Week 27 Transfers~Cyprus!

Here I come Cyprus! I'm transferring on Wednesday and going to Larnaca, Cyprus.  I'm very excited for this opportunity to go serve in a new area! I will be in a trio with Sister Bakewell (from England) and Sister Larcher (from my MTC group).

This week we went on Thursday and Friday to Athens for Zone Conference. On the way to Zone Conference I was given a wheelchair in the airport. That was kinda fun! I loved Zone Conference! It was soo good! I learned so much! During Zone Conference I learned two major things. Receiving Light and "becoming a Saint". I really loved learning about light. In D&C 50:24 It says, "That which is of God is light; and he that receiveth light, and continueth in God, receiveth more light; and that light groweth brighter and brighter until the perfect day."  That is our purpose here on earth "to receive light"! I love how when we love others as our Savior loves us, we receive more light. Or when we study the scriptures we receive more light. Or when we obey the commandment, we receive more light. Light= knowledge 

Heavenly Father wants us to receive us much light as we can here on earth so that we can become like Him. 

Becoming a Saint. In Mosiah 3:19 It talks about the natural man being an enemy to God. But what stood out to me wasn't that. For me it was becoming a Saint. I've noticed on my mission we are always asking people to keep commitments and do things to progress. Well, its the same for us. We need to progress. We need to do more. We need to become Saints. But we can only become a Saint through the power of the Atonement. Both the natural man and the Saint need the atonement of Jesus Christ. We cant do this without Him. So, to become a Saint we need to become as a child; Be submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit all things to the Lord, and being obedient. I want to work on "becoming a Saint". I want to do whatever I can in this life to be close to my Savior. I am so grateful for what He has done for me. And I know that He will be by my side helping me along the way. He always has His hands stretched out towards us:)

I love you all so much! Have a great week!

Sister Ramsay

Week 26 So...I damaged something...

Hey Everyone!

How is everyone?:)

I hope you are doing well! This week was definitely a challenge for me...

These past two weeks I have had a little pain in my knee from riding my bike. We found out that the bike had some issues...like a hole in the tire and so riding up hills was hard on my knee. So, We decided to bring the bikes into a shop and get them fixed. Last P-day we decided as a district to drive these bike carts. (see picture below) They were sooo fun!!

But I had a lot of pain in my knee...and it started hurting more. That night I was in a lot of pain..so the next few days we decided to take the buses everywhere...so that maybe the knee would stop hurting. Everyday that I used it it got worse and worse. So, I called Sister Heder (President's wife) and told her about the knee and she scheduled me to go see the doctor. On friday in the evening I went into the doctor and she took a look at it and at the time it had turned a little purple at the top of my knee, because of the hematoma. She said that I have a small rupture to my Patella Tendon Hematoma and a strain. She said I was lucky, because if I would have continued biking I would have ruptured it completely and had to have surgery. I am very grateful for the chance I have to be here still. I have bed rest for 2-3days and crutches for 10days. And a brace on my knee. I  wont be able to bike for 2 months. But, all is good:) 

I will be going this coming week to Athens for two days for zone conference. 

Super pumped!

 I know I'm where i'm supposed to be:) I love this work! And I cant wait to get going again! 

I love you all!

Have a great week!

Love,

Sister Ramsay

Week 25 Lots of new projects!

This week our main focus was finding new people...So, we decided as a district we would do some more white boarding projects. We are now going to use our talents that we have been given to show people how much the gospel can bless us in so many different ways. One of the companionship bought a guitar and the other a ukulele. We will be playing happy songs to people that pass us by, by the seashore or by universities. People really love it! They smile and sometimes stop and listen and ask questions after. Its pretty neat! The other project we are working on is a we are making a Book of Mormon tower and having a table of Books of Mormon to hand out. And we are doing a free German class, which we are very pumped about!  We are starting a lot of new, but exciting things:)

We had a few little miracles happen...People started calling us to have lessons about the gospel! I know when we show the Lord how much we care for His people and work our hardest, He blesses us! I can definitely see His hand in everything we do! He is by our side:)

This week we had more lessons with Milena! We are working towards baptism with her! She is so wonderful! This week she called me and told me, "Sister Ramsay...I went to visit Marie (her friend) and I told her about the Book of Mormon and she really liked it!" Milena was so excited to tell me about her experience! hahah I absolutely love the people here!! 

