Candles, candles!! All sizes, all prices. Outside Agios Dimitrios Church last Monday, Ayios
Dimitrios Day. He is the patron saint of Thessaloniki.

Just a little glimpse of some of the vendors and beggars on the church steps. Those are

balloon sellers holding the big colorful bundles.

Melanie and Chad standing along the waterfront in Thessaloniki in front of

Alexander the Great astride his famous horse, Bucephalous.

Downtown Thessaloniki. Melanie and Chad (and some unknown guy) in front of the remains of the Galerius Arch, named of course, for the Roman Emperor, Galerius, who had a palace here around 300 B.C.

We asked this shepherd if we could take his picture. He was crossing the road with his flock

and his dogs as we were coming down the mountain from Meteora. It's quite a common sight

to see shepherds tending their flocks. There are lots of goats and sheep in Greece.

Melanie, Chad, Barbara and Dennis with the Great Meteora behind us.

Chad and Melanie in front of the Great Meteora. It was very foggy the morning we were

there, but it made for some great pictures when you got a glimpse of sunlight.

A stray cat on the edge of a rock with the fog rising up behind it.

Sorry, if it seems like we overdo the Meteora thing, but honestly, every direction is a photo op!

A great look at one of the rope ladders, which used to be the only way to get inside the monasteries. I'm pretty sure they'd have fewer visitors if everyone had to get up and down via the ladders!

A lovely garden at the Rousanou monastery, which now houses nuns. (I'm

actually not sure what they call the women. )

Melanie and Barbara at the entrance to Rousanou.

Our most recent trip to Athens. President and Sister Charles invited the senior couples to the mission home for lunch and a meeting. We got to meet the Bells, who are the newest senior couple in the mission. Sister Charles is at the near end of the table and President Charles, at the far end. Bell's are by Sister Charles. The Smith's are behind me. Elder Harris was there recuperating from his foot surgery.

The long-awaited day of Fotis Stillo's baptism. Members of the Branch, his family, the

missionaries, and Sister Charles. We had a great evening for the baptism.

Elder and Sister Johnson with Maria, Fotis, Irini and Georgia Stillo.

September 27, 2009

We have had visitors! Sister Johnson in the middle with her sisters, Cheryl and Karen. They came to see us at the end of their European trip and brought me a terrific Paris jacket just like theirs. We couldn't miss the photo op! (I know some of you will probably think we went to Paris, but we really didn't!)

We spent part of day driving to Halkidiki. This is a beach in the little town of Vourvourou on the east side of the second finger of Halkidiki. The non-missionaries waded into the Aegean and said it was warm. Glenn, Cheryl, John, Karen and Dennis.

Getting their feet wet in the Aegean.

Dennis, with one of his fellow high priests! This was in the monastery of Saint Nikolas Anapausa at Meteora. The pappas are usually out of sight, but we saw this one and Dennis asked if we could take his picture. He was very obliging and gave us a small print of a larger picture we had seen in the monastery. He was the painter. He also gave us a little booklet about the monastery.

The "sisters" at St. Stephen's Nunnery.

The happy tourists with their tour guide and chaffeur in the center. We were catching our breath on the way back up the path from one of the monasteries.

Dennis and John behind a monastery with the great Thessaly Plain

and Pindus Mountains beyond.

Scott and Elizabeth in front of the White Tower, the landmark of Thessaloniki.

We can't begin to tell you how wonderful it was to have family here to visit and grandkids to hold, hug and kiss. We took a walk along the seashore one evening and let the kids play at a playground and saw a beautiful sunset. The Thermaic Gulf of the Aegean Sea is a step behind us.

Scott and Daniel at the playground. Daniel is a beautiful little guy

and we loved getting reacquainted with him.

At church on Sunday. Maria and Fotes and Irini Stillo, Elizabeth, Scott and Nathan. Daniel was asleep in his stroller. Irini and Nathan hit it off right away. She's very sweet with all the children that come to church. Fotes was supposed to have been baptized today, but it didn't happen. We hope to have some pictures of his baptism to post soon.

