It's the yellow German book!
Saturday, 14 January 2006 14:38![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pneJust came back from Bremen from a training session for elders quorum presidencies and high priest group leaders; Martin Fiedler was so kind to drop me off at home.
We talked a bit about Greek and Greece, since he had also spent his mission there, and he said that he was also not particularly enamoured about the grammar books he had in the MTC. He asked his parents to send him a Greek grammar in German and got sent Langenscheidts Praktisches Lehrbuch, Neugriechisch—a book I had also bought before going to Greece and which I also liked a lot. I really liked the way it presented the language, and though I didn't actually learn (in the sense of committing to memory) a lot from it before I went to the MTC, it had already prepared me for learning the language.
The funny thing was, back then the missionaries got their mail once a week at church (since all the missionaries in Athens went to the same ward back then), and when an American missionary saw Elder Fiedler unwrap the parcel, he was all in awe and said, "You've got the yellow German book! Everyone who has this book speaks Greek really well!"
I didn't know others knew about it, let alone that it had that much of a reputation! I liked it, but tastes differ—but apparently that book is "the breakfast of champions" as far as learning materials go. Makes me double glad I got it back then!
(Incidentally, I also recommended it on my list of books to get if you're called to Greece on a mission, one of the pages I made for prospective missionaries shortly after my mission, and which I haven't updated since about 1998 or so *cough*. I also see that I got the ISBN wrong; will have to try to change that.... done.)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Kavala
Date: Tuesday, 17 January 2006 05:19 (UTC)I don't know whether it had a name :)
Close to a church and the er... φάρος. I don't remember the word in English.
Lighthouse?
I think to get to it, you had to walk past a schoolyard. I don't remember a church.
We went there by walking past the house of a friend of the church, who lived on οδ. Μέχμετ Αλί IIRC, on a hill. (He wasn't interested in joining the church but was very friendly to the missionaries and would sometimes give out recommendations to them to visit this or that friend of his.)
...Ah, judging by http://www.detakav.gr/htms/english/oldcityen.htm it could well be Παναγία.