Isabel, Mari, and Cheryl
The feast after the baptism
27 sepbembre 2009 (Day 27)
Today was a wonderfully long day at church. I met some of the members on the tram as usual. Luckily it wasn’t as cold this morning. I found out they don’t have Jell-o here (they ask for someone to send me some from the states) and they want to know how to make “koo-kies.” A member that I take the tram with also told me that I could call the states anytime I wanted from his parents’ house for free. It was so nice of him to offer! The lessons at church today were very good. I love how they are always just what you need. I’m getting really excited about receiving my stipend so I can spend money, so naturally we had went over the talk on provident living, and my Sunday school class on prophets answered a question that I had. The subjects of the talks in sacrament meeting varied from things like feeling the spirit, obeying leaders, and finding people to paying attention to inspiration and finding those in the church who need to be saved as well.
After church I helped to prepare for the baptism of Yves Allain, a cute old man. The talks and such were interesting, but overall it was a good meeting. There was a great film they showed about Wilford Woodruff and his conversion. One of the best parts of the day was the food and party afterwards! Beforehand Cheryl, a girl from England, and I helped this cute old woman cut all the cakes and breads. Therefore I got to nibble a little of everything without having to take huge slices. There were things from crepes and tarts to hot dog cakes and cookies. We all stuck around after the baptism to talk and ate until there were only crumbs!
Choir in Nantes is quite the adventure. The “chef” or instructor of the choir is very serious (we had a chit chat about how if I am singing in the choir I need to take it seriously and have to come every week). The librarian is also very serious. They won’t let me get a subscription to the LDS church magazines since I won’t be here for a full year (we’ll see about that one :]) so they said I can check them out at the library. This required even more then checking out a book in a public library! I might just read it online. Now back to the choir, they are also planning on making matching dresses (I’m telling you, they think they are a mini-MoTab or something!). This was causing quite the controversy because the youth liked one style of dress and the men liked another, some women thought one dress would be bad for those who are larger, and the color was a whole other story. We went over the different parts of songs. I went off with the altos and had to use my piano skills (thanks mom for what skills I do have!). I need to practice playing if this is going to be a frequent occurrence. Many people here don’t play the piano though, so it is up to people like the Elders to play most often.
There is one Elder who plays particularly well. I stayed after choir for a while and chatted with two of the Elders. We talked about slurpees and ice cream, studying abroad, and church. I’m going to take them out to get ice cream or slurpees once my bourse comes in. They convinced me to invite a friend to the Relief Society broadcast next week. I am actually really excited about it. I caught the missionary fire today in a much larger degree than before. All the way home I was plotting different people I could invite to different church activities and my approach to invite them. I don’t know if it is because the baptism made me so happy or all the talks I’ve heard lately about missionary work, or that Isabel bringing her co-worker to the Relief Society barbecue gave me courage, but I am rip-roaring ready to go! I love the atmosphere of the Mormons in Utah, but I also love being able to add to and strengthen the church elsewhere, whether it be by getting pass along cards from the missionaries, or plunking out songs on the piano with only fingers. I ended up getting home from church around 5:30pm, so I put in a full work day.
It was another nice warm day here. Some of the leaves are starting to slowly change to yellows and reds. It sounds like General Conference will be quite the adventure here.
This is what the schedule looks like:
Saturday
4pm: Relief Society
6pm: Saturday Morning live
Sunday
11am: Priesthood
2pm: Saturday Afternoon
6pm: Sunday Morning live
10pm: Sunday Afternoon live (although most go home and watch this session the following week)
