Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Church

It is Tuesday and, just like last week, everyone else is at class and I am back in the flat doing work for my online classes amongst other things. I have been here for a little over a week but it seems like longer. I have finally figured out the trams and the metro system. I am definitely not used to public transportation and I kind of miss having my own car. However, I do not envy driving here. I can find no method to the madness of these roads.
I had a really good weekend. I was able to find my church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and attend this Sunday. It takes me about 30 minutes to get there and I have to take the tram and the metro. Luckily for me the ward is both French and English-speaking. They had separate Sunday school classes for English and French-speakers. For the main meeting they had these little headphones that would translate anything said in English into French and anything said in French into English. It was pretty cool. We also sing hymns in my church. Back home I would have a hard enough time not getting distracted from the melody as my mom would sing the harmony beside me but now that we have people singing in two different languages and all different ranges, it is a whole new ball game. It's really cool to have both languages there though.
One of the things I found most interesting was how the people acted. I walked into church with a pair of missionaries who spoke English so I had no idea what to expect form the ward members. I was surprised when the Belgian members, even though they had never seen me in their life, came up to me, touched their right cheek to my right cheek, and kissed the air, greeting me with a, "Bonjour!" They also did this as we left, saying, "Au revoir!" Even though I was a little apprehensive at first, I thought that it was a very friendly gesture.

1 comment:

  1. Ah, an interesting observation of how a supposedly "common" experience (going to church of your denomination) contains some practices unique to the culture! Keep noticing things like these - and keep posting!

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