Εβδομάδα 35: Μάχαλες who?!?!

HEY FRIENDS AND FAM!!

Its official, I've hit 8 months over here!

Some of these weeks fly by and others it's just trying to keep busy each day. This was one of those weeks. I'm still adjusting to missionary life in Athens, we do finding all day everyday. And it's mentally exhausting honestly! It's really sad when we are just going around saying "hi" to everybody and they ask us, "do I know you??" In which we smile and tell them, "no we're just saying hi!" And then they're just like, "um okay" as if we're interrupting their day. I wish people were at least a little happier here to the point where it can be normal to simply say HI!

Just a little realization I need share...

Cockroaches are literally the devil's creation I swear. I can do any bug but those. THEY ARE NASTY. We've had a few gigantic ones pop out around our apartment and they only live for a few more seconds before a shoe gets thrown at em and they're goners.

The 1st half of the week felt super slow. We have 2 steady investigators right now. Μάρκος (30s) and Άνα (16). We do video lessons with Markos now since he moved to an island for work for the next 2 months. He's really cool tho! Actually for the most part receptive for once! We're going through the commandments with him now. Άνα is a sweet sweet girl who wants to get baptized but we're working on her mom still ;)

Mini funny story: Sister Campbell saw a couple making out one night and she went up and said in Greek, "you want to be together forever? Call us!" And gave them our card haha. I was just chillin off to the side pretending like I wasn't a part of it all cus I was laughing so hard!

Friday night was pretty fun. We went to visit a Filipino member, Lucy, who lives a good hour and a half away by the beach. We had a nice visit with her and dropped off cookies before we had to start getting on our long journey home. The bus stop to get on the bus to the metro station was where things got exciting. At the bus stop there were 2 guys that we could tell were not Greek because 1) they were wearing sailboat shorts 2) they were twice the height of Greeks here and 3) spoke perfect English with American accents. We got on the same bus and figured we'd ask where they were from and they were AMERICANS! Super nice and super lost lol. One from Connecticut and other from New York. They had just finished PA school and were here vacationing for a few days, their names are Dylan and Mike. They had no clue how to get anywhere and asked us to help them since both of their phones were dead and they didn't speak a hint of Greek. It was pretty funny because Mike says people have been calling him "Μάχαλες" and we're looking at each other like what?? And then we ask, "do you mean Μιχάλης?!?!" And he goes, "yeah yeah yeah that one!" They were trying their best to speak the little Greek we taught em. We found the fastest route for them to get to their place which ended up still being a whole hour away, they were so lost! They decided to just stick with us since we could help them figure out how to get places. We had the hour bus ride together to the metro station and then we got on the metro and were talking to them and it turns out their best friend who they were in PA school with served a mission in Brasil and went to BYU! So they were familiar with the church! They were way impressed with what we were doing especially being so young. We asked if they'd want to help us pass out the stack of pass along cards we had and they we both totally down for it! So we taught them how to say "ΓΕΙΆ ΣΑΣ!" (Hello) and then told then to hand out all our cards. Wow that was hilarious to watch as these 2 tall white tourists guys walked up and down the metro handing out the cards like candy hahaha. But they gave em all out! Made our missionary work for the night way easier! We were with them on the metro for a whole other hour before we got them to their metro stop and told them where to go from there. But yeah, they were way nice and took a Book of Mormon and the rest of our pass along cards and said they'd give em all out for us! So that made our night really fun and eventful!

Saturday morning we got together with some elders to clean up Mars hill for a few hours. On the walk there Jimmer Ferdette and his family ran into us and stopped to say hi and talk for a bit. Kinda funny how we just casually ran into them. I'm not a huge basketball person so I wasn't freaking out meeting them but sis C was doing really good to keep her cool. She has been talking about meeting him since we heard he was living Athens! Not many Greeks at Mars Hill but it sure was loaded with tourists. We had lots of people asking us what we were doing and asking us to take their pics because...well... Mars Hill has a killer view of the Acropolis and Athens in general! I was taking a photo of this one couple and they were asking me where I was from and this and that and where my family was from since I didn't look white. So I told them my family is from China. They asked if I could speak Chinese and I told them I could understand bits and pieces of Cantonese when my grandparents speak to me but that's about as good as it gets. And then also that both my parents are fluent. But since learning Greek just about every inch of any Chinese I knew or any Spanish I've learned has completely left my brain. After finishing taking pics of them another couple behind me said "Jo-sun!" (good morning in Cantonese) so I turned around and asked, "you speak Cantonese?!" And they said "yeah yeah we heard you say your family is from China, we are from Hong Kong!" We got into a cool convo and they asked why I was in Athens and all that. They've seen the missionaries in Hong Kong and said that they wanna get in touch with them now since I promised that all the missionaries would be as nice as they said I was in Hong Kong too. So I hope something comes outta our conversation! We found tons of more American tourists and some actually said hi to us! Which NEVER happens in this mission! But they were members vacationing so it made sense. We had a small lesson with Anna afterwards and then met a couple from Israel! They speak Hebrew which is crazy awesome! They said they know about the BYU Jerusalem center close by their home :) They were impressed that we weren't getting paid a cent and we were volunteering to willingly teach Greek people outta all people. We offered to have our BYU Jerusalem friends visit them and they said, "well they can try but we're Jews so..." We'll let the BYU Jerusalem people work their magic on them haha. Afterwards we went to the church so I could make some Greek FB content and we could do our studies. The Bernetts (new senior couple) were there and they needed help setting up FB since technology is a foreign thing to them still haha. It reminded me of Grandma and Grandpa Chan whenever they get an update on their iPhone and call us since they don't know how work anything anymore haha. They were nice and dropped us off at a members home! Διάνα is the mom and she has 2 girls. Λουκία is 17 and Έφη is 5! They are such a cute family! They remind me of my family in a way, a home full of girls! Diana is a nail stylist and she did my nails while Έφη used sister C's face as a canvas for purple lipstick hahaha. She is the cutest little Greek girl I swear! Adorable Xs 10!! I love their little family!

General Conference was just amazing. Simply stated. I hope you all take the opportunity to watch it! We watched it in Greek this Sunday ;) Top quote from Elder Jeffrey R. Holland... "Through the incessant din and drumbeat of our day, may we strive to see Christ at the center of our lives, of our faith, and of our service. That is where true meaning lies. And if some days our vision is limited or our confidence has waned or our belief is being tested and refined—as surely it will be—may we then cry out the louder, “Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me.” I promise with apostolic fervor and prophetic conviction that He will hear you and will say, soon or late, “Receive thy sight: thy faith hath saved thee.”

CENTER on CHRIST and FOLLOW the BRETHREN!

LOVE YOU ALL! Keep SMILING and stay strong in the faith!

με αγάπη,
Αδελφή Γκεϊλ

PICS

1-4 Service up on the beautiful Mars Hill

5-6 Our American friends doing missionary work for us

7 on the walk to the church

8 Έφη (the most adorable Greek girl) loving life