Mission Update

I know I haven't done a mission update in a couple of weeks, but Zach also hasn't had much to say. But today we received a long email! Very exciting:

We made a lucky find at a street market on friday. We found a guy selling very nice ties (probably around 20-30 euro before?) for 5 euro a piece...I got 2 and will probably get more if we see him again. Very nice ties.

This week flew by but I'm not sure why. We weren't busy with lessons or anything like that but it still flew. We did a lot more knocking than usual which is good and bad. Bad because I'd rather be teaching, good because we don't have many people to teach so we need to find more! Our entire zone is suffering right now. Elder Astle and I could have a lot more lessons during the week if we wanted to but the people aren't progressing so it is kind of a waste of time. So this week and next week we're searching.

I'm not nearly as tired as I was. For some reason I'm sleeping a lot better. I'm still hitting the wall of exhaustion at around 4:00 in the afternoon but I can usually put my head on my desk and pass out for 10 minutes which makes it possible to walk out the door again that afternoon. I feel generally better than I did before but I'm still wishing the work was going better.

In my next package? Well, some jerky would be nice or maybe some jelly beans. I still want that cd I told you about in my last email but besides all that I don't need anything else.

We have an interesting situation here in Greece right now...we have almost enough spanish speakers to create a spanish speaking branch! And it would be bigger than the branch I was in in Faliro! I'm toying with the idea of picking up a little spanish since some of members don't have good greek or english and hey, Spanish is easy! I should be fluent in a month or so! :) ( we give spanish speaking elders a hard time here). Seriously though, I figure that if I can at least learn a little spanish through the Greek it should help my Greek out a lot.

Have I told you about Basileios? Let me tell you about Basileios...He is a member of 2 years, 80 years old and still works as a Physical Therapist (I would have guessed he was 6o or 65 when I first met him). He is VERY well educated and VERY Greek. He has been known to regularly shout out comments in sacrament meetings (not jeering or anything, just commenting on what the speaker says and adding a little of his own). Every week before district meeting we meet him at church and we have a "Greek" lesson with him. Or in other words we read from a grade-school reader with him and he corrects us and generally just talks a lot. We endure and I've actually learned to enjoy it (it used to annoy me). We continue to do these lessons because when we have them he is one of the most active members. When the missionaries stopped the lessons for a time he rarely came to church...Thus we see how a friend and a responsibility really can help someone stay in church. And we as missionaries are happy to fill both of those roles and he thrives off of it. I'll get a picture with him so that you can see him.

That's all that happened this week, tonight we have 2 options for possible lessons and if those fall through it's off to door knocking. Love you,

Zach