Sister Gale in the Greece Region of the Adriatic South Mission

MONDAY 4.22.19 The Lion King in Greek is awesome, watched it while cleaning this morning. Hiked to some sweet viewpoints over Thessaloniki with our district, Grasiella and Anastasia (both members), really fun! I love Grasiella, she goes "we're only calling it a "hike" so you guys can wear your comfy clothes". Bless her and her thoughtful consideration of giving us a break from missionary attire!! Up top we found this abandoned zoo, kinda a bust tho since most of the exhibits were empty. Afterwards we stopped for Πρεσβúτερος Hawkins and my 1st Gyro in Thess. Recommend by Πρεσβútερος Albertson who I'm pretty sure is a Gyro expert since whatever he ordered for me was pure deliciousness. Then we ran some errands and got to email and such for 3 hours before family home evening started. We played games with our district and 8 members! TUESDAY 4.23.19 Visited with the Stilos family, they're great! They asked if I could cook Chinese food, I said I could...

Γεια Σας (Hello) from Θεσσαλονίκη (Thessaloniki)!! Mars Hill! Thessaloniki! Gift of Tongues! Sis Merkel! Lots to fit in from my 1st week here in GREECE! Real mission life is so jam packed but so great at the same time, I LOVE IT! TUESDAY 4.16.19  President and sister Anderson picked us up from the Athens airport along with the APs from Albania and we went straight to the church! All the missionaries were there waiting for us and they all ran out to us with the biggest smiles and warmest welcome, Greece hasn’t gotten new missionaries since January! I got interviewed 1st and the first thing President Anderson told me was he'd been praying for a Chinese sister for a long time haha... well he got half of what he was praying for (; He served his mission in Taiwan and says he's gonna call me "Chan Jyémei" now haha. Anywaysss I love President and Sister Anderson so much! We had our first Greek Euros with all the missionaries for dinner, food here is another level of amaz...

WEEK 9 Monday, April 15th Never thought the day would come but I'M FINALLY OUTTA HERE! Zero complaints there. We fly to Athens tomorrow and have 11 hours of traveling ahead of us, but at least I still got my district with me! But yeah, next email y-all will get from me will be from Greece or Cyprus!  One of the questions I've gotten a few times these last few weeks here is "how are you still normal after 8/9 weeks?!" I laugh every time haha. I just tell them "well I came out here normal and I'm still gonna be myself!" Really glad people think I'm still normal tho (; if anything, I'm just becoming a better version of myself, and I'd take that any day.  Week 9 went pretty quick thankfully WEDNESDAY 4.10.19 We had a Manchester testimony meeting! Sis Zhang and I were able to share our experiences and it was great. Thankful for technology and that we were able to translate for Sis Zhang. She is so sweet and I'm grateful to...

2 months later & the MTC is still my home! This week is a bit of a novel but we got lots of pics at least!  Update on Pritam, or the park bench guy from week 6: I wanted to follow up on our invitation to him to read the Book of Mormon, so I emailed him this week! I invited him to watch conference and shared a few scriptures and bits of my testimony I felt like he needed to hear.  Part of his response: "the book is by my bed, I read it when I'm feeling down and it gives me that strength back to carry on. I love it, thank you again for the book. I'm definitely gonna have a great Sunday now. Thanks to you and the beautiful verse you read out for me from the book of Mormon. I love it very much." Like I said before, he is GOLDEN! It made me so happy to know that he is accepting our invitation and can see how the Book of Mormon can be a source of strength for him.  TUESDAY 4.2.19 A group of us went to Chorley today! The markets are so fun, Sister Owens wa...

I’m loving the new missionaries we keep getting! I taught Sister DeMille and Sister Owens how to say hello/ goodbye and now they are constantly saying “γεια σάς” (ēah sahs)   everywhere and it’s hilarious and I love it!  We taught so many lessons again this week and the improvement with our language is awesome! We even Skyped another Greek member!  My district decided to make a list of funny things we’ve said in class, Greek or English stuff. So far it’s basically “funny quotes from Αδελφή Gale” as Elder Hawkins says, or Elder Pascuzzo’s English slip ups with his accent haha. But yeah, basically feelin right at home and we’re trying really hard to make the most of our last 2 weeks here! Elder Jensen caught a wasp in his cup to release outside since it was in our class and Elder Hawkins and Elder Pascuzzo were freaking out about it haha. We played fútbol almost everyday this week too! A few missionaries have been asking Sister DeMille, Owens, and I if we k...