This was our one picture for the week, with a comment...
"This is a picture from McDonald's, it says McSarakosti, which means McLent. Lots of Orthodox people don't eat meat as part of the Lent fast so they have special "fasting menus" in most of the restaurants! I thought this was funny, so I took a picture!"
One of the joys of learning Greek, is that in the written form there are two versions.
The word Lent, using the Greek Alphabet is Σαρακοστή and using the Latin alphabet is Sarakosti
The use of Latin Characters for writing Greek, know as Greeklish, has been around for a long time particularly when other nations and faiths were predominant in Greece. But in modern times Greeklish has come into its own, because many computers and smartphones do't have Greek character sets. Greeklish has become an informal, quick and easy modern communication method.
Week 88 emails
"I'm great! The weather is so nice today, it's bright and sunny!
It's been such a busy week! The time has flown by because we have so much to do, and we were only in the office for one day as well! We have lots of new friends that we're working with at the moment so we have a lot to do, and it's great. This week on Thursday and Friday we'll be going to Cyprus for training, and we're looking forward to that too.
I've not seen any of General conference yet, we'll be watching it throughout the month of April, as each Sunday we'll have the sacrament and then a session of conference. So we'll get to see all of it eventually!
The pictures from the wedding are so nice! Having all of them makes the day last forever!
We had a couple of really good lessons this week which were probably the highlight, and the whole day on Saturday was really good as we were going from appointment to appointment literally all day, it was amazing! We played football with A.s' grandchildren which was fun as well!
We have 3 or 4 new friends that we're working with at the moment and it's great to be teaching almost every day. Elder Mead and I are doing great together and are getting along really well too!
We told President that it was one thing when he had two Englishmen for assistants, but now he has two Northerners!
And I'm sure we'll love it in Cyprus as usual! I'm so grateful that the airport is in Larnaca because we get to see all of my friends there every time we go!
The Greeks have not yet celebrated Easter, For them it is 1st May, hence they are still selling McSarakosti's ! "Many Orthodox churches base their Easter date on the Julian calendar, which often differs from the Gregorian calendar that is used by many western countries. Therefore the Orthodox Easter period often occurs later than the Easter period that falls around the time of the March equinox." source
This is a picture of Elder Mead. Elder Teal and Elder Donker from way back in week 50