I wanted to share a quote from Howard W. Hunter,

"The Lord promised that if we would be humble in times of need and turn to Him for aid, we would be made strong, and be blessed from on high."

I know that God has His hand stretched out towards us! He loves us and will do anything for us! He is here for us when we seek Him. We need to constantly seek Him! That is something that I have learned...He gave us our agency to choose. We need to choose Him. We need to follow Him. We need to do whatever we can to keep our relationship with Him! Its worth whatever it takes! I promise! "There is nothing in this world worth losing Celestial Kingdom."!!!

I love you all!

keep up the good work:)

Love you,

Sister Ramsay

Week 24 Why not play some Basketball?

This week we actually had the opportunity to play some basketball with a less-active!! It was soo fun! He told us to meet him in city and he brought his friend, Lydia. Let me tell you a little about this less-active. He is soooo cool! So, he's name is George and he is half Greek and half American. He was raised in Florida and became a member there. He also is a Ninja. haha. Seriously. He is a Ninja. He has a black belt and all. And sometime later he left and moved to Jerusalem and became a priest for the orthodox church there. And then he moved to Greece...continued to be a priest and a Ninja teacher. Now he is back to being mormon. haha. He speaks english with us and really is so cool. He met us in the city and told us we were taking a bus to where we would be playing basketball. We were with the elders too. Since they are helping George and we've got Lydia. Lydia is such a sweet lady! She is still studying here. She studies music. So, on the bus we (missionaries) realized we were actually going up a mountain and that he wanted to play at the top...

It was so beautiful! We played a fun game and then we left to bring the Sister Training leader, Sister Bakewell, that was with us to the airport. 

This week we also had 2 lessons with Milena. We asked her to be baptized and she said YES! So, right now we are working towards baptism. She is praying about the date we set. She really is an example to me! She wants to do everything she can to be ready for baptism. I love her dedication and faith! 

We also had a lesson this week with Maya! Oh Maya! She is progressing so much! She accepted the invitation to be baptized as well!!! She has a few more lessons than Milena, but they are both really close! Its so cute, because they both have become friends and like to know if they are both going to be baptized on the same day! hahah Maya also called me on saturday night to make sure she had the reading assignment for sunday. She wanted to be prepared for class:) I love Maya! 

We also were able to Skype the Romanian AP's about having lessons for our Romanian family:) 

They said yes, and we will be starting our first lesson tonight! We are very excited to be able to be apart of this! Maria and Adam are very excited to have these lessons!

I know this gospel blesses lives! I've seen it! I am so honored to be able to see it with these people! They are real examples to me! 

I love you all! Have a fantastic week!

Sister Ramsay

Week 23 Everyone is coming to church!

Hey!

This week has been crazy busy! We went to visit the Koutouri family. They live about 2hours away, but we knew we had to go there and visit them! They are such a sweet, hard working, humble family. The daughter, Tasoula struggles with coming to church. She doesnt want to come, because her mom tells her to. We talked to her about gaining a testimony. We talked about how it is important to find out for ourselves if the church is true. So, after our lesson with her we called her a few more times during the week to keep in touch. And she came to church this sunday! 

Also one of our investigators, Milena, quit her job so she could come to church. She had been wanting to come for a while now, but her job kept her from coming. She came and loved it! She even met our other investigator Maya who came as well:) They both speak russian and got along really well!

We also had a lesson with Maya...she actually called us and asked if we could have another lesson. She really loves learning more and more! It is such a blessing to be here and see these people! They are really amazing people! 

We had a lesson with Αγγελικη as well. She is a less-active who loves having us over! We actually asked her if she coudl help us with our lessons...by having us practice and do role-plays with her on how we can improve in being missionaries.  She loved it! She dived right into a role...she said, "tell me about the gospel...I know nothing" :) It was soo cute! 

We had a lesson with Stella this week as well and the lesson went very well. She loved hearing about the plan of Salvation. I love Greeks!! They always say, "πεσμω!" hahah It means keep going, or tell me more. So, we were able to talk about the whole plan of salvation. She didnt want us to stop:)

After our lesson she asked us where we were going and we told her "White Boarding". We explained what it is and she said next time I want to come and be a missionary too! hahah She is so sweet!

