New Friends and Greek Customs - February 7th 2016

February 7th, 2016

Sunday, LeeAnn and I and the girls attended the two Acropoli branches (English and Greek speaking) that meet in central Athens, so that the girls could have a chance to say goodbye to Sister Bakewell, a dear Sister Missionary to whom they’ve become quite attached in the past 6 months. Sister Bakewell has been in Athens now for the entire time that we have lived here, and I’m now transferring her to Cyprus, where she will finish her mission.

I bore my testimony (Greek and English) in both meetings, and LeeAnn wanted to share her testimony in the Greek meeting and asked me to translate. Luckily the first counselor in the Branch Presidency jumped at the chance and I didn’t have to do it. While I could have explained most of what she said, it would not have gone so smoothly and there was a good chance some false doctrine would have made it into the meeting...

In the English branch, the closing hymn was “The Time is Far Spent.” It’s not my favorite hymn anyway, (even when the meeting has gone into over-time) but this time the pianist picked it up at a lively pace. If I’m not mistaken, the tune is an old German folk song, so two little toddlers who were already having a hard time being reverent couldn't resist. They found their way to the front of the meeting and danced around the front of the chapel with reckless abandon for all of the second, third and fourth verses. Mom was watching from the back, too tired to intervene.

Once again, I found myself in that awkward spasm (one that has become all-too familiar here in the mission field) where I wanted to stop the trainwreck but the muscles wouldn’t fire. From where I sat, I could see no good way to gather both children from opposite sides of the stage and then haul them (squirming and screaming) out the central isle--without wrecking what was left of the meeting. So I did what everyone else did and kept singing and smiling “sweetly” at them, hoping all the while that those new-comers present could overlook the chaos and take something meaningful from the meeting.

I have to admit, that while I was debating taking drastic action, the thought did enter my head that I know two sets of parents right now in Missouri and Arizona who, on any given Sunday, as the closing song is sung, are barely hanging on to sanity as their little ones rage on. It might be a while before the concept of "the Sabbath" becomes a delight. But I hope they will keep trying. :)

Bill O. Heder
Greece, Athens Mission

Hello Family,

Being a full time missionary gives me a full time responsibility to look for and find people that are looking for more in their lives, especially religion.  I had an experience this past week where I was able to meet a lady named Eva who was walking her 2 big dogs and she was delightful.  She wanted to know why I was in Athens, (which always leads to a good discussion about the church) but as we shared contact information we became friends on Facebook and I now have a way to follow up with her.  She has already commented to one of my posts and this makes me hope that she can link to other things that will connect with her heart. When I told her I was the Mission Presidents wife here in Greece she was excited. (honestly, I think it made her want to talk to me longer because I was associated with a "President" figure and that gave me some "credibility".)  I felt prompted to talk to her about her family and if she wants to have a family here in Greece.  She felt very strongly about this, frustrated with culture barriers that a bad economy has imposed and created.  

I have been learning a lot from the people I meet about the Greek culture and how it is evolving and adapting to the times and pressures? They are very close as family units but in difficult times here, the young men are waiting for a very long time to get married because it is so difficult to support a family. Many men don't leave home until they are 30+ (really) and then they look for work, but won't marry until they are 40+ often late 40's. For the young women who want to marry and have their children in their late 20's and 30's this is a problem. When I tell people that where I am from most people get married in their 20's and often their early 20's, they literally just laugh out loud.

Alinda has had many interesting discussions in her Psychology class about these social traditions that are being challenged.  It is one of Alinda's favorite classes and the teacher likes her insights and often calls on her for her opinion and I just love how she is teaching gospel principles. People agree with them but don't even know they a related to her religion.  Her teacher, a very religious Orthodox man, is trying to teach the students a better way than they are going, and he strongly disagrees with some of the cultural norms and habits that the youth are following.

Mariana is another friend here. She is a carbon copy of the aunt in the movie "My Big Fat Greek Wedding"--the one who says, "what you mean he don't eat meat?!... That's ok, I cook lamb." She happens to be one of the landlords that we rent an Elders apartment from, and she wanted to meet us.  So Sat. night when she opened her apt. door we were met with a whirlwind of Greek goodness full of hugs and kisses and the next 2 hours were delightful.  She had made us Greek cheese and spinach pies and served us on beautiful tray with dollies along with a beautiful tea set.

