Εβδομάδα 39: γεια σας ξανά! 😉

It was my last week in Athens since tomorrow I'll be flying up to serve in Thessaloniki again! We had a pretty eventful pday this past Monday. We found a fish spa which was fun in Μοναστηράκι, a super touristy spot of Athens. Some of the elders met up with us and we walked through the National Gardens, which felt like a Jurassic Park kinda scenery, before we made it to the Temple of Zeus! That was cool and it had another sweet view of the Acropolis. Afterwards we stopped by the Olympic stadium. It is GIGANTO... as in 3 general conference centers kinda giganto!

I was sick for 2 days with no voice so that really sucked. But at least I was feeling better to teach our new friend, Grace, for the 1st time! We met her on the metro last week and she's super nice. She's in her early 20s and from Nigeria! She gladly came to the church with an open mind eager to hear the beautiful message we had promised her. We watched the shorted Joseph Smith Restoration video with her and afterwards asked her what she thought, knowing that she had been feeling the Spirit. She smiled as she asked us, "did that really happen??" We testified to her that it did and promised her that she could gain a testimony of what we shared with her as she prayed and read from the Book of Mormon. She willing agreed to do both! As she watched the the mini video, I could just see something in her eyes as if she recognized and already knew about what we were teaching her about. That was a special experience, something I'll remember. We see a lot of good potential and are excited to continue teaching her!

We decided to start up a smoking recovery program here because literally the entirety of Athens smokes. It's bad. Plus we came to the conclusion that these people won't be receptive to the message we want to share with them unless they're in a place to be able to feel the Spirit. So first we'll fix that and then teach them ;)  We did a whiteboard advertising the smoking recovery program and had tons of people coming up and asking us for a flyer since they wanted to stop smoking! We had a ton of Word of Wisdom packets in our apartment so we decided to take those with us and ended up handing out loads of those too! Who would have thought it would be so easy and people would be so receptive of bettering their health?!

Lots more visits with less actives again this week. I wish people would just come to church. They find so many excuses to not come. One that really bugs me is when they say they don't wanna go when there's only 5 Greek people in church. And then we tell them,  "well there'd be more if you actually came too!" It's crazy to think there used to be 700+ members and 7 branches here but now there's barely 2 branches surviving on a thread, completely dependent on the missionaries. Where'd everyone go?! 

Well cool story here for you. We found one of the hidden less-actives of Athens, an old Greek lady who nobody knew was still living in Greece. She ran into the elders on the streets and the elders told us she wanted the sisters to stop by so we went over that night. She hadn't been attending church since her husband didn't allow her but her husband died in January. She's fallen into old habits and has started going back to the Greek Orthodox church and what not. BUT she hasn't ever stopped wearing the Greek CTR ring she got years ago! Then she ended up coming back to church for the 1st time in 9 YEARS on Sunday! Definitely the biggest miracle of the week!

So I just wanted to share a few thoughts for a second about our Savior. I think the moment where our brother was crucified on the cross was the moment where He'd felt the strongest sadness and the purest joy. Sadness because He was undergoing excruciating pain. Unimaginable to most of humanity. But then the joy comes from performing His role that He so mercifully volunteered to fulfill: to stand as the mediator between us and the laws of God. To make it possible for us to feel of the love that our Heavenly Father felt for His Son as He was despicably removed from the Earth. And the most beautiful part is to not only feel this overwhelming joy and love, but to have the chance to live in it :))) to live in the presence of God. Wow. That cannot and will not be overstated. 

God, Our Heavenly Father, loves you❤️❤️

Study your scriptures, magnify your callings, sincerely pray, attend the temple, and give someone a little extra love this week!

Love you all!

Love,
Sister Gale

PICS:

1-2 Temple of Zeus

3 fish spa

4-5 splits with a member, Jessy Anna

6 ukelele shop

7 Olympic Stadium 

8 National gardens of Athens 

9 one of the streets in Μοναστηράκι