The church building didn't look any different from all of the other tall buildings lined side-by-side on the street. We walked through a gate and into a cobbled courtyard with a plaque by the door as the church's only identifying feature: l'église de jésus-christ des saints des derniers jours. It's even more of a mouthful in French than it is in English! After hanging our coats on hooks in the entryway, we followed piano music into the meeting room. It was all white: white ceiling, white tile floors, white walls, with red chairs set up in rows. At the front of the room there was a piano, a podium, and the sacrament table. It was all so unadorned and simple, but it still felt exactly like church. Members of the congregation were talking and greeting each other enthusiastically, their voices slightly amplified by the hard floor. Piano prelude music floated through the chatter. Everyone seemed so glad to be there. It felt good. A couple of kind people introduced themselves to us and a surprising number of them spoke English.
The entrance to the church building in its cobbled courtyard.
The bishop was an expat with an excellent American accent mixed in with his French. I listened to him conduct the meeting in fascination. He clearly had complete command of the French language, except the pesky guttural "re" foiled him every time. Listening to him simultaneously inspired hope and despair: hope that I would someday be able to understand and communicate well in French even if I never mastered the tougher sounds, and despair that I may never be able to speak beautiful French. Hah!
The speakers were absolutely fascinating. A teenage boy gave a short talk about missionary work. He started out with the first two or three sentences in French, then switched to English (clearly his native tongue). A girl stood next to him at the podium, translating each sentence he spoke into French. The back-and-forth was mesmerizing. The girl was rather impressive. After the first talk was over, she went back to her seat up front and translated the next talk from French to English for the English speakers wearing headsets, speaking quietly into a microphone.
The second talk was given by a woman who was a native French speaker. She spoke so beautifully and clearly that even I understood most of what she said! I felt pretty amazing for following along so well, and I even was able to go beyond simple word-to-word understanding to feeling the meaning of her message. She talked about choices and the importance of holding on to the word of God. She told the funniest story about a misbehaving dog and how every time she got mad at the dog and tried to force it to obey, it didn't listen, but when she was kind and showed love to the dog, it listened to her. I thought that was a very profound parable of God's love and how he wants us to make good choices and listen to his spirit, but he won't ever get mad at us or force us into anything. I wish I could remember more about this wonderful talk, but by the time it was over, my entire brain was focused so much on understanding French that memory was secondary.
We stood and sang a rest hymn, and singing in another language is always so cozy. Singing is a very unifying form of worship, but when I'm at home attending church in my own language, I rarely notice that aspect of hymn-singing. It's easy to feel isolated and self-conscious when you don't speak the language very well. Singing the same words all together helped me feel more a part of the worship service, rather than a slightly flustered confused bystander drowning in French confusion. Music is a universal language that transcends verbs and vocabulary!
There weren't enough hymn books in Relief Society so I took a picture of the song and used that to sing the words.
The third speaker was a British guy who did not speak French at all. This time, the bishop stood next to him at the podium and translated his English into French, sentence by sentence. It was educational hearing real time translation. The last speaker was a French lady and I was so mentally fried by that point that her less-than-clear French almost completely escaped me and I could not stay focused on her words long enough to follow what she was saying. Whew! We sang a closing hymn and shifted to Sunday school. There was an English-speaking Sunday school meeting in another room, but I wanted to be with Jeff and possibly try my hand and more French-learning, so I stayed in the French class. For the record, the ins and outs of the Abrahamic covenant are tricky enough in English, but well-nigh incomprehensible in French. The only person I understood more than a few words from was Jeff, who calmly sat with his legs crossed, raising his hand and making comments like an old hand.
After Sunday school it was time for me to fly solo and go to Relief Society. I couldn't even remember how to say Relief Society in French by that point, so I wandered out of the main meeting room to see what I could see. Thankfully Relief Society was just across the hall and I boldly took a seat in the middle instead of hiding in the very back. A lady from California sat next to me. She was fluent in French, and her husband was a professor teaching a semester in Paris. At the beginning, all of the visitors had to introduce themselves. There were about five or six of us. Some of the visitors spoke in English, others in French. I boldly decided to attempt an introduction in French: "Je m'apelle Shaina White. Je... (I paused, stuck, and the nice California sister helpfully supplied me with vienne) Je vienne des Etats-Unis, de l'etat de Washington. Mon epouse a servit son mision ici et nous visitons [pour la semaine]. My name is Shaina White. I am from the United States, the state of Washington. My husband served his mission here and we are visiting for the week. I clammed up after "nous visitons" and forgot to say how long we were staying. But it was a rush! The nice California lady next to me said "good job!!" when I finished, and I may have glowed with just a hint of pride/relief. It felt excellent.
The Relief Society lesson was done back and forth between French and English. The teacher was a recently returned sister missionary who must've served somewhere English speaking, because she translated herself into English every other sentence. It was amazing! People answered questions and made comments in whatever language they were comfortable in--French or English, and the teacher translated as necessary. It was one of those moments where I could step back and see the beauty of it all: here we were, a hodge-podge of women from all over the world, gathered together to talk about the gospel, and we were all just doing our best. It was far from perfect. The translations were shaky. But I could still feel the sisterhood of the gathering. That's all the God asks from us: do your best. We all did just that, and it was fantastic in all of its imperfections. The lesson was about intégrité (integrity). I almost even joined in and made a comment but I chickened out. To be fair, I usually chicken out at commenting during church lessons even when I'm at home and it's all in English. I did find that being guaranteed a translation every other sentence weakened my need to focus on the French part, so I eased up on the brain strain during Relief Society. All in all, however, I felt pretty good about French when church was over.
After church I told Jeff that I really should be practicing French more often because I'm at the point where I need to actually speak it if I'm going to get any better. We proceeded to have an hour-long conversation in French. My brain was utter mush afterwards from the effort.
Since it was Sunday, we decided not to go to a sit-down restaurant and instead grabbed sandwiches and pastries from a boulangerie on our way back from church. In retrospect, we probably could've bought those items on Saturday and saved them for Sunday, but we didn't think of it, although we did have enough food in our hotel room for all other meals on Sunday. We walked to Le Parc des Buttes-Chaumont to enjoy lunch in the sunshine. One of my favorite French words is the word for picnic: pique-nique, pronounced like peek-neek--isn't it cute?
Since it was Sunday, we decided not to go to a sit-down restaurant and instead grabbed sandwiches and pastries from a boulangerie on our way back from church. In retrospect, we probably could've bought those items on Saturday and saved them for Sunday, but we didn't think of it, although we did have enough food in our hotel room for all other meals on Sunday. We walked to Le Parc des Buttes-Chaumont to enjoy lunch in the sunshine. One of my favorite French words is the word for picnic: pique-nique, pronounced like peek-neek--isn't it cute?
Pique-nique in Paris!
I liked these woodsy steps in the park.
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