The day after Scott and Liz and the boys left I was working around the apartment and wondered if I had just dreamed that they came to see us. Then I saw cute little handprints on the sliding doors and pictures to prove they had really come. They were here for our Linger Longer Sunday meal, so got to socialize with some of the members. Anthony is in front of Scott, then Mary. Sister Campbell is by Liz. President Charles is the man whose face you can see, sitting down the table from Scott. It was also our Branch Conference that Sunday, so they got to meet the mission president and his wife and the Taylor's, a senior couple from Athens.

Nathan celebrated his fourth birthday with us. We did our best to come up with a pirate cake and he seemed pleased with it.

Missionaries and members of the Branch who came to Dasoula Koutouri's baptism. It's a rare and wonderful thing to have a second generation baptism in Greece. Her uncle is kneeling beside her. He baptized her. Next is her grandmother, then her mother.

Delphi and Kavala

We thought you might find this interesting. This sign is on the road coming down the hill to Kavala and it tells the different names Kavala has had over the years. This is where the apostle Paul landed on his way to Phillipi and it was known as Neapolis then.

A look at Kavala as you enter the city from the West. If you look closely at the peninsula at the top of the photo, you will see the hill where the castle is located. The highest little point you can see is the castle tower. In front of the peninsula on the right is a big ferry that has just docked. Ferries run frequently between the mainland and the islands.

The Greeks don't forget their enemies. Turkey invaded Cyprus in the '70's and occupies the northern part of the island. This prominent billboard is on the road going down the hill into Kavala. Of course, someone has added their graffiti, a very common site here in Greece.

Little did we ever think we'd find ourselves in a place with road signs to Constantinople, Turkey! We learned something new about the names--Konstantinoupolis is the Greek name for the city and Istanbul is the Turkish name--not ancient and modern names, as I had thought.

Elder Johnson caught our best sides going down from the castle. You can see the aqueduct at the top of the picture. Notice the stone-paved street, the narrow road and the old houses with the red-tiled roofs.

This is a lovely view of Kavala from the castle. In the foreground is the aqueduct. There was once an aqueduct the Romans built, but this one was built during Byzantine times, so it only dates back to about the time of Christopher Columbus. It is remarkably intact.

This is Elder Johnson with Elder Roderick (left) and Elder Heller (right). This is taken from the castle wall of Kavala. Elder Heller goes home to Germany next Monday. His father is a counselor in the Friberg Temple presidency and they are one of those faithful families who lived behind the Iron Curtain for many years.

We are walking down a street in Kavala. This is the old part of the city that is up on the hill where the old Roman castle is. Can you believe that people drive their cars through these "streets" and park and get around each other? We felt more like we were walking down a sidewalk than a street.

A charming little side street of Arakhova. Notice the stone streets. This little city is known for a special kind of cheese they make as well as wine, embroidery and rugs.

This isn't the greatest picture, but we wanted you to see the Adriatic Sea in the distance. Thessaloniki is on the other side of Greece, of course, where we look out at the Aegean Sea.

A good overview of the most concentrated part of the ruins at Delphi. We are looking down on the stadium and at the steep, rugged valley below. It was a very warm afternoon and we worked up a good sweat climbing around the ruins. There is a nice museum there (air-conditioned) where we spent time after looking at the ruins.

A piece of the water system at Delphi--pretty ingenious. Like so many of the ruins in Greece, there are layers and layers of history. Some settlements here dated back to 1100 B.C., while the famous time of consulting the Oracle was more like 400 A.D.

A picture of the main street of Arakhova. Can you imagine the big tour buses passing each other on this street? Somehow they do it. The restaurant where we ate was just a bit further down. The pickup truck loaded with watermelons, potatoes, etc. is a very frequent site this time of year. You just buy what you want from the back of the truck.

A picture of the most interesting and expensive piece of cheese I've ever eaten--fried cheese in bacon grease topped with half a lemon. It was actually delicious and I'm certain couldn't have had more calories than a Big Mac, fries and a shake!

This is the charming little town (Arakhova) near Delphi. This is where we had lunch with the Taylor's. Our accommodating waiter took the picture for us. To our left was a natural fountain coming out of the wall where the water flowed continuously. When our pitcher was empty, the waiter just held it under the fountain to refill it. It was good and cold.

This is one of the famous mosaics. It is inset in an outdoor archway. It's difficult for you to tell from the picture, but it is made of thousands of pieces of mosaic, each about 1/4 of an inch square. The colors are very vibrant, especially considering that it's about 500 years old.

This is the two of us standing beneath an ancient plane tree that is supported by a huge strap. Behind Barbara is a hollow spot in the tree where it was once hit by lightning. Beyond is the huge valley filled with the almond and olive groves.

On our way to Delphi, the Taylor's took us to see this very beautiful monastery called Osios Loukas, or the monastery of St. Luke Stiris. It is most famous for its beautiful undisturbed mosaics. It sits in a remote area high on a hillside overlooking a valley of almond and olive groves.

July 10, 2009

We went to the city of Edessa last Monday on our preparation day. It has some beautiful waterfalls and gardens and we had a great day. It has stalls of souvenir shops for the tourists and we found it interesting that you could buy shirts for NBA players at a little outdoor market in northern Greece.

I should have posted these pictures in the reverse order and they would have made more sense. This is a view of the largest of the waterfalls from behind it.

This is Sister Johnson in front of the large waterfall. There is a walkway that goes behind it, where the picture above was taken.

This is standing at the top of the waterfall, as it pours over the edge. Edessa is on a hill and the view is looking down to the lush valley below. We understand one reason why it is so lush--we had a tremendous thundershower shortly after we took these pictures that seemed to shake the ground and put down buckets of rain.

We are standing on a walkway looking upstream at the river coming down. It flows under the bridge and over the brink in the picture above. Edessa is about 1 1/2 hours from Thessaloniki.

We wish we could capture the majesty of these awesome old trees. Dennis is standing under a plane tree that is approximately 580 years old. The trunk is mammoth and the canopy must have covered at least an acre. If you had one of these guys in your yard, that's all the shade you'd need.

This is a gypsy family watching the demolition of a building. We wondered why they were watching with so much interest until we saw that each time the scoop shovel moved away the young men on the left would run into the rubble and grab any scrap metal they could carry away.

This isn't uncommon, but we thought it was kind of funny to see the family taking the groceries home on the motorcycle with the toilet tissue securely fastened with a bungie cord. We took it from the car window, so it's a little fuzzy.

This is Mt. Olympus shrouded in clouds. We took an outing to Mt. Olympus last month and this is taken from the end of the road in a little town called Litochoro. Litochoro is the point from which most hikers depart who climb the mountain. The literature we have read says it isn't a strenuous climb, but rather, a long one and you must make reservations in advance to stay in little huts along the way because it takes two days.

This is the town center of Litochoro, with the Greek Orthodox church and bell tower taking their prominent place. Litochoro was pleasantly cool the day we were there and had a nice alpine-y kind of feel to it--kind of like leaving the valley and going up to Park City in the summer. You can see the Aegean Sea from Mt. Olympus. Mt. Olympus is an impressive mountain by any standard and one of the highest in Europe.

We took a district trip on the bus to Halkidiki. We walked along the seashore and came back on top of the cliffs along the sea. We met this herd of sheep and goats and Elder Meister sat astride this one for a photo op.

Sister Campbell, our hometown girl (So. Jordan) getting as close to the water as missionaries are allowed. This is the Aegean Sea at Halkidiki.

Elder Johnson enjoying our outing to Halkidiki. Please don't send us e-mails telling us that we are having way too much fun. We thought you would enjoy these pictures more than ones of us doing reports and cleaning the church and trying to figure out what to do to be missionaries.