Cyprus Kiddles

  An Area Tour is basically a conference attended by a member of the Church's Area Presidency with the local church members and for missionaries serving in the area.  The missionaries in the Bulgaria Greece Mission from Greece and Cyprus attended the conference.  At the suggestion of our mission leaders we took the opportunity to travel to Athens a day before our Area Tour/Zone Conference meetings last week.  Our direct flight from Larnaca to Athens took less than 2 hours and our travels went smoothly.  We arrived in Athens at almost the exact same time as President and Sister Nelson arrived from Sofia.  We met them at the baggage claim and they set us up with a 3-day Metro pass and traveled with us to find our hotel in the center of town.  Their hotel was in the same part of town.  Athens made for a very enjoyable Valentines day.  The Nelson's found us a lovely little hotel in the center of the city with a great view of the Acropolis.  Off-season rates for our room were very r

  Our BIG news this week was that we successfully acquired the necessary temporary resident permit on Friday after months of extensive and expensive preparation which began prior to our arrival and continued at length after our arrival here.   It was an unbelievable and pretty frustrating experience to comply with the many requirements to become legal here beyond the 90 days permitted with our passports.   The banking was probably the worst aspect of it all.   Without going into great detail, suffice it to say we would not choose to do any future banking with the Bank of Cyprus which necessitated four different visits totaling approximately 10 hours of time!   But it is done and we can remain here for one year from December 12, 2023.   Our return is uncertain but for now we are legal. Our blog today is a compilation of random photos consisting of botanical and culinary photos we’ve taken thus far.   And considering it is “winter” here the botanical ones are mostly of interesting plan