Eβδομάδα 67: lil bit of freedom

Hey hey everyone! Been another good week here. A little more exciting than last because we were actually out and about visiting some members. Stopped to see Sister Thorton and her cute daughter, Abby. One of the American embassy families. They're busy packing up since they'll be moving to Australia mid July. We caught up with them as well as visit with Hedy and Lucy, our cute Filipino ladies. I'm not super close with the members here because I've spent majority of my mission in Thess, so it was really good to see them again. We'll be making our rounds with all of them these last 2 weeks before Sister Mathis goes home. We're allowed to visit or meet up with members or friends but still aren't allowed to do any street contacting.

Saturday night we met up with Ana. I got to teach her when I served in Athens last and we all love her! She met the missionaries nearly a year ago now and still wants to get baptized but is still waiting on parental approval. She's pretty awesome. We met her at the beach and it was perfect out. It was really fun to catch up with her and to just be outside enjoying the nice weather. Something weird always seems to happen when we're out in the normal world doing normal things and Saturday night wasn't any exception. We walked Ana to the tram to get back home and some guy got off and just starting barking at us. It was wack. Straight up barking like he was a dog. And then the rest of our interactions with Greek people that night didn't get any better. Sister Mathis and I forgot how rude Greek people are lol. We don't even miss street finding one bit. Maybe Satan just made all the Greek people extra mean to us so we would regret the decision of going outside our apartment or the church. We aren't ready to get wrecked 24/7 like that again quite yet. Back to quarantine it is haha. 

We're at a 72 day count for our missionary quarantine holy smokes. Nearly 2 full transfers already. Even tho we have permission to hold church services again, we legally can only have 13 people in the church building. And being that half of that number would be missionaries, there's still no point in starting church again for everyone yet. So we still got our Saturday dress rehearsals going to get the Sunday sacrament meeting devotional up for all the members and our friends to watch. Our online Facebook Πάντα Κοντά page is doing really well. 1,500 ish people viewed the last meeting so we were pretty siked. The missionary sacrament service with 2 members, Βασίλης and Ξενοφώντας was where things got wack. In the middle of the bread being passed, the church doorbell kept going off so Elder Kirkman and Blackhurst get up to see who it is. They're gone for a bit so we continued the service. Eventually they come back, whisper something to the other elders, and sit down. Few minutes later the bell keeps going off again so Elder Wark and Turner take their turn going to the church gate. They come back a few minutes later, we wrap up the mini sacrament service, and then are informed there's 2 girls from the gypsie camp nearby wanting to see Βασίλης, who is apparently their God father because he baptized them into the Greek Orthodox church, and they needed to speak with him. Eventually Βασίλης goes out and we learn that he's been feeding them for the past 5 years. So he gave them €5, they left, and we continued our day. That was all... interesting I guess you could put it.

I came across a scripture that I really love from Romans 8:28, “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose."

I've thought about this one a lot this week. We don't find that only good things will happen to them who love God, but instead all things will work together for their good! We can’t see God’s whole plan from where we are now, but if we could, I’m sure we would cheer for joy to see how He will shape us into who we need to become when we put our trust in Him. He wants to make our lives and our hearts good, but He requires us to give them to Him in faith first. I've definitely been able to see throughout my mission how I've changed and am becoming more and more the person my Heavenly Father wants me to be.

Thinking about it, it's really crazy how much freedom our Heavenly Father gives us. Of course this freedom isn't free, and of course it's not like He just threw us into the Hunger Games and told us to do our best to survive. I truly believe that He watches out for us, in the sense that we are able discover ourselves... our strengths and weaknesses, and through that discover Him. But of course this is also very varies in just as many ways as there are people are Earth... probably more. But yeah, when you the love of the Savior, a lot of knowledge that you struggle to acquire, gets taken care of. It's like when you've been worrying a ton about something, and you can't get it out of your mind, but you get a hug from a loved one, and it's not that they solved every problem for you, but for that moment, they solved that lack of understanding, and because of that (to one degree or another) they are the answer. Of course what I'm getting at is that the Savior is the answer for everything, and even though He has all-knowledgeable, He is also all-loving and wants some answers to cause us to grow into a more understanding and loving child of our Heavenly Father :)

Catch ya next week!

Love,
Sister Gale

PICS!

1-3 beach meetup with Ana  

4 found this lil guy  

5-7 coolin off 

8 classic scene 

9 coaching elder Wark for a FB vid