meetings with the missionaries, we watched the Worldwide broadcast that was just for missionaries all around the world. We watched it with our Athens missionaries last week when it was broadcast live from Salt Lake, but Cyprus does not yet get satellite broadcasts so we have to play it later for them from the Internet. The girls did not go with us on this trip, but they managed pretty well at home even though they had to take a bus to church on a cold morning. They will be glad to have testing week over. Here they have a 3 hour exam for each one of their classes. It has kept them busy. We have a great senior couple who is doing Seminary with them and they even have a temple trip to Spain planned in April.

A highlight for the weekend was the baptism of Marcello, a man from Romania who speaks a little Greek but had a Romanian friend that spoke English and Romanian and the missionaries could teach with his help translating. Missionaries in Romania are also available on skype for teaching lessons. Marcello was worried about getting baptized in the sea because he thought it would be too cold but after 3+ hours of filling the font in Nicosia, with the senior missionaries carrying water in buckets, bowls and pans from the kitchen where they microwaved, used the oven and stovetop to heat water, the water in the font was still cold. Elder Potter told me that he thought he might not go through with it. But he splashed some water up on his face and neck, and Elder Potter said, "lets just do this quick." One of his friends from the back corner who is also learning the discussions called out, "Do it for Jesus!" And he did.

He was so happy when he came up out of the font, I don't think he even noticed the water temp. anymore. Nothing better than the smiles you get from someone after they come up out of the waters of baptism.

On Sunday we were racing from one end of the island to the other with lots of assignment changes in branch presidencies, In the Larnaca Branch one of the 1st counselors called was a Cypriot member baptized about a year ago and as he took his place on the stand you could see how happy and proud he was to be able to serve. As he sat down, the missionaries in the front were all smiling, giving him a thumbs up and cheering silently for him. He has a great relationship with the missionaries, they really love him. He and his wife will become some of the strong leaders in Greece. One of the new branch president's is a US government official of some sort, and he is trying very hard to work with the Cypriot government to allow people to look at the records so we can do some genealogy work with the members there. (The missionaries joke that he is really just a secret agent working for the US government anyway.)

A couple of fun facts about Greece this week: The oranges and lemons are in their prime right now, (we bought a big bag of clementines and oranges and 5 lemons for $2.50.) Marie probably eats 6 a day, really. I had some fresh squeezed orange juice for breakfast at our hotel that was unbelievable, really! I had 3 glasses :) and the strawberries bring tears to my eyes they are so heavenly:). OK enough about food. Except to tell you that I made sweet and sour chicken and veggies for our Worldwide training event and because of the color of it, many of the missionaries thought that I had made carmel sauce to put on the chicken. But when they tasted it they really liked it. One last thought: it gets very green here in the winter, especially in Cyprus and last week I heard the lawn mower and it made me chuckle that the Gardner was mowing in January.

Sister LeeAnn

Greece Athens Mission