A phone call from Zach!

Kam took excellent notes during our call from Zach. We always put him on the speaker phone so everyone can participate in the call. Here's what he told us:

How's the new area?: I haven't seen a lot of it yet.

Were the riots near you?: The riots never affected me, but some missionaries in the center of town got tear gas in their apartments even though their apartments were on the 4th and 6th floors. (He's sending us pictures of the damage)

What did you do for Christmas?: We planned for our week, went carolling to members in Greek, had dinner with an embassy family that's in our branch. We ate ham, salad with ranch dressing (he was really excited about the ranch dressing since they don't usually have that in Greece), funeral potatoes, and a Greek version of cheesecake. (He said that Greek people do have Christmas trees with light like we do.)

What's it like being in one of the main church branches in Greece?: There are too many missionaries which means that I don't have any responsibilities on Sunday like I used to, which I miss. But I do like being in an area with more members. I'm still a District Leader and I'm over 2 senior couples, 1 set of elders and 1 set of sisters. President and Sister Galanos are also in my branch.

We asked about the clothing in Greece: It's really expensive and everything is name-brand.

Do you still cook a lot?: I don't cook a lot anymore. We do service for an investigator at his bakery so we eat a lot of brakery bread.

When I asked him if his suits still fit: "Yes, I'm not fat!" :o)

When we asked him what he'd like in his next package: A high pitched noise thing that will drive away dogs. When we door knock the dogs hear us and alert everyone that we're coming.

We asked him how he does his laundry: We have a washing machine but no dryer. The senior couples have dryers, but when the Greek people hear about a dryer they don't know what it is (interesting!).

We asked him about the housing in Athens - houses or apartments?: Athens is mostly apartment buildings except in the more wealthy areas. We don't door knock much in the wealthy areas because only maids answer the doors and even though we can teach them, we're asked to try and teach mostly Greek people. Most of the maids are from Africa and the Philipines.

We asked him how his Greek is coming along (President Galanos said he's doing really well!): It's coming along okay except when I have to translate in church. It's really hard to translate because they talk really fast. The lady who was supposed to translate for the Christmas program didn't come so I had to translate and they talked too fast. I did okay but eventually the members took out their earpieces and just listened to the music. An old guy didn't like my translation so he took out his earpiece until the lady who was supposed to be translating showed up....

We asked him about the service he does at the bakery: We make pasteries, spinach and meat pizzas, and help make things for other shops. Sometimes we get to take food home.

We asked him about the baptisms in the mission: They're mostly Chinese and other foreigners, not Greek people.

Well, that's pretty much the phone conversation. It was sooo fun to talk to him! He sounds really good and is enjoying his mission. He's really tired but is working hard and has had great companions his entire mission.