Christmas Day!

This morning we woke to the girls telling us Santa had found us! We came out and saw he had used our clean socks to put candy and real kindereggs in, with oranges on top! He also left a note and a gift- an excursion to 3 Greek islands on Tuesday! He said in the note that he loved the islands. SO fun! The kindereggs each had an animal toy and the girls loved playing with those all day today!

We got ready and went to Church. It was a 20 minute drive away. It was really fun to meet several families and missionaries, and the way the lady behind me was using "sister" was so adorable! "Oh no sister, not from here. Ah, yes sister." Too fun! The Branch President spoke (he's American) and it was translated into Greek for those who needed listening devices (4 or 5). We sang the hymns in Greek and English simultaneously. Singing Christmas songs really brought the Spirit.

We came back to the apartment to change clothes and eat lunch. It was such nice weather again today that we ate out on the balcony and enjoyed the view of the Parthenon. So fun! Then we drove to Corinth. On the way, we stopped and dipped our feet/hands into the Mediterranean Sea. The water was cold, but absolutely beautiful. We drove over the Corinth canal and were amazed by how narrow and deep it was! In Corinth, we drove up to the Acrocorinth (the old mountain fortress). It was closed today of course, but we were able to look around and enjoy the breathtaking views. The next rock mountain over was the Penteskoufi Castle. We drove on a rocky dirt

road to get to the base of it (no flat tires, thankfully!). The hike was about 30 minutes and because it was windy and only a couple of us brought jackets, we decided to not hike up to it. We Marco-Polo'd our family from there and then went down to try and see the Peirene Fountain. The fountain was somewhere among quite a large fenced area and it was closed today. But we were able to see the ruins of the Temple of Apollo and that was cool with the backdrop of the Acrocorinth. Across the street there was a children's park and the girls enjoyed that for a bit. Clara even made a Greek friend, Paulina. We chatted with her aunt and cousin over google translate- that was so interesting and fun! Then we were able to video chat with Sister Sarah Major and we all loved seeing her beautiful face and hearing what she was up to! Since the University is closed for Christmas, she and her companion are doing splits with other missionaries for a few weeks. It sounds kind of crazy for them to stay in different areas and have different companions every 3-5 days, but also sounds exciting to

get to meet so many different people.

We came home and had dinner (the girls all loved the very fancy meal of chicken nuggets), called our families, and got the kids in bed. What a beautiful day of celebrating our Savior and being in some of the places His apostles were in. How we love Him and are so very grateful for Him. He lives!!!

Theme for today: I Choose Love.

Things we learned today:
Emma: I liked the park.
Clara: I liked that we got to spend time with each other.
Leesie: I learned that there are a lot of orange trees in Corinth.
Addy: I learned that Sarah's still being a great missionary. Christmas can be fun even without boxes of presents under the Christmas tree.
Kathy: I learned that the sunsets here are gorgeous every day! And the little mailbox looking things on the side of the roads by the coast are shrines. Some have candles, or pictures, etc. Some are quite elaborate and others more simple. Most are shaped like houses/churches.
Peter: I learned how to say Merry Christmas in Greek.

Miracles today:
-We didn't get a flat tire driving over all those rocks out in the middle of nowhere! PHEW!
-We got on a no-toll road on our drive to Corinth and that's how we found a great spot to pull off and enjoy the beach for a few minutes. It was on Peter's bucket list to do here, so that felt like a little miracle just being handed to us today.