In our Fast and testimony meeting several of the missionaries that will be leaving and going home or to Cyprus bore their testimony and expressed thanks to the members for their support, example and friendships. When they find, love and serve new investigators and go through life changes and conversion with them it is hard to leave these cherished friendships.  

Alinda played a musical number in the Halandri Branch conference and President Heder said that from where he was sitting there were several tearful faces that showed how beautifully music brings the spirit.  

Love and Hugs,

Sister LeeAnn Heder

Pictures:  Around the neighborhood in Feb. - First is Alinda at our front porch, and then at the end of our street you go up the stairs and through the trees to a Fitness Park with a pool, (they swim year round ) soccer field, tennis and basketball courts. Continuing around the mountain are some nice homes with a great view. The view today includes a rare sighting - SNOW on the mountain tops !  Olympic Stadium in the foreground. Our visit with the Acropoli Branch this past Sunday.  This is Marie before a girl stepped on her foot causing her to fall backwards hard on her hand. She has a hairline fracture in her radius.  

Absolutely love the lemon trees

Swimmers exercise year round at Green Valley Park close to our home

Soccer fields

Lovely home on the hill of Philothei

Our front porch

Celebrating Elder Teal's birthday - 20!

A few minutes after this play Marie fell and fractured her arm

Philothei Hill views are the best

Mariana is one of our Landlords and my new Greek friend

Sister Bakewell and Marie are great friends

Tayna is working hard to pass her exams at school

Celebrating Sister Sanko's Birthday

Beautiful places for walks

Our member from Rhodes visits Athens - Mission Leadership Council - Feb.1st 2016

February 1st 2016

A few weeks ago I sent a letter to my mission leaders; district leaders, zone leaders, Assistants and Sister Training Leaders. I asked them to complete the following sentence as if describing our mission to one of their friends serving elsewhere: "in the Greece Athens Mission we ___________________." I waited for their weekly letters and collected their responses, and compiled them on a single page. They ranged from we "strive, struggle to become new creatures, endure well, hope, believe, obey, love," etc. to "we are family." 

I was touched by the responses, as they showed the determination and unity that these young people have. What was interesting is that none of them described the mission as one where we baptize. Last year we baptized the equivalent of a good sized branch, but even the mission leaders view the mission as one where we endure rather than one where we conquer. (our average baptism per missionary is .7)

I had been praying constantly about what we could do to have these kids see themselves as capable of doing what hasn't ever been done here in Greece. So many of them have told me in our interviews or letters how they genuinely are willing to do anything that's asked, but they just don't know what else to do to find "success."

So I called a special Mission Leadership Council meeting for the next week. We flew the Cyprus and Thessaloniki district leaders and zone leaders into Athens so we could meet all together. We talked for 4 hours about our mission vision and how to elevate it. It was wonderful. We studied Alma 48 and 49 and talked about having the faith that we could be guided to know how to change the operation of things and adapt to the new challenges being presented. 

I ended the meeting by telling the Roger Bannister story, and showing a video clip of the actual race where he became the first man in history to run the mile in less than 4 minutes. As that clip ended I promised them that this was their mission, their time, their people and their call; not to just plant seeds but to establish the Church in Greece. They needed to raise their sights and see the leaders and families on whom the Church will grow. I then set dates for follow-up meetings, one in Cyprus and another in Athens, and challenged them to come to the meetings after having dreamed big, ready to break barriers. That night I prayed even harder for help.

Tomorrow is the first of the two meetings. I travel to Cyprus to meet with the leaders there. I continued to pray for insight--and it has come. Not only have I received ideas and jotted plans, but as I have gone out with missionaries to teach or study with them this week they've shared ideas that they've had, and there is a definite rise in their sights. I'm excited at the prospects and confident in their success. 

Bill O. Heder
Greece, Athens Mission

Hello,

A baptism anywhere is a very special thing, but here in Greece it is especially treasured because they seem a little harder to find.  A sweet sister from Cameroon was baptized. She is French and so several of our French speaking Elders and Sisters have participated in teaching her. Her friend, a recent convert, stood at her baptism service and gave such a sincere talk, talking right to her. It was so heart-felt and they both smiled and cried together during the talk. They have helped each other through many tough things, and their friendship has been a real strength for both of them. Her friend said that she always knew she would join the church because it made her a better person. She saw her doing things differently and she was happy. She said, " I am so glad that Heavenly Father has touched your heart and you know that this is true."  Two French-speaking elders then sang a beautiful hymn from the French Hymn book. As usual in meetings here, there was the buzz of  translating going on during the service; some missionaries translating  into Greek, some translating from French to English.

Shannon is our only member of record on the island of Rhodes.  She has been in Athens this week because her son got his tonsils taken out at a hospital here.  We met with Shannon, her husband and her son at their hotel room in down-town Athens Tuesday night so that President Heder and the Branch President of our Halandri Branch could give the little boy a priesthood blessing. Afterward we invited them to get a bite to eat with us, and we had a chance to get better acquainted over some great burritos at a great Mexican restaurant near Sintagma Square in Athens. 

Everything went well with Alex's surgery  and they spent yesterday with us in the mission home and then President Heder drove them out to the airport very early Sunday morning.  It was great to meet Shannon and get to know her. As the only member in the home, she is very good to have family prayer and has scripture study with her son. Even while here in the mission home, she read with him.

The winter continues to be extremely mild, and we are not complaining.  I love to see flowers in bloom year round - this is my kind of climate!  and there have been lots of singing birds in our yard lately   A lady named Vasilika that I met while out on the street doing some "finding" yesterday told me that the weather is usually really nice for a couple of weeks at the end of January and then it gets cold again. She said it goes way back to old Greek stories and mythology that there were special birds that came to Greece at the end of Jan. and the weather protected them. ( I will give Heavenly Father the credit for loving these baby birds) 

Marie continues to play basketball on the varsity team.  They don't play as many games as in the states but they have some tournaments coming up.  Marie has been up in Thessaloniki this past weekend with all of the 9th grade students on a trip to a farm school that is associated with her school here in Athens.  They had a great time learning how to compost, harvest caviar, studying the science of nutrition, etc., and they ate food grown on the farm.  Maybe it was a little TOO healthy, because she said that when they went into town all the students went in the grocery store or bakery to buy junk food; non organic, processed stuff that their bodies were used too. HA!  She said some of the kids actually felt sick from eating that healthy.  She said the train ride was beautiful coming back down to Athens through the countryside of Greece.  We were glad to get her back. 

I manage all of the mission medical which can make for lots of phone time between insurance and doctors etc.  We have some unusual doctor visits and have learned who we can trust. When you go into a medical clinic they want to run at least 20 tests on you. Another crazy yet interesting fact is that many pharmacies  (which are on every corner) have pharmacists that mix up most of their own medicine. Very different regulations over here. I think I mentioned that each pharmacy makes their own Flu shots.  When I told the area medical advisor this he strongly advised our missionaries NOT to get one.  Last thing, we had such an amazing MLC this last week.  President Heder did such an amazing job of motivating and lifting their sights about what is possible here.  Loved it - they would have run through a wall for him.

Love,

Sister LeeAnn Heder

Pictures:  Shannon our member on Rhodes, MLC training meeting, Marie's baptism and what it looks like here in January, and big news Austin and Chloe are engaged !  Yay ! its official! We love her!  

Shannon our member in Rhodes

Mission Leadership Training

We brought together the leadership from Thessaloniki, Cyprus and Athens

Marie's Baptism Day with her sweet baby

Marie has lots of friends to support her as a new member

Austin and Chloe and officially engaged and getting married in May

January in Greece  - the weather is lovely !

800 Hygiene Kits for the Refugees - Cyprus trip - Jan. 26th, 2016

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

 The Athens Missionaries put together 800 hygiene kits for the refugee's coming into Greece 

Elder and Sister Parry organized this project and got all the supplies

Oranges everywhere - I love it!

Clementines from the Farmers Market, YUM!

Dinner with Elder and Sister Jacobsen

Lunch after watching the worldwide training broadcast

Marcello's Baptism with his Romaian friend and Elder Potter and Elder Deighton

Even after spending 3 hours hauling pots and bowls with hot water to the font, it was still very cold.

Cyprus Sisters

Despina and Eva - our young women in Cyprus

Elder and Sister Reeves 

This tree is in bloom now and it is glorious!