Day 14: Church & Chicken with a side of flies

LDS ward house in Grenoble

Sunday, 2 July 2017

I’ve always wanted to attend the LDS church outside of the US. Mainly I wanted to see how much the same and how much different it would be. Anthony came with me to the LDS church in Grenoble.

It was fast Sunday so I explained to him ahead of time what to expect in Sacrament meeting with people bearing their testimonies. We were a little late, so when we walked into the building they were doing a confirmation. We sat down after and then they did a baby blessing. It was pretty packed, and I was surprised. I thought there might be a chance that it was a very small ward, but it seemed almost as big as my ward in Utah. Maybe it makes me emotional to go inside a church, but feeling that reverence and softness as we walked into the building got me all choked up. I think that’s just the spirit testifying that this is God’s church and house (even though on the outside it looks like a strip mall). There was a man outside the sacrament meeting who greeted us and shook our hands, and even ushered us in and helped us find our seats.

We ended up sitting next to another American. He was a missionary in that ward a month ago, and now that his mission is over, he brought his entire family back with him to visit. His family is from Portland and they were really nice. I understood a few phrases from the testimonies but I was amazed that the spirit felt the same there as it does at home, in fact being at church kind of felt like home even though it was in French.

We decided to go to the gospel doctrine class for Sunday school. It was really interesting. A man who I’m guessing might have been a new convert or investigator said that his understanding of the millennium was that Jesus would not set foot on the earth until everyone was resurrected because the earth is not pure enough, and that after a period of 8 years everyone would be resurrected and then Jesus could come literally down onto the earth and the 1,000 years of peace would begin. This was news to everyone, and it was pretty funny because this guy was legit, and the teacher was like, let’s read further into the lesson and stick to the stuff we know for sure.

When we split up for Priesthood and Relief Society I met a sister missionary from Utah sitting behind me. She has only been out for 6 months and she’s really struggling with the language. The ward mission leader came over and said in French for her to give her number to us and for us to stay after because there was going to be a big meal. I don’t think she understood any of what he was saying. She was really nice though, and it was funny when we both didn’t understand what the Relief Society lesson was about. The teacher wrote the word RÉSERVER on the board and neither of us knew what it meant. We did understand they were talking about budgeting, finances, obedience and gardening, but couldn’t figure out what they had to do with each other. At the end we asked a lady who is from Congo who speaks very good French and English, and she said it means food storage. We were both like, oooh, I get it know. Funny how only 1 word held all the meaning for us to be able to understand that lesson.

Anthony said one of the American guys in the ward translated for him at the beginning, and then they got him a headset so he could hear the lesson in English. They also welcomed him as a visitor and asked him to introduce himself, which he did in English, but he said they all said they could understand English, which was totally true. Most if not all of them understood when we used English words for the French words we couldn’t remember or didn’t know. Those guys took care of Anthony and he was telling me the lesson was so good and it was all about not judging others, and also not judging yourself and being hard on yourself and being accepting of people, and he was like, that lesson was so good, I’m so glad I came.

We got lucky this Sunday too because they had a potluck after church and I think we were both hungry so we stayed and talked with a few people. There was this one older lady who lives in Meylan which is near Monbonnot where I live who said she worked for the church translating when she was young and they sent her to Provo for 4 years where she lived and translated, and also got college credit for it. She was really nice, everybody all around was really nice.

I had to catch the bus back to Monbonnot after the meal because it only comes every 4 hours on Sundays, so we parted ways on the way home. It was really nice to have a few hours to take a nap and then I got to talk to Mike and the kids for a long time, which was great because I feel like our conversations are rushed during the week.

Helene and Pierre came home around 7:30 from their choir performance. They said it went really well, and that there were paintings in the cathedral and Helene said she couldn’t stop looking at all the artwork instead of focusing on singing. Pierre showed me a pamphlet for a cathedral in the mountains here which is like part museum part gallery part cathedral because all around the walls are hung religious artwork but it’s not like typical religious artwork, they prefer funky interpretations of bible stories or Christ, so it’s very modern looking paintings.

They had a potluck at their church so they just had salad and dessert with me, but Helene warmed up some chicken they brought home. It smelled really good and she made this couscous for me to go with it. Honestly I’m not a fan of chicken, but maybe because it’s fresher here in France, I haven’t minded eating it, and the chicken Helene made had this great sauce with apricots in it. And then I noticed there was a dead fly on my plate. I kind of gasped a little, and thought maybe it had landed on my plate and then just happened to die while it was there.

Helene took the fly, and then she found another one in the sauce on my plate. My stomach started to churn a bit, and I knew I couldn’t eat another thing on my plate. She started checking the pot where she reheated the chicken for me and found 2 more dead flies in it. Then she checked the pot she had cooked it in, in the oven and there were more dead flies. The lid has a little hole to let steam out and so she thinks the flies got in there during the day through the little hole and died when they couldn’t get out, so we had to throw all that good food away. Fortunately the couscous was separate so she got me a new plate and I ate a bit more couscous and bread instead. It was so disappointing because this was the best meal I’ve had here yet, and I was really happy not to have to eat sardines again.

After dinner they typically watch an hour of TV and they always invite me to watch with them, so we watched this travel show about a region in the