Εβδομάδα 28: Teaching ROYALTY... and a stalker

Dearest EVERYBODY!!

Miracles are REAL. We are surround by guardian ANGLES. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is TRUE. Missions are the BEST!!!

This week brought in some of the most heartbreaking, scariest, as well as the most joyful experiences as a missionary so far. 

Transfers changed a few things over here and I had to say see ya later to my best friend/ companion all in one, my most favorite Sister Kruger ♡ I love her to pieces! I am now with Sister Baird, who has been out for 14 months! She is from England as well so I still get to live life with a cute English accent around me 24/7 😉 

And oh boy has this week continued to bring in the most amazing, miracle-filled experiences! First off, Sister Κruger and I got to give our Zone training as STLs and it was pretty sweet, not gonna lie. I love training with Sister Kruger, we work so well together! We teach in unity, strengthening the Cyprus zone as well our friends. Our training focused on teaching our investigators with the END in mind...the temple and eternal life! Baptism is a step towards the end but not the end! This was such an inspired topic and pertains to every single investigator we teach. 

We had some heart breaking news the morning of zone conference when we found out that Elder Draper, a senior Elder, had passed away unexpectedly on his way home after completing his mission. I couldn't even imagine, my heart just broke. President Anderson told us that a few days before he had a strong promoting that one of his missionaries would pass away in the field and it had really scared him. He kinda brushed it off but still had it in the back of his mind and was worried because he didn't know exactly what to think of it. It was really sad news for all of us, but there is so much peace we have with the knowledge of eternal families. I love President, he is so inspired and absolutely receives revelation for this mission. I am incredibly thankful for his example and leadership for each of us. Also, President said Cyprus was leading this entire mission right how, and that if we need more missionaries we will find a way to get more here! Insane! Love love LOVE CYPRUS!

Sister Baird and I got to officially start teaching Gergana and Luke and it was amazing!! The spirit was so strong and Sister Baird and I teach great together! They are now both preparing to be baptized on September 21!!

Little bit of our stalker situation story:

Before bible class started Thursday, Elder Nicolis came up to me and told me that he got a call from a Muslim person, one of Fatimah's (our Arabic investigator) friends and was told to not go to see Fatimah anymore. Elder Nicolis told me he didn't think we should teach her any longer because the situation didn't sound good. I tried not to think about it because I love Fatimah and we had been stopping by her shop the past few days and she is always so happy to say hi to us! Sis Baird already loves her too! The senior couple from Nicosia, the Masons, also came to bible class because they are starting institute up soon. After the class, everyone left and it was just the Masons and us. We were suppose to lock up the church, but we couldn't find our keys. The Masons waited for us the entire time while we rummaged through everything, they are so sweet. Then we went out and were starting to unlock our bikes and elder and sister Mason walked with us. Elder Mason got really really serious all of a sudden and said, "sisters, I need you to remember that you always need to be in the yellow zone", meaning we needed to be cautious and aware of our surrounding. He then told us that the same guy had passed by us at least 4 times on his bike and was making loops completely staring us down. As we were talking, we recognized the guy he was talking about and he absolutely was, and he rode by another 3 times as we were standing and talking. Since we live so close to the church we didn't want to ride our bikes home afraid the guy would follow us. The Masons felt the same way and we didn't feel safe. So we got in the car with the Masons, leaving our bikes there. As we were driving out of the church, we looked at Fatimah's shop and that same guy was standing with his arms crossed, standing in the entry way of her shop, completely and 100% making it extremely obvious that he was staring directly at us in such a threatening way as we drove of. Scariest night of my mission. The lord was absolutely looking out for us tonight. There was a reason we couldn't find our keys. What would have happened if the Mason's had left and didn't stay with us??? Sister Baird and I were already thinking to give that guy a pass along card! We were in missionary mode, living in a bubble. We were so naive and didn't even realize that the guy was circling us. And the thing was, was that after I thought about it, the guys' face totally registered in my mind and he had been sitting in Fatimah's shop every time we'd been by and I always got an uncomfortable feeling about him. The remainder of the week, the same guy was perched outside Fatimah's shop as if a watch dog. Fatimah is not safe if we continue to teacher her and neither are we. Teaching Muslims is really scary. We decided, as well as was advised by Elder Grover and Elder Nicolis, that we would need to completely drop Fatimah and avoid her shop for our safety as well as hers. It's really hard because we KNOW Fatimah is ready, but we need to trust that the Lord has another plan for her to receive the gospel. Whether that is a later time in this life time or in the next, we don't know. But we need to trust that Heavenly Father will take care of her. 

Without a doubt, I KNOW the Lord was watching out for us. He let us loose our keys so the Masons would wait with us and we weren't left at the church alone. I am so grateful that we have the Lord on our side. We are always surrounded by guardian angels and that was especially apparent that night. I still can't comprehend that there are people in this world that would literally kill another person and threaten them for their beliefs. I just can't wrap my head around that fact, but it is more real than ever. Being in a different country is really scary sometimes.

Because of this situation, the elders always made sure they were at the church with us as well as escorted us home haha. 

Weekly planning was solid as always. I'm basically training sister Βaird right now, I love it. I also love showing her all the work we have to do here! She feels so grateful to be coming in at this point where we are busy teaching everyday! Looking at our week ahead is always a little overwhelming because we're just thinking, "holy smokes how are we gonna make sure we teach all these people?!" Somehow the Lord makes it work tho and it's awesome to be part of it all! 

Martin and David are so cool. And they have been coming 45 minutes EARLY to their lessons!! I asked them if they were still reading the Book of Mormon and praying and David responds saying, "you don't need to worry about that anymore I'm already doing it!" And then of course Martin is still being reminded nightly with our voices so he's on a roll with his commitments as well! We then followed up with David about if he had prayed about a baptismal date and he goes, "yes! And I am ready whenever!" We explained to him that Martin and Kamal (elders inv) were preparing for August 31st and he could prepare for the 7th. And then he comments, "wait, I don't wanna be baptized alone!" Haha it was hilarious, he wants to be baptized with Martin! But I think Martin will end up being the 7th as well so they will most likely end up getting baptized together. We are so excited for them and that they are receiving answers to their prayers!! 

When we came home that night, I walked in the door saying, "oh man, wasn't today just amazing Sister Baird?!" And she responds in her adorable, cute English accent saying, "Sister Gale I think I realized something about you... you love every single day!" Haha it's so true tho! I love my mission and all these miracles we get to play a role in! There truly is no better work on this earth right now! 

GREATEST JOY OF THE WEEK!

I can't leave out our favorite FRANCIS! He was even early to his lesson! What is it with all our investigators being early nowadays?! I guess the gospel changes them in more ways than one haha. He came fully prepared and had his 4 generation pedigree chart all filled out and anxious to show us. Francis mentioned that he even had to call his parents in Sierra Leone to ask them his great grandparents names he couldn't quite remember. Francis is so great with commitments! Oh yeah, ALSO... FRANCIS IS A PRINCE AND HE LITERALLY HAS ROYALTY IN HIS BLOOD!! WE ARE TEACHING A PRINCE!! so how we refer to him as "Prince Francis" haha. It's so cool how all these African tribes work! We told him that our lesson today was going to elaborate and go more into depth about the temple that Sister Kruger and Sister Stulen had previous taught him about. He told us how excited he was when Sister Kruger said that he could be sealed to his wife and she could be baptized! Francis told us that a few nights ago he had a dream where he say his wife, dressed in white, surrounded by white, somewhere really high and beautiful and she was SO HAPPY. I love all these dreams our Africans have, they are so in tune with the Spirit and it is a joy to witness that. We showed him the Rome Italy temple tour video which has been a hit with all our investigators and it continued to be with Francis! He especially loved and pointed out that at the end of the video, Elder Bednar said that we are to serve the living Christ for the entirety of our lives. He absolutely loved that part! He commented, "there are so many Christian churches but none of them believe this, and that is what I love about this church." His faith is strong. He sees how in today's world, everything is changing. But he knows that God ways never change and it is only through His ways that we can receive blessings and true happiness. Francis also brought up that he could be baptized for his little boy who was killed when he chooses to be baptized. And then we promised him that another worthy young women would be able to be baptized for his wife, and we would even be willing to do that for him. I loved seeing his eyes light up and just smile when we told him this. We taught him about the word of wisdom and the law of chastity and he completely agreed with all of it and was already living it. He doesn't understand why people wouldn't live these commandments! He kept telling us that he was going to get sealed to his wife in the temple one day and that just made our heart so incredibly happy. No words can express the love we have for him and the ways we've see the knowledge of eternal families change Francis' life. Bring him hope, peace, and happiness. I couldn't imagine being in his situation, to loose 2 of the very most important people in your life in such a tragic way, while so young. He is strong. We know Franicis' wife and his little boy are his guardians angel's right now and are encouraging him to make these important steps in his life and we expressed that to him. He told us that he has loved everything we have taught him and it just makes him happy. We haven't been pushing him on a baptismal date because he has told us every time that he will tell us when he is ready. But Saturday morning he brought up all on his own that he was ready, and that he wanted to become a member of the Church of Jesus Christ and that he wanted to set a date like we had previously mentioned. I don't even know how to describe the way I felt when I heard this. My heart could have burst I was so overfilled with joy! He finally received an answer to his prayers!! We brought up that David and Martin, 2 of our friends that Francis has also become friends with, would be getting baptized on the 7th of Sept and that he could join them if he wanted to. But then he said, how about the 8th...because that's my birthday." Ahhhh I could hardly believe this was all finally happening! He wants to get baptized on his own BIRTHDAY!! I remember Francis saying September was gonna be his month to be baptized but didn't want to solidify a date and now it makes sense! And then he shared with us that his 2 little boys' birthdays are also in September on the 9th and 13th! How amazing! September is absolutely the golden month for Francis to enter the waters of baptism! WE ARE SO EXCITED! He even agreed to having the missionaries in Sierre Leone get in contact with his family back home! How amazing is that?! I love being able to see how the gospel has blessed Francis and his family! I love the gospel ♡ 

• Oh yeah, we also found the chameleon from the movie Tangled! ... except for the fact it was just the skin I think it shed, if chameleons do that, haha I have no clue. All i know was it was as flat as a piece of paper and not alive so I couldn't hold it... :'(

We got to attend a baptism in Limmosal for one of Sister Baird's investigators she'd been teaching before she transferred here to Larnaca. It was such an amazing experience to see how ecstatic Barabus is about the gospel of Jesus Christ. I love that we get to have baptisms in the sea! Just like the apostle Paul did it!  

Miracle filled week, once again. I'm so grateful for the opportunity I have to serve a mission, greatest JOY in my life. ΑΓΑΠΆΩ Ή ΙΕΡΑΠΟΣΤΟΛΉ ΜΟΥ ΤΌΣΟ ΠΌΛΗ! 

με αγάπη,

Αδελφή Γκεϊλ  

PICS!

1. We find SOO many kittens on the streets contacting!!

2. beach findin

3. Sister Baird!

4. beautiful day for a baptism!

5. Francis is gonna get baptized!

6. loving the beach life

7. new Larnaca district

8. our fig tree lady 

9-13. some moreee plus the dead chameleon and all the Cyprus missionaries!