Εβδομάδα 37: getting chased by angry men...take 2

Hey hey everyone!

So lots of stories from this week but here are just a few... to recap tho, I'm not really a fan of Greek men. Especially the ones who freak out at us and are constantly hitting on us. Oh the joys of being sister missionaries in this foreign land, τι να σας πω χαχα;! 😅

We were on our way back home Monday night and headed down to the metro when this Greek man at the top of the escalator sees us, puts his hands up defensively and states, "Ορθόδοξη" (Orthodox). Then rudely laughs as we ignore him, switches to english, and then yells at us, "you marry your own sisters!" In which we still continue on our way, but he continues to go on. He proceeds to get on the escalator and at this point we both had already felt a really uneasy feeling about this man. We quickened up our pace and hurried to scan our metro cards and book it down the next escalator to the metro hoping to loose the guy that had yet to stop yelling at us. But now he was chasing us while doing so. To our luck the metro doors had just closed and was just taking off, leaving us completely alone and the entire station empty. As soon as we saw we were alone, we sprinted down the rails hoping to find the escalator that would take us above ground again. But we instead chose the wrong corner and were trapped waiting for the elevator. Our hearts were pounding and we were both scared. Thinking we had lost the man, Sister Campbell suggested to say a prayer for safety. The only words she got out was asking for a blessing for safety before the guy runs around the corner commenting, "run like a fugitive! You think you got away from me huh?" Not making any comments back to him, we were able to get outta the corner we were corned in and get around him without him laying a finger on us. Thankfully we spotted 2 other men coming down the escalator to wait for the metro too so we walked over to them and asked them to please help us, in which they nodded. We sat next to them but the angry man hadn't stopped being right up in our faces, screaming at us, and continued to make a scene spitting out lies on lies on lies about what he assumed he knew about us and our purpose here. I only looked in his eyes once but it was enough to see that something was wrong. I hope for his sake he was on drugs or something and that this wasn't the real person he was. I have never seen someone so angry and infuriated before and hope nobody has to experience that. The man verbally abused, threatened, and tore us down for the longest 6 minutes of my life before the next metro came. Both of us were holding back tears, not understanding where all this anger came from. I was terrified but also, at the same time, have never felt so protected. I know that tiny prayer we said was part of why we were safe. Heavenly Father kept us protected and didn't let this man hurt us. I have never felt or understood what it meant to be endowed with power until that night. 

A few metro stops later we met the elders in tears and asked for a priesthood blessing. They had no idea what had just happened but walked us to the church apartment nearby and gave us blessings. The love I have for Priesthood blessings is indescribable. I wish I could explain the power I feel when receiving one. I was reminded that everyone was a child of God and that I could have patience and strength to teach the Greek people. I am still trying to comprehend what would drive someone to tear another down the way that man did to us for absolutely no reason other than seeing our name tags and the Book of Mormon. But after receiving a blessing I immediately felt comforted and know we are always surrounded by guardian angels. 😇

Wednesday morning we did service at the Friendship Center for the 1st time. I taught english to a group of refugees all from Turkey. I was helping them with some new vocab and going over examples of opposites. Some of which included, "new/ancient, beautiful/ugly, safe/unsafe", and so on. I asked for volunteers to use the new vocab they were learning in a sentence and one of the younger boys raised his hand and said, "the NEW teacher is BEAUTIFUL" and then the class started smiling and nodding in agreement. The boy was just beaming and thought he was SO clever. Oh boyyyyy. 😂 Anyways, I enjoyed teaching english especially to people from such heart-breaking pasts just trying to find a better future.

Exchanges were on Thursday and I got to be with my cute Swedish sister, Sister Vennerholm. I love her to bits! We love every time we get to serve together! Our only struggle is honestly directions haha. We were going to visit a women named Chandra but we got way lost and ended up in the complete wrong city, a whole hour away from where we she lived! Athens is a maze! But we made the most of it and talked to loads of people and got some good contacts. And also some hard core rejections. There were a few Greek Orthodox people that would stop us simply to tell us we were wasting our time and there's no point in trying to change them. So there loss I suppose! We eventually got to her home and had a great visit. Her family is from Indonesia! We talked about temples... my favorite topic! That night we threw a surprise party for our investigator, Anna, and she loved it! 🎉 We even were able to get her mom to come and be introduced to the church for the 1st time! Now we are hoping that her mom, Anthi, realizes that we are normal, good people, and give her daughter permission to be baptized! 🥰

Saturday night was fun because we got to watch Jimmer Fredette's basketball game with the youth since he's in our branch and we're Young Womens advisors! 🏀😎 Greek basketball games, or sports games in general, are not even close to as hype as American sports games which was kinda disappointing. But we still enjoyed our time with the amazing youth we have. Jimmer had his A game on plus we won so that was a solid night in the books. 

Sunday was actually kinda stressful since we were on splits with members and I had to pull together a last minute lesson for Young Women's and then finish up my talk I was giving in the english branch right after! I survived tho so we're all good ;) Oh yeah and Anna's mom, Ανθή, came to church for the 1st time! 😍 Even tho she only speaks Greek and went to the English branch instead haha. But she was all smiles and I knew she could feel the Spirit! 

Alrighty I think that about sums it all up for this week! Thanks for all your love, support, and prayers! 

Love you all! 

Love,

Sister Gale 

PICS

1 EXCHANGES with Sister Vennerholm! 🇸🇪

2 Anthi came to church for the 1st time!

3-4 surprise part for Ana's sweet 16! 🎉

5-6 Jimmer Fredette's ball game 😎🏀

7 some sweet paintings at the Friendship center

8 don't see this in the states