While we did white boarding our theme was the free english and greek classes we do. So, we passed out cards with the info on that and Sister Leuzinger and I decided to start doing german classes as well and see of anyone is interested. And to my surprise we had a lot of people that were interested in the german classes. So, we will be starting that too:)

This week has been great!! I see miracles everyday and I am so grateful for this opportunity to serve!! I am really learning so much!

Love you all,

Sister Ramsay

Week 22 Thessaloniki

Hey!

 How is everyone doing??

This week we had a lesson with Maya. She is really a light! We had the Branch President with us and his wife in the lesson. Her husband even decided to join in on the lesson, which was so great! We were teaching her the Plan of Salvation and she had really good questions. She later on in the lesson bore her testimony of the spirit. She told us how she had other lessons with other religions and hasn't felt anything like she does now. She even came to church this sunday! She stayed all three hours and really liked it! So, that was really cool! We really love her:)

We also had a lesson with Maybelle this week! Her baby is sooo cute! She told us that she might be staying in Athens, because her baby has to have certain check-ups that cant be done in Thessaloniki. So, we are praying she can somehow stay:) haha

But, our lesson together was about prophets and it was so funny. She had studied out prophets before we came and said she wanted to go over it. Which we wanted to talk about anyway. She had 5 different websites up and pages to talk about the topic prophets. She wanted to make sure she knew what was right. Oh I love her! She's soo sweet!!

This week we also started working on our less-actives. We have a bunch of them who we haven't met so we decided to go and see if they still live here and if we could do anything to help. We actually found a lady and she was raised in Germany. We were a little worried going at first because she didnt really want missionaries visiting her anymore. So, we decided maybe if we spoke german and tried helping her, maybe she would feel a bit better about missionaries. We spoke german as soon as we saw her and she let us in:) She opened up right away! I dont know how it happened. All I know is God puts us in places in the right time! I know Sister Leuzinger and I are here together for a reason! We are so happy to be able to speak german when we need to:) It is definitely something way fun!

Another cool thing we found out this week is that we can continue lessons with the Romanian family!!! We werent sure what we were going to do because we have a little bit of a language barrier at times. But we will now have skype lessons with the Elders in Romania. And they will translate and help teach:) We are really excited about this!

I really love this work! I love being able to bring people unto Christ!! Im learning sooo much! Thank you all for your support:) I really can feel the love!

Love you all soo much,

Sister Ramsay

P.s

Here are some pictures of my week.

With Maya & her husband and President Tanto and his wife

Maybelle and her cute baby

Week 21 Things are Changing

Hi! How is everyone??

So, this week we had part 2 of the Missionary Leadership Council. During that meeting President announced some new things to the mission. The Athens area has been broadend and is now a lot bigger. We also now have the Island Crete as apart of our mission. But, since we don't have that many sisters here we will only have Elders over there until we get more Sisters. 

But, its very exciting!

This week we had the opportunity to meet with Maria's brother's family. We taught him and his family and his neighbor's. It was way fun! We love the Romanian families:) 

We also got to meet with Milena this week. She's still struggling with a lot of work and taking care of her dad. She wants to go to church, but her work is preventing from it. We are praying for her and we still visit her and remind her of the love her Heavenly Father has for her!

This week we also went White Boarding. White boarding this week was focused on our talents or what we can give to help the people around us. We offer a free english class. So, we decided to center it on that. We had a good amount of people come and we were able to share our message as well. It was really neat! 

We even had a lady call us who had gotten one of our "I am a Mormon" card. She told us a few weeks ago that she found a book that she thought was ours....(It wasn't actually...it was from the Jehova's witnesses) So, we told her about our book..The Book of Mormon:) and at first she said how much for it?? And my companion and I smiled and told her its for free. She was very surprised. Later on she told us that she wasn't sure if she would have time to meet with us to get the Book. But, later that night when we had White Boarding she called again and said she was interested and wanted to meet up. So, she came to the board walk where we were and met us. She said she was very happy to meet us! She was so happy to get the book! She wants to have lessons:) So, that was a very cool experience!

We are also having transfers on Wednesday. Im staying here another 6 weeks. And my new companion is Sister Leuzinger. She's from Switzerland! hahahah! If people werent confused now with Swedish and Swiss..They will now with two Swiss girls:) hahah! Love this work!! Its progressing!

Have a great week!

Love,

Sister Ramsay