Starting off with Greece. Greece is a nice suburb of Rochester. Basically built for the good employees of Kodak. Everyone here was raised to believe that you don't need college. Simply graduate and work for Kodak for life. So there are definitely some nice parts of Greece. Because of that, tracting can be harder as people are less humbled. Greece does have it's "ghetto" parts. In my opinion not too bad. But it gets close. There is only like 2 streets we aren't allowed to be on after dark. The "ghetto" is originally really nice. But after the fall of Kodak and the general decrease in the city, the original houses were bought out and renovated into duplexes. I've seen some slightly larger houses turned into 3 - 5 apartments.
Libraries are such a weird concept here. There is such a social aspect to the library, they are generally nice and always crowded. Besides missionaries there are always people on the computers and doing stuff. Granted what you can check out at the library is significantly Better than back home. Their movie selections are huge and very current! So people love libraries.
Our whole area is mostly residential. I'd say it's similar to Riverton. You've got a lot of residential but you have all the main stores (and a mall) to supply all the residents. They also have great highway systems here. Very easy to get around. Which helps without mountains to point you in the right direction.
Our apartment is placed decently. We live on the border of our two areas. Which kind of sucks because central would always be ideal. And it's off to the right end of the area as well. So not completely central. Smaller apartments. They don't really make sense as there is an unneeded closet in the middle that makes a ton of hallways spaces rather than opening it up and making the place seem bigger. But they are nice. It's a nice complex in the middle of the suburb but it's on the corner of two more main roads. Another weird thing is they could save almost $350 or so more money a month if they put us in a 4 person apartment in that complex. We are in the same complex anyway... But for some reason they've been separating all the 4 person apartments over the last year or so. There are none left.
The church is about 4 miles round trip from our apartment complex. Also nice, especially since we end up stopping by there often. Sadly the closest library is really small and full of rude librarians. The nice on is farther away. The church is a 2nd phase church. Definitely started as a branch building and got another part built on it. I'm tempted to take some clippers there as the bush got way out of hand and covers up most of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Visitors Welcome sign. Mainly just says Church of Jesus Christ. And I think I'm going to start bugging the ward to put up a vinyl window sign saying "Sunday Services: 9:30am" so that when people come by they know. (It happens!)
Greece is really good about feeding the missionaries. Not the ideal because it's the same families that take constantly good care of us. It'd be nice if every family would so that we could get to know them all. But we do get fed quite well. Plus, there is a 5 Guys in the area that is owned by a member in the Pittsford ward. So we can go over there about once a week for a free dinner. Which is sweet! The ward is an older ward. It has some of the younger people but for the most part it's older. The main people in the ward that every missionary loves is the Trimm's. They are awesome! Sister Trimm is Mexican and hilarious. They are all converts from about 4 years ago. They take good care of us. She just loves missionaries and is really straight forward. She definitely doesn't fit the Mormon stereotype which is great! Another cool family is the Swartwood's. Brother Swartwood's is in a wheelchair so we help him out regularly with small service things. His wife is from.... Portugal.... Something like that! She has a thick accent. They are quite entertaining as well.
Then there is also Michael our ward mission leader. He's a character. Baptized a year ago. He just called the church and said "hey, I want to be baptized. Send the missionaries over." He basically had a crazy life and has done every drug known to man. But he cleaned up and is way into philosophy. Which is where he found our religion and, of course, was "oh hey, this is true." He has 3 cats (which isn't extreme for NY), loves burning incense, and is a master in forms of that energy stuff. Like where you flow your energy and concentrate on your energy. Or something like that. He's a character.
It's pretty green here. It's cloudy a lot. That "Rochester Grey" crayon is right on.
Did I mention that all of NY cats have an extra toe on their paws? Yep. Mutant cats. And they are everywhere.
Squirrels are everywhere. It's weird. I'm used to having to go up to the mountains to see wild life. They are in the middle of the cities around here. There are just little groups of trees where deers, squirrels, foxes, wild life of every kind. Pretty sweet. Lots of road kills.
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