Some Interesting Observations

 I have been surprised to see Graffiti everywhere.  No place is sacred.  They must have a lot of bored teenagers and no one seems to want to clean it up. 

Our branch president's wife said that you can take a bike tour in downtown Athens and see some really cool graffiti.  

There are garbage pick up stations on every street.  You take your bagged garbage down and put it in either regular or recycle bins.  Some garbage dumpsters are overflowing.  Some have bags lying all around them.  I don't think the garbage man stops to pick them up and so they sit.  And stink.  The city also prunes the many trees that line the streets so that they don't get into the electric wires above the street.  They just have piles of pruning everywhere.  Otherwise, it is very clean.  

We were walking down our street and an older lady was sweeping in front of their apartment building.  I said hello to her.  She tried talking to us in Greek.  I of course understood nothing which is such a pity but finally thought to have Kim show her his name badge which had Church of Jesus Christ in Greek.  She was immediately unfriendly and left.  We are learning that it is not a pleasant experience if you belong to any church but the Greek Orthodox church.  You are ostracized from family, friends, work, etc. when you join our church.  The members have made many sacrifices to belong and stay active.  

The streets are filled with lime, fig, olive and pomegranate trees.  One Elder said he picked an orange and it was very sour like a lemon. 

We live in the Agia Paraskevi area northeast of Athens. We live on Alexandrou Papanastaseoiou street.   It is one apartment building after another all in blocks with gates, trees, and graffiti.  They all look pretty much a like and are sprinkled with businesses here and there.  We found a bakery this morning and Kim is ready to go back when we get paper cash which is the preferred way to pay for things. 

At every gate, is a lock.  In our apartment you need to unlock the gate, go into the complex, lock the gate back up.  Unlock the front entrance to the apartments, go in and lock it back up, then go up the stairs and unlock the door, go in and lock it back up.  Everything has multiple locks.  I hope we are never in a fire because it takes forever to go through all the locks.  

We have tried putting our clocks and water pick, etc. on the adapters and found that it wasn't a good idea.  We will be looking for new ones when we get brave enough to shop.  

We have enjoyed seeing everyone come out in the evenings just like in the movies where they eat at small outdoor cafes and kids run in the streets or play soccer at the local playground.  School will start in one more week.  I passed a pizza place and out in the open they had this huge pizza and were cutting off pie wedges to sell.  I have never seen such a big pizza about the size of a round table.  

We laugh a lot with the Reidheads and are so grateful that they are here learning with us.  Sister Reidhead explained their drive to the post office today and said it was nail biting.  I was so impressed that Elder Reidhead was driving after just arriving here until I learned it was the missionaries that drove them.  They are fearless and said that everyone has put dings in their cars.  

So....we traded traffic sounds like sirens, beeping cars, grinding cranes and stop/ start sounds for a very quiet neighborhood and only the cicadas making their presence known.  

This is how they finish off wiring in the house,  Wire stubs are everywhere.  

Looking down from our balcony in the back.  Trees are everywhere a building isn't.

This is our back balcony from a different angle. 

This is looking across our apartment in the back.  If you enlarge the picture, you can see cactus on the roof.  There are lots of plants on people's balcony.  They were out watering in the evening when we were walking.  

 

Sunday Sunday, So Good to See

 

We were happy to have the Elders pick us up to go to the church since we were in Sunday clothes and sweat so much the night before.  We are so grateful for these young, fearless missionaries.  They are so good to help us.  We have enjoyed getting to learn about their families and where they are from all over the world.  The branch was the same.  We met people from Congo, South Africa, Brazil, United States, Hong Kong ( Kim was so happy to use his Cantonese and visit).  We had a recently released Mission President who served in Guatemala.  He was meeting his daughter to spend some time while she back packed across Europe.   Our branch president is overseeing the building of the US embassy for the next three years.  He was in Mozambique before that with the embassy.  

What I loved the most:  remembering a week ago meeting in the Joseph Smith Building in the elaborate chapel where General Authorities meet when home on Sunday with a full house of senior missionaries and then meeting in this small simple ward building with a handful of members, visitors, etc. and feeling the same sweet spirit of the gospel.  In our ward in Salt Lake, there would be several members lined up to share their testimonies on Fast Sunday.  They were not lined up here but hopped up as soon as one person was done and there were no laspe.  

We had frozen pizza for our break the fast.  I think it had been in the freezer for several months and tasted pretty darn good when you are starvin Marvin.  The Burdons had gotten us a big wedge of watermelon that had seeds.  We enjoyed the seeds since they are great ruffage.  Well...maybe Kim didn't.  I have always liked crunchy seeds and they are pretty non existent in the watermelons we have gotten in the States. 

