Sister Gale in the Greece Region of the Adriatic South Mission

An eternity to prepare for my mission, an eternity to reflect, but only 18 months to live it. I can't even try to express in words what my mission means because it's everything to me. I've come to learn so much more the reality of God's love, the enabling joy the Atonement of Jesus Christ has as we utilize it in our everyday lives, the power of the Book of Mormon, and SO MUCH MORE. I am so grateful he trusts me enough to still allow me to be serving him at this special time. Over 30,000 missionaries have been sent home because of COVID-19. I am lucky enough to stay. It has not been easy but why should it be? It's the Lord's work, there is always opposition, but he is on our side and the work will prevail.  All the teary goodbyes were rough but I couldn't have imagined a better final week in Thessaloniki. It has definitely become my 2nd home as I've spent more than half of my time in the field here! I don't like to think of myself as much of a cryer b...

We are down to 9 days people! 9 days until I bid farewell to the most unpredictable, joy filled months of my life thus far. We've got a busy week ahead of us as we say our final goodbyes to our wonderful Thessaloniki members and go back to Athens for our last few days.  2 noteworthy experiences for ya... 1) We ran into a guy from Canada this who is literally walking to Jerusalem! He says he has been called as a Pilgrim  and is retracing the steps of Christ. He began his journey 6 months ago in France and is working his way down to the Holy land as God directs him. Even was out in the wild for exactly 40 days and testified to us of Christ carrying him through that intense period. He has learned through this experience the reality of our Savior's individual love for us. Cool thing is he met the missionaries in Spain and had a really good conversation as well as remembered the Joseph Smith Restoration movie. So he already recognized who we were and had a deep appreciation and res...

I got to see my recent converts Kourosh and Nafas again! Their 3 kiddos are still just as cute as I last remembered too. We got to tell them it was their turn to attend church next week and they were pretty happy about that. It's so weird to think some people haven't had the sacrament for months. And yet I haven't gone a week without it this whole Corona time. Right now our church meeting is limited to 11 people so 1 set of elders goes with a set group of members that change every week. The other set comes to our place and we watch the Athens online church, have the sacrament, and then have lunch all together. And it'll most likely be the Sunday routine the rest of the transfer as far as it looks.  We still aren't allowed to do any street contacting which hasn't been too great because generally that's how we would find new people to teach. But in our weekly beach cleaning we can talk to people who approach us and believe it or not there are a good amount tha...