We woke up and got ready to go to church. We debated whether or not we should come back to George's apartment to change after church, but figured it was best to bring a change of clothes since the church was closer to the main part of town, so we packed a back pack with a change of clothes. We had the church's address, but no idea where the church was from George's apartment. Our plan was to start walking and hoped we would find a taxi, but we weren't near the main part of town, so the chances of randomly seeing a taxi seemed slim. I started off walking in heels, which, looking back seems silly. I guess I thought we would find a taxi quicker. Luckily I had shoes in my backpack to change into because it was rainy and muddy and we had no idea if we were even walking in the right direction.
We asked a guy passing by which direction to the church's address and he said to go back to a street we had already passed and walk up the hill. After about 20 minutes, we saw a taxi at a stop light on the opposite side of the street! We waved him down, ran across the street, and gave him the address.
We had finally made it to church- wet and a little frazzled, but we made it! It was much different than I expected. I mean, I know that not every LDS church building looks the same, but I pictured it much different. The church was set in the middle of a large apartment building. The front of the church was a large glass window and by large I mean the whole wall was glass, so as I got out of the taxi, I could see all the men in Priesthood...I could just picture people walking down the street window shopping, moving from one cute holiday display to the next and then bam- Elder's Quorum haha. The only sign letting people know it was an LDS church was white Greek writing placed in the corner of the glass wall. When we got inside, a Greek lady, who was the stake president's wife, came and greeted us. She didn't speak much English, but she was super friendly. She showed me where to hang my coat and place our backpacks and rubbed the mud off of the back of my legs, which I had no idea was even there.
The meeting schedule was reversed, so Sacrament was the third hour, which I was grateful for since we were about 30 minutes late. Since this was my first time attending church outside of the US, it was such a cool experience. It was interesting to see how diverse it was. There were only about 20 people total, including three sets of missionaries. I imagined mostly Greek people being there, but only about half of the people there were Greek. There were a few people from Nigeria and all of the missionaries, except for one who was from Germany, were from the UK. Fortunately for us, half of church was in English and then translated to Greek. The missionary from Germany would translate either to English or to Greek. I was so impressed considering English is his second language! Rusty was asked to bless the Sacrament, which was exciting because it was only his second time blessing it.
After church was over, we got changed into our casual clothes and called Vicky. We had the missionary from Germany give her directions. She happened to live right up the street from the church, and said she would meet us there and take us back to her apartment.
When we got back to her apartment she fed us bread with butter, honey and jam. It was the best honey ever. Rebo, Rusty's teammate, lives with Vickie, so we all went to meet Stratos for coffee and hot chocolate. We went to a restaurant at the top of a nice hotel that overlooks the center. After, we walked along the pier, down to the White Tower, a popular tourist attraction, that used to be a prison.
Rebo, Vicky, Rusty and I rode a bus back to the apartment. Rebo left to go out and Vicky prepared a delicious dinner for us- chicken and potatoes, vegetable soup, Greek salad, and bread. Although she did not accept our offers to help with dinner, we did help set the table complete with tea light candles.
I am so grateful for our friends out here. It seems wherever we go, we are taken care of. We finished up the night by watching a movie and then caught a taxi back to George's.
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