We have always zoomed with our kids on Sunday night so at 10 p.m. we called and visited.  It was great to see their faces and hear their adventures for the week.  We were able to review our days in Greece and laugh about all the crazy.  I so much more appreciate my missionaries that left our home and went to new places and were always positive about their experiences.  I just understood more about what they may have been feeling and how they grew so much.  What a blessing to even be able to call them so easily now.  

On Our Own

 We spent Saturday unpacking and figuring out where everything was and how everything worked.  Kim was so smart to use his phone and take a picture of the oven, stove, etc. to get information off the internet.  Everything is in Greek and thus a much greater understanding of the saying...that's Greek to me.  

I organized the kitchen and felt great gratitude for the Barbers that had left so much food for us like rice, oats, beans, canned goods, etc.  The Burdons had gotten some food for the frig.  

That evening we decided to venture out and get some exercise by walking to the church is which is about a mile and a half away.  Kim got the map and off we went.  The streets are very narrow and there are many one way streets where the cars are parked on the side.  

This is our street.  The angle makes it look wider than it is. Cars zoom along so quickly on these narrow one way streets.  I watched a car pull out from their gated driveway with cars parked on the other side of the street.  It took ten point turns to get out.  

We watched carefully for traffic not understanding some of the signs or knowing if pedestrians really had the right of way when coming to stop signs. We saw people out more as the evening cooled.  The weather is hot and humid.  We worked up a sweat even though the sun had gone down. We were very happy to arrive at the church before sunset and turned back to go home when Kim realized that he didn't have our apartment address to plug in.  We found ourselves lost at one point and then he remembered he could go to a picture and the coordinates would plug in a map.  I was quite relieved to know we would not have to wander the streets looking for our apartment since they are truly all alike.  Over and over again the same type of blocks of apartments. 

We happily fell to bed only to wake up at 3 a.m. Wide awake.  Happily the BYU game was playing.  Kim listened while I read.  

Arriving in Athens

 We were so happy when President and Sister Burdon arrived at the airport to pick us up.  They informed us that we were going to take the metro into Athens.  We all piled into a train and off we went.  The train got more and more packed as we stopped at the different stations.  I met two Americans back packing in Europe and listened to their adventures.  When it came to our stop, we were at the back of our group and to our surprise the doors closed before we could get out.  Off we went to the next station wondering how that happened.  Kim was very quick to determine that we would get off on the other side when the train stopped and go back the way we came which we did and we were happily greeted by our group that had come back down into the metro wondering what we were going to do.  

Off we went to the church to get oriented and eat lunch.  

I am holding up salmon.   It was delicious.  Behind me are the Reidheads from Springville.  They are awesome and learning with us as they take over office duties for Greece.  

We had a wonderful devotional on Zoom about running and how the principles of running are like living the gospel.  Kim and I were sitting right in front of the camera and unfortunately we had a hard time staying awake.  I know it was inspiring but we had been up for many hours. 

The Elders came to take us to our apartments and we went to the Reidheads first.  They had an elevator to take us to their apartment and we all piled in.  We did read the sign that recommended only 6 people so we obediently left others to wait.  We arrived almost at our floor and the elevator stuck.  We could not open the doors.  We tried the buttons and opening the doors but to no avail.  It started to get very warm in the little elevator and it also seemed to be very stuffy.  We laughed at first and talked as we tried to think what to do.  We said a prayer and communicated to the other members of our party that had noticed that the elevator was not coming back.  President Burdon's shiny head beaded up with perspiration and we started fanning ourselves.   

We were all so happy when the fireman arrived and got us out.  He looked at the sign that said 6 people and suggested that we should stick to 2 people. 

This is a posting from President Burdon...so appropriate

He got a comment from one of his missionaries:  Don't worry President.  We have all been there.  

They were at the MTC thus the big elevator.  They don't make them big here!

When we arrived at our apartment, now rather late at night, I decided to skip the teeny elevator and walk up the two flights of stairs. 

We were very happy to go bed and slept very soundly through the night!

Christensens in Greece

Last Morning in Salt Lake

Favorite view ever from our 8th floor in Salt Lake across from the Conference Center.  We were blessed to serve in the Salt Lake Church Headquarters Mission for almost 4 months.  We found it was a great opportunity for us to explore new places, experience serving with many senior missionaries and work in the Church History Library.  We had many people walk into the library saying that they wanted to know what was in the building.  We were able to share our testimonies and give Book of Mormons to those that were interested.  The best mission ever!  We are so grateful we have that opportunity. 

Our visas arrived in August and we headed to Greece via Virginia to see our newest grand daughter.  It is bittersweet to know your grandchildren will be two years older when you get home.  Two years seems like a long time but I am told by many that it goes fast.  I have reflected often of my feelings when I sent my kids off on missions that two years was hard on a mom but still went fast. 

So merrily on our way, we survived the long trip over the ocean after having the flight delayed by several hours.  

I am so missing this doll right now.  What a special opportunity for us to just sit and look into that beautiful face. Grandchildren are the BEST!