Εβδομάδα 42: πρώτος σεισμός aka 1ST EARTHQUAKE!!

HEYYY!

Wow was this week anything but normal. We were in our area for a whole 3 days haha. Well we got sad news about the Persian family we've been teaching English to that calls themselves "Mormons". Because of they're background and family back home, we won't be able to teach them anything gospel related for safety reasons. But they are so so good, absolutely love us, and would be just the golden family to teach! We are confident the Lord has a plan for them and the gospel will be brought to them at some point (hopefully soon), just not by us. So we are continuing with helping them with English and just being their friends.

Early Wednesday morning (4:30 am to be exact), we were up and headed to the airport to fly down to Athens for a mission tour. Elder and Sister Sabin, the Area 70 President and his wife, requested the presence of all the missionaries in Greece and Cyprus. Which means I got to see Sister Kruger again who has been in Cyprus still, not gonna lie, tears were shed, I love her! This was the 1st time, and probably the last, all the Greek missionaries will be together! So everyone flew in and we had an amazing mission conference directed by Elder Sabin who gave us some inspired direction and motivation. One thing I LOVED from this was when he reminded us that every single one of us is entitled to receive revelation in every meeting we attend, this includes sacrament meeting!  But we must always be seeking for it and in tune with the spirit so we don't miss out. And when we do recognize something, we need to keep a record of it! How sad would it be if Heavenly Father gave us an answer or prompting and we forget about it because we forgot to write it down?! Spiritual experiences are sacred, personal, and meant to be remembered. 

Being in the spirit of Thanksgiving we also discussed gratitude! We are only as happy as we are grateful. Gratitude is the key! So we can choose right now how we are feeling, and if we don't like it then change it! One thing we could do is to look at everything as a gift, because it is. We are blessed beyond our understanding. For one, we have the knowledge of the gospel of Jesus Christ and that we can live with our family for eternity. One of the greatest pieces of knowledge I have by far. Sometimes life might through curve balls at us but we are designed to be an imperfect people that experience the waves of life. And that's exactly what this life is for, the process of BECOMING like our Savior. Our success formula is given, "Come, Follow me". We must be a people prepared to receive Christ when He comes again and the first step in that process is accepting His outstretched, loving invitation to follow Him. We need to treasure the doctrines we have, fear not, and live right. We get in trouble when we forget who we are, and WHO'S we are. So don't forget that.

Thursday morning consisted of all the Americans waiting 4 1/2 hours to get our Greece residency so we don't get kicked out. That was a longgg morning. But it got interesting that afternoon because yet again, we were headed back to the airport. This time headed to Tirana! All the STLs and Zone leaders in each of the 5 countries of our mission had a MLC conference in Albania. Since the Cyprus and Greece missionaries were already together, we all got to fly together, all 8 of us ;) we got to Albania as planned expecting to see the APs waiting to pick us up. Well, they weren't. And when we called em they said they wouldn't be there to pick us up for another hour. So there we were....8 of us Greek speaking missionaries.. in a foreign country... where we can't speak the language anymore. Haha. We decided to make the most of it and ended up figuring out how to ask permission to start caroling in the airport. So we sang Christmas songs until the APs finally arrived about an hour and 45 mins later. It was really fun tho even if our voices were dead by the end of it haha. 

They took us to the church where the Albanian missionaries were waiting for us. So Monday night, a huge 6.4 magnitude earthquake hit Albania which was crazy. So the church walls had loads of cracks all over which was kinda scary. Especially since Albania architectures aren't always that secure. Anyways, we got to stay with the Tirana sisters along with the Durres sisters (who's apartment got thrashed during the earthquake). They live on the 7th floor and the elevator broke on Monday so it was a good calf workout getting up. It was such a fun night with the Albanian sisters! Tried Swedish candy for the 1st time that night. It basically consisted of a lot of different ways to flavor black licorice, which, I've never been a fan of haha. Sister Vennerholm was laughing since she loved it and I was just gagging over the garbage can haha. Needless to say I don't think I'll be having Swedish candy anytime soon. The earthquakes didn't stop that night! 1st earthquake was minimal and it was just a little weird to be rocking on the 7th floor all of a sudden as we were chilling and talking. 2nd earthquake woke us up and was a little more scary since it was a bit bigger and lasted longer. But we survived ;)

We had our MLC meeting Friday morning and it was funny since President Anderson commented saying, "I woke up this morning after continuing to experience earthquakes throughout the night thinking, "I just brought the Cyprus and Greece missionaries, who were completely safe where they were, to a dangerous place", but then I received a confirmation that Heavenly Father would continue to always protect His servants." What a blessing it is to do this work everyday, being surround and brought up by angels every single day, and to wear Christ name on our chests represent His work and His glory.

Δημήτρη (Dimitris) and Μπάμπη (Babis) are continually progressing to their baptismal goals! Both of them are keeping all the commitments we give them and have received their own personal confirmation of the truthfulness of the gospel. If all goes as planned they will both be baptized members within the next 2 weeks!

We have also been helping prepare Ειρήνη (Irini) to go on her mission to New York City, New York!! She leaves this Wednesday! She will be the 1st missionary from Thessaloniki which will be so cool! It has been very stressful and hard for her older sister and mom but we know that she is doing the right thing and her serving a mission will be the greatest blessing not only for her but her family as well.

On Sunday there weren't any primary teachers so President Tanto asked us to fill in. Since there's lots of rules about missionaries and children we were a little hesitant doing this. This is such a hard rule to follow because the little kids love us and are always hugging and around us! We ended up just singing some primary songs with them while I played the piano and we helped to teach them a handful of new songs. I wish we had a bigger primary, we only had 2 little girls from the Chapis family. But 2 is better than none! The Greek primary song book isn't very big either which is sad, but we made do and had a fun time with what we had.

Thanks for all your love, support, and messages! Love you all!

Love,
Sister Gale

PICS:

1-6 (South) Mission tour with all the Greek missionaries! ft Sis Kruger (peep Eld Blackhurst), Sis Vennerholm, twinning w Sis Mathis, and Sister Anderson! 

7-10 finding with the Albanian missionaries in Albania for MLC 🇦🇱

11-12 we LOVE all the cheap fruit stands everywhere 

13 Greece and Cyprus leadership waiting to board our Albania flight 🛫