"Why Do You Say Good Morning to Me?"

Let me start off with this-- what a flipping week. I guess two, because I wasn't able to write an email last week.

Broke a current mission record last week. "Longest time spent on finding Parking", coming out to 2 consecutive hours. Pretty legendary. I'll tell you, we prayed pretty hard around the 1.5hr mark. We arrived at about 10:30 pm to the apartment hence why I couldn't write my email. I was just surprised at the lack of parking. It was an absolute adventure though, up in Thess, it was really great to see an area I haven't been to before.

Now, I spent way too much time doing other things before writing this email, so I think we're gonna speed-run through things, but still trying to do my usual storytelling mentality. We'll see if this works lol.

First off!! Elder Jenkins went out to do Finding Flow as we usually do sometimes during the week, but it was particularly slow. At that time particularly, people were making extra effort to avoid us. Which is fairly typical and I wasn't feeling particularly keen on the finding flow at the time. However, a two Orthodox Priests came down the walk way. I think the usual response could be, "Darn," or "Oh crap," but I tend to look at the opportunity to greet a priest with high hopes of having a decent conversation or just a response to our 'hello'. However, this priest, one appearing of higher authority than the other, stopped and began to ask me basic questions. With the upmost respect, of course. Elder Jenkins, who had been doing the flow on the other side of the street, quickly runs over, possibly insure my safety.

"Where are you from?" he asks as Elder Jenkins comes up.

"America."

He then switches into English and asks us if we are married and a couple other things.

"What is your name?" Elder Jenkins asks in Greek. "Eugenios, Archbishop of Crete." Then it clicked who we were talking to. So to provide an equivalent comparison, we were talking with basically the ranking of one of the 12 apostles. Maybe just a little lower. Quite a funny experience, two missionaries on Crete running into an Archbishop.

The average person we run into on the street tends to hold some anamosity towards us still, but I've felt a bit of a change locally to our apartment. We got invited to sit with some our neighbors the other night, and they even offered us home made pomegranate juice. That was the best pomegranate juice I have ever had, and it didn't even make me sick, despite what most juices do to me. I really feel that we are beginning to be part of the local community here.

However, I will say, that is not without our usual interactions. One stood out in particular this last week. We were walking to a friends' home, and we were saying our usual, "Kalimera" to everyone we could. We pass an middle-aged lady, and she stops as we say kalimera to her.

"Why do you say good morning to me?" she says forcably.

"I don't know. Just good morning?" Elder Jenkins says.

"Do you even say good morning to God?" she continues to say things I couldn't even understand, "You, Jehovahs Witnesses."

"Mam'm, we are not Jehovahs Witnesses. We are of the Church of Jesus Christ."

"Heresy anyways," as she left.

I think it was because we were going to have conference soon, because we continued on our way, and found out both of our friends decided they don't want to meet with us because, "We have spoken with our neighbors, and we realized, we can't change our religion, and there is no point in meeting anymore."

But it's weird to say this after that, but, it's okay. Agency is and always will be a good thing.

General Conference was really awesome this week. We watched the first session on our own at the apartment, then a session in the hotel where we tend to hold sacrament. Later that day, we travelled to Chania, for three hours, to watch the next session with the member family here on Crete. It was wonderful! It was the most amount of members (because they had family over) that Elder Jenkins and I had seen in a while. It was really cool to watch conference all together. Their kids are funny, and I think it was the first time I have gotten along with children as well as I did. Something about that "Crete Vibe" I guess haha.

I must interject, the bus ride from Iraklio to Chania is one of the most beautiful trips you can take on a bus. Often times, I would find myself stuck just staring at the scenery. Never in my life have I seen such tall mountains right next to the sea. There were many moments where I literally didn't know places that looked like that existed. Mountains kissing the clouds and yet, before you realize, you're passing by that very said mountain. I was saving many places to my Google Maps collections for later exploration. I will be honest, this week has been particularly difficult in the sense of the work. However, getting to pass through such beautiful towns and wilderness was a way God has blessed my companion and I. It was wonderful.

The place we stayed as is a place I would recommend if you ever need a good priced place to stay when you're in Crete. It's about a 10 to 15 minute drive from Chania, and it is quite cosy. FYI, we stayed at an Airbnb after the conference session because it was a little too later after the second session to try to take a bus back to Iraklio.

We arrived at about 9:15, and couldn't find the tenant. In fact, we couldn't even find where a tenant would be. Elder Jenkins called the number on the sign, and we hear from behind us and at a house near us with the door wide open,

"Hello my friends!!" in very good English.

"Yeia sas!" We shout back (sorry fellow missionaries, I can't turn on my Greek keyboard for some reason! Greeklish it is!)

She quickly realizes we can understand and speak Greek pretty well, so she invites us into her home to have a meal with her and her family. Unfortunately because of the lateness of the hour, we had to excuse ourselves, but not without much thanks and long explanations of, "Thank you so much for offering us beer and ouzo, even for our apartment, but we can't drink it."

She was surprised to learn we were volunteers and representatives of our church, but still treated us with kindness. It was good experience. ALSO TO EXPLAIN THE PICTURES, NO, WE DID NOT GO SWIMMING, but we did find out our room came with a private pool for guests. Awesome place to call home from, though. Pretty funny, since we invited the family here in Chania to, "Swim at the missionaries pool" the following morning if they so desired. They never did, but they definitely considered it!

Chania is a special city. There are more tourists than I've seen in such a small area in a long time, but it was still very pretty. Again, I will say though, I would love to get off the bus somewhere and just explore the areas no one would dare, unless having been serving as a minority group of a religionist that no one knows about and trying to learn Greek.

Though, one blessing of eating in the tourist district-- many places offered a selection of gluten free options! So not only could Elder Jenkins eat something there, he could make a selection! It was pretty neat. I had some of the best Mousakas I've had on my mission (Elder Jenkins' came as a close second, but maybe wins because his didn't have gluten).

Again, despite this being a more difficult week in the work, I really have felt close to this land. Crete, and Greece are special places. Sometimes, us missionaries have to remind ourselves that. The people here deserve the gospel just as much as anyone else. They deserve our best efforts.

Well, it's time for bed. I've enjoyed writing emails and hearing of other's stories. Will say, I intend to take more time writing my emails in the following P-days, since I have felt a difference. Emails, for me, are a way to decompress everything.

Much like how Sundays are a time of rest for Missionaries and Members. I honestly don't know what I would have done without Sunday and P-day this week. There is a reason the lord commands a day of rest and holy worship to Him.

I wish you all very well. I hope the weather is staying pleasant wherever you may be. The weather is getting just about perfect here, it very pleasant for good portions of the day now.

Love ya!

Elder Dylan John Hansen