Baptisms, Ayia Napa, Idalion and Kourion Archealogical Sites and Kolossi Medieval Castle

Greetings from the busy world of Cyprus missionaries.

The last few weeks have flown by with little time to write in our blog. We have had wonderful sweet experiences with members and missionaries. We have had several visits with members and learned of their strengths and struggles. We had 2 fine young Africans baptized here in Larnaca, 3 children of a member sister in Nicosia were miraculously able to be baptized and today a baptism is moving forward in Limassol (about an hour to the west).

We have had Preparation Day outings with our branch missionaries and with the whole group of Cyprus missionaries during the visit of President and Sister Nelson, and have examined some of the amazing sites of Cyprus. (Most of the pictures below are from our outings.)

We have struggled to get things ready for our immigration interview coming up a week from today. We have made several trips into the bank in Nicosia where the church has accounts in order to sort out some items related to our immigration application. As our church banking coordinator said, European Banks may not be as service oriented as American Banks. We all know that American Banks are not always easy to deal with. We are hoping our extensive and expensive preparations for the interview will see our Lawyer through a successful process and we will be able to stay as planned. We still have a couple of steps to complete with the bank and so we will likely be back to Nicosia a time or two in the coming week.

We are preparing for meetings in Athens mid-February during the tour of our mission by the Area President. It will be a great opportunity to visit Athens.

Our anchor since we have been here left today as the Elder and Sister Holt are on the airplane right now on their way home to Arizona. The responsibility of Cyprus missionary finances and Cyprus apartments has dropped on me. Fortunately the responsibilities related to mission vehicles is shifting to a new office couple in Bulgaria so I dodged that bullet.

Refugees and Asylum seekers have a tough time. They receive very minimal financial support during their time of seeking refugee status and they have very limited rights and opportunities. In spite of the challenges most prefer Cyprus and its limitations to the problems they escaped in other parts of the world. It is heart wrenching to see their limited opportunities. Their humility opens their hearts to the gospel message and its heavenly promises.

Ezekiel is a young man from Liberia. He was beaten severely in his home country. Don't know the circumstances. He had a severe head injury and he came to Cyprus where he might get medical care. He is brilliant and such a gifted writer. He has had significant medical help here. His medications brought on kidney stones and problems with his liver. He has had recent surgeries and is in recovery phase. We visited him at the end of a day of visiting members in Ayia Napa with the young missionaries, Elder Pettit (French) and Elder Lauener (Swiss). At Sister Kiddle's suggestion we had the sweet experience of giving him a Priesthood blessing. While we visited him in the courtyard of his apartment building another member Medich (Congo) who lives in the same building came in and joined the discussion and he joined in the circle for the blessing. Medich is French speaking and does not have much English so he and Ezekiel don't interact much. Medich is a very sweet man. He loves that I can speak to him in French, flawed as it is. The previous senior missionaries shared with us that after Medich was able to find work he gave them a sweet note and 50 Euro to help some of the others who had less. He is very faithful at attending church in Larnaca, when his work permits, even though he lives in Ayia Napa which is a 2 hour bus trip away.

We have visited the delightful Sheen family. Helen Sheen is the Relief Society President. He husband Ken is recovering slowly from long covid. He is about my age and she is 10 years his junior. Sister Sheen indicated in a recent phone contact that Ken was not able to connect his computer to their new internet service. I offered to see if I could help. So we spent a couple of hours, I did get his boxes to talk, and had a great visit. They are Welsh and chose to retire here in Cyprus when the UK was still part of the EU. Sister Sheen was raised in the church but Ken connected as a young divorced man with Cardiff members and joined the church. He was determined not to remarry but friends set them up and one thing led to another. Interestingly, a new British military family just moved into the branch. (Oliver and Abby Jest with their three busy little children). Oliver's family is also from Wales. When Sister Sheen found our that their name was Jest she asked Abby if they knew a Tony Jest. She exclaimed "Yes, that is my father in law". That is the friend of Ken's who baptized him all those years ago. And he is coming to Cyprus to visit Oliver and Abby in May. Small church world. The Jests were last in Alberta at Suffield near Medicine Hat. He is a dentist and referred patients to Meredith's schoolmate George Schow during his time in Medicine Hat. Small church world.

After a great missionary district council in Limassol (about an hours drive West of Larnaca) on Thursday I accompanied our Elders to Ayia Napa to make some member visits. We visited the Wilson Family, converts from Liberia with a little girl under 2. He has a masters degree in Human Resources but works with his wife in a laundry. Long hours - little pay. The fate of refugees in Cyprus. He has applied for school in Montreal and if accepted will apply for a student visa. Apparently Canada has decreased the number of visas they are issuing so they may have trouble with that. They live in Paralimni which is even further than Ayia Napa from the church meeting hall in Larnaca. In the past they have had small sacrament meetings in their apartment for members who live in Ayia Napa and Paralimni. The members are so transitory and resource limited that having a regular group there has not seemed feasible.

Jordan responded to Facebook posts of the missionaries and is one of the two recently baptized in Larnanca. He lives in Ayia Napa and we visited him also. He had learned only the smallest part about the priesthood before his baptism and so to prepare him for the opportunity of holding the priesthood we taught him in his apartment. He too is from Congo with little English. Fortunately the young missionaries with me from Italy and Switzerland both speak French very well. So our meeting was in French only. Unfortunately, transfers have been announced and our missionaries will change to Elder Grayson (Swedish) and Elder Hiltunen (Norwegian) who know several languages each but not French. I will be pretty thinly spread in the coming couple of months. They are fabulous young missionaries I must add.

Meredith is busy making cabbage rolls and sheet cake for the pot luck after church tomorrow. We are visiting our Iranian friends for lunch today with the young missionaries. They have begun attending the English connect classes the young missionaries are holding each week. We hope that once they have better English skills more job opportunities will become available. They probably need to move on to other parts of Europe if they want a reasonable chance of progressing economically. They love to have us over but they have so little. It's always so humbling to learn of their escape from Iran and the fear they live in daily of being found.

Museum and Ancient City of Idalion