Εβδομάδα 26: 6 MONTHS!

You guys I hit my 6 MONTH mark on my mission!! Its already 1/3 way over 🙁 No way! This place is home to me now!

Running out of copies of the Book of Mormon really should never be a problem but it is once again here haha, this time in English tho! There were a total of 11 left on the island and Sister Kruger and I had 7 of em so we had to make a drive over to meet the elders in Limassol since they needed a few for their upcoming lessons. Guess that just shows we're doing something over here but yeah, definitely should have ordered some more earlier.

President Anderson called Sister Kruger and I Wednesday night and told us we were gonna be the Cyprus STLs (Sister Training leaders) next transfer!! WHICH MEANS WE GET TO STAY TOGETHER FOR ANOTHER 6 WEEKS!! BEST CALL EVERRR!! We've been praying we'd get to continue serving together because we work SO WELL with each other! And it looks like the Lord thinks so too! I feel like I've known Sister Kruger my entire life, it is seriously the greatest blessing ever to be serving with someone who has already become one of my best friends! You could say our companionship unity is through the roof haha, we're like the same person! I may or may not have been slowly convincing her to apply to BYU haha ;) She actually is really open to the idea and has even started looking at the application process... fingers crossed!

So we have the coolest story about an older lady named Fatima! She speaks maybe 3 words of English and is 100% Arabic. But has been attending church for the past 3 months as well as bible class and language classes even tho she doesn't understand a WORD and we can only communicate via google translate, which let's be honest, is NOT that great of a translator. But she has come faithfully to EVERYTHING we invite her to, and even moved closer to the church so that she could come more often! Anyways, so we remembered there is an Arabic speaking elder serving in California who has Skype lessons with Arabic speaking investigators. So we sent him a text over FB seeing if he'd be able to possibly have a lesson with us and Fatima. He then added his companion to the chat and Sister Kruger goes, "hey, he looks American", so I tell her to show me, jokingly thinking, "oh yeah he's American I'm totally gonna know him." And WHAT DO YA KNOW!! Its one of my friends from BYU! Elder Guisinger now haha but still! Funniest thing ever as I pulled up a pic from a football game we went to together while we were at BYU to prove to Sis Kruger I knew him, WHAT A SMALL WORLD!! The lesson we set up with them worked out and they were able to teach Fatima in Arabic so she could understand for once!! At the very end, the Elders asked us if we'd like to share our testimonies of the Restoration which we gladly did as they translated. And then Fatima told us she loved us and always feels the Spirit when she's around us and wants to see us more! We asked her after the lesson how it went and she said she was very very happy! Then we said bye to her and called the elders back to get the down low on what all happened since we do not have the gift of tongues to understand Arabic, only Greek haha. They said Fatima was AMAZING! I guess she used to be Muslim but became Christian 5 years ago. She said she'd come to church, read the BoM and pray about it! She believed and loved Joseph Smith's 1st vision and feels like we do need a living prophet to guide us with the power of God! We KNOW Fatima has a special gift for feeling and recognizing the Spirit and that's why she has continually been attending all the church activities without understanding anything. We cannot wait to see where things go with her, such a miracle!!! I LOVE the miracle of technology that really means that the gospel can be preached to EVERYONE in EVERY language no matter where they are! This is the Lord "hastening" His work RIGHT NOW!! And I love it! Sister Kruger and I were just overjoyed at the result of the lesson! The Spirit has no language!

We taught 2 investigators, Helen and Martin, about the temple this week! We watched the tour of the Italy, Rome temple video with them and they both LOVED IT! Martin could NOT BELIEVE HIS EYES!! He was in complete disbelief that the temple was an actual place because of how GORGEOUS they are! He even commented, "I think if I was left to sleep here, I would wake up and think I was Heaven!" Hahaha. I've never seen someone in such absolute awe of the temple like Martin was! We promised it felt like heaven on earth being inside the temple just as much as he thought it was. It was such an incredible lesson and you could without doubt see the Spirit touching his heart, he made it his goal to go there! Teaching about the temple is one of my most favorite lessons even though it makes me miss going there so much!! We pushed back Martin's baptismal date to August 31st now since we want him to be as prepared as possible, but he continues to be doing amazing and not reading the Book of Mormon but "STUDYING it" as he says haha. He doesn't believe in just reading it because he wants to get a real answer if it's TRUE and says he really needs to study it out for himself. But yeah, he's awesome and Sister Kruger and I love teaching him!

We went to visit Priya and her 1 1/2 day old baby girl, Aabru (means respect in Indian), since she really wanted us to see her! We were asked if we wanted to hold her little baby but ughhh stinkin' missionary rules! I wish I couldn't just taken the tag of for 2 secs, I love babies! Right after visiting with her we stopped by Luke (African), Gergana (Bulgarian/Greek), and baby Victor's home. They also just had a baby 2 weeks ago! Gergana is friends with a member so we dropped off a baby package to her when the baby came and then Luke and Gergana both requested a Book of Mormon and were very interested in coming to church and reading the BoM! So we made sure to give them each one, Bulgarian for Gergana and English for Luke. That was about 1 1/2 weeks ago. So when we visited them this week we asked if they started reading the BoM and they BOTH were!! Luke even said she's been taking it to work and reading it in any of his down time! They said they were going to be coming to church as soon as the baby is a few weeks older! We didn't even need to invite them! Gergana is so funny and loves to chat away! She was telling us how when Victor was 1st born, he looked like a white baby and goes, "I wanted a mixie baby! And now I'm finally getting my chocolate baby!" Haha we were all laughing it was great. Victor is adorable! Mixie babies always are, what can I say ;) They told us to come over whenever we have time so we will definitely be making more time to visit their cute, new little family! We love them and they love us!

The musical night Sister Kruger and I organized was a HUGE SUCCESS!! On every level! Incredibly spiritual and such a great turnout.  Music is so powerful and and I'm grateful for the opportunity we have to feel the Spirit through it! Our theme was "I am a child of God" and we had literally every participate! Members, investigators, and missionaries! Sister Kruger and I even got to use our piano talents and played a duet together!

Spiritual thought coming from one of my favorite chapters!
Alma 29:9 "I know that which the Lord hath commanded me, and I glory in it. I do not glory of myself, but I glory in that which the Lord hath commanded me; yea, and this is my glory, that perhaps I may be an instrument in the hands of God to bring some soul to repentance; and this is my joy."
This week I have really recognized what it was like to feel real, pure, absolute JOY on my mission. And I never want to loose this feeling. We love and care about our investigators so much! We want to see them at church, see them progress, learn and understand, to see them be happy and with their families for eternity, come closer to Christ, and literally see the Gospel change their lives! I never want to leave this place. Larnaca is HOME. The members are my family and I love them! I AM LOVING EVERY SINGLE SECOND SERVING THESE PEOPLE, THESE BEAUTIFUL CHILDREN OF GOD, MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS. Ahh I can't even express how much I love being a missionary!

LOVE YOU ALL!

Love,
Sister Gale

PICS!1-2. I love all of our African Investigators!
3. Door knocking passing our flyers for the music night! Never seen a mirror door before so that's a 1st
4. Request from my cute mama to take a pic by the cool twirly tree that is literally just growing out of the cement! That's Cyprus for ya haha
5. We got a blender!! Smoothies for dayzzz!
6. Cute little family of kittens on the street we found while out finding! 
7. Our Filipino fam!
8. Cute little Alexis gave us Princess stickers to put on our tags, she speaks fluent English, Bulgarian, and Greek! 
9. Our piano duet!
10. Visiting our investigator Priya and her day old baby Aabru
11. I will never get sick of the over grown flower draperies everywhere! 
12. Sis Kruger snapped a quick pic of our video lesson with Fatima on request of Sister Grover haha
13. The fun music night flyers we designed to pass out