Εβδομάδα 11: American slang, Greek Disney, and ΠΑΣΧΑ!

- April 29, 2019

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 do fried rice haha. They requested for me to make it for them next week so I happily accepted, come to find out nobody knows what spam is here. We taught them about prayer and how we absolutely need it in our lives. And I know they’re family absolutely needs it in their lives. As a missionary, I’ve realized so much more the importance of prayer. It’s not just a routine thing, but an actual conversation with our Heavenly Father. He’s as real as anyone else and He wants to hear from all his children. We pray before literally everything as missionaries, and without it we wouldn’t be able to accomplish the work waiting to be done her. Pray is powerful. We also met with Laureta tonight. She is so sweet! She made us tasty Greek food and we got to watch President Nelson's “Come, Follow Me" talk from conference in Albanian with her. That talk gets me every time, I love it and the Spirit it brings every time. Laureta is so close to baptism, she wants it so bad! We are continually praying for the chance for her to be baptized to come soon.

WEDNESDAY 4.24.19
Slow day, lots of planning for the Πάσχα (Easter) party the missionaries are in charge of. Did some whiteboard finding in the center asking people what brings them joy before we taught language classes. Sister Merkel taught German class. Then Elder Albertson and I kinda took over English class and taught American slang. Haha, it was hilarious! The 2 older guys were taking notes and everything on phrases like “I’m down", “going ham", “that's sick", “she’s a keeper”, “touch base", “top notch"… basically anything that’s normal to us and then they’d repeat it all confused and it was so hard not to laugh since I could just imagine these 2 foreigners going to the US and using these phrases haha. It was a good time. Then Elder Amos and Sis Merkel taught us how to speak in a French and German accent!

FRIDAY 4.26.19

Πάσχα Party today! I introduced jeopardy to the Greeks and they loved it! They had to figure out if quotes were from Prophets or Disney characters from different movies and it was a great time and people got pretty into it, really good turnout actually :) We watched a video on the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ that I hadn't seen before and it was so good. Today in Greece everyone celebrates the death of Christ. It's really interesting, and super cool how each day this week is designated to remembering another aspect of the Atonement of Christ.

SATURDAY/SUNDAY 4.26/27.19

Hit the goodie topics of tithing, word of wisdom, and law of chastity with our lessons today. We discussed how our bodies are temples too and invited those we taught to always be worthy and have a temple recommend even though the closest one is in Rome, so far away! Πάσχα (Easter) here is bigger than Christmas! We were allowed to go to the midnight celebration of it and it was really cool! The Greek Orthodox church literally had crowds on crowds of people surrounding it. Everyone had candles and the light (fire) would start from the inside of the church and then we'd pass it on to everyone else like a giant game of telephone but with fire Haha. It reminded me of the Disney movie Tangled but instead of glowing lanterns being sent up, glowing candles were sent out, spreading the light of Christ! Everyone says "καλή ανάσταση" to each other which literally translates to "happy resurrection". Great traditions here in Greece for sure. HAPPY EASTER!

Thought from this week comes from Mosiah 16

"7 And if Christ had not risen from the dead, or have broken the bands of death that the grave should have no victory, and that death should have no sting, there could have been no resurrection.

8 But there is a resurrection, therefore the grave hath no victory, and the sting of death is swallowed up in Christ.

9 He is the light and the life of the world; yea, a light that is endless, that can never be darkened; yea, and also a life which is endless, that there can be no more death"

I know that Christ lives. Whenever I think about what He did for us, inside me there is more hope of a fresh beginning because of His Atonement, and joy that there will always be countless opportunity to change and become better. We should always strive to love how He loves us...PERFECTLY and INDEFINITELY!

Have a great week! Love you all!

Love,

Αδελφή Γκεϊλ

Sister Gale

1. What a perfect day in Greece looks like

2. Made a friend by the beach

3. Midnight Πάσχα celebration

4. Some picture perfect views

5. Gotta love our bikes

6. Getting eating alive by mosquitoes here

7. view from the Church

8/9: whiteboard finding in the Center