Happy New Year - Book of Mormon read a thon, Basketball and Ballet Jan. 4th 2016

Well,

I promised the missionaries who hadn't had the experience before that there was nothing better than a Christmas in the mission field--if your heart was all in. I still haven't read all of this week's missionary letters to the President, but thus far, they're all feeling very good about being missionaries. Their favorite part of our Christmas/New Year blitz was the Book of Mormon Read-a-thon. It took us two straight days of reading all day, but we did it and it was great. I think the missionaries came away with a better view of how the entire book testifies of Christ; premortal, mortal and resurrected.

We finished the week of activities with a testimony meeting. I had given each missionary a copy of The Living Christ a couple of weeks before, and asked them to prepare for the Read-a-thon by studying it. Then, after we had finished the Book of Mormon together, I borrowed an idea that President Allred used with our High Council a few years ago and gave each missionary a separate statement from The Living Christ and asked them to teach and testify about it for 3-4 minutes. Even though few of them stayed within that small time frame, it was a wonderful, powerful meeting. Just before LeeAnn and I closed it, Alinda played an arrangement of "I Believe in Christ." It was something! I then told them that our little family of missionaries is enough; our little band can do what the Lord needs for the 14 million people in Greece and Cyprus--because He will make us enough.

So now we are back into the swing of things, reports, meetings, training, exchanges, teaching and goals. It's a new year, and with the first 6 months of our mission behind us, Lee and I can look back at some wonderful progress and vital changes. I feel that we have the missionaries who can bring miracles. We will continue to change the way we do things--and get better. I'll be teaching more with the missionaries and spending more time with them studying and doing daily and weekly planning. The Assistants will spend even less time in the office and more time out on exchanges, training and lifting. We will try to do everything that we've been asked to do, and prepare as we've been asked to prepare, and trust that the Lord will accomplish His work through us.

Happy New Year Everyone!

Bill O. Heder
Greece, Athens Mission

Happy New Year,

Our landlord had stopped by on Christmas Eve because I had some orange rolls for him and he asked if we were ready for the carolers?  Apparently on both Christmas and New Years Eve mornings kids go around the neighborhoods with little musical triangles and want you to let them in so they can sing to you while playing the triangle and then you give them money.  We had to make a quick run to the store to get some change.  It was fun to hear them sing in Greek.  They don't celebrate Halloween here so this is their version of trick or treat. However Alinda and Marie were not feeling the love to go and join in the fun.  When you watch teens stand in line at the local grocery store and do it until the checker gives them some cash, it can be a little irritating to those waiting...

Well we thoroughly enjoyed our new year events with our missionaries.  We had 18 missionaries sleep here on the Book a Mormon read-a-thon days (it was just too far to go all the way home) and 10 or so the rest of the week. (the missionaries from Thessaloniki) The cooking, feeding and visiting with the missionaries about their families and their traditions was really a highlight. 

All of our missionaries speak at least two languages, a number of them speak 3 or more languages,  with a little more than half know English as their primary language, and most of those are from England--with many different accents.  This made it so fun to share cultural customs and foods that they grew up enjoying.  I told them I would try and learn how to cook some of the foods that they missed, but for now they seem to enjoy my cuisine. For my English missionaries my food has a lot more flavor.  We had French toast for breakfast with buttermilk syrup, mixed berries and whipped cream, this was total overload for the English boys who wondered why we were having dessert for breakfast. Ha!  

I loved reading the Book of Mormon with the missionaries, most read in English but some used their French, Spanish or Greek scriptures. Our testimony meeting on the last night was definitely the best activity, none of us there will forget the spirit of that meeting. They had come to the meeting after reading the Book of Mormon together and then President Heder had asked them to study "The Living Christ" and had given each missionary a one or two line segment to comment on.  They were so insightful and wise beyond their years with what they shared, wonderful!  Alinda and Marie also participated in all of the events of the week and love feeling like they have 30 new brothers and sisters.  Alinda ended our program with a piano solo, "I Believe in Christ" which made us all cry.

One of our assistants had a beautiful experience with someone he baptized in Cyprus. He had called him before Christmas and said that he was leaving the church, he had too many trials and problems since he joined...This made the Elder feel so bad and he had been praying for him.  After Christmas our Elder said that he received a call from his newly-baptized friend who tearfully told him he could never leave the church because he knew it was true and could never deny it.

Marie played in her first varsity basketball game today in a two day tournament with lots of schools in the area. It was a lot of fun and much more intense than what I expected.  The coach would call things out in English some of the time but when he got frustrated or intense he would call out in Greek.  Marie had some good hustle and sunk a 3 pointer from above the top of the key in the second half. She only took the one shot, so it's a good thing it went in!

Marie and I both enjoyed our birthdays a week apart, and Bill surprised me with tickets to the Nutcracker with the touring Polish National Ballet company.  Such a treat! and the dancers were amazing, the symphony was also stunning.  Alinda and I kept looking at each other and raising our eyebrows to indicate to each other, "WOW that was awesome!"  

Lots of love,  LeeAnn  

my favorite walking path around Philothei

 Enjoying the Christmas decorations in Syntagma Square

One tradition at Christmas is that they decorate ships with lights etc. instead of trees

 A night out at the ballet to see The Nutcracker

Happy Birthday to Marie !  She turns 15 year old.

Basketball Tournament at ACS 

Birthday Love from the pastry shops

Top two teams for the tournament - ACS took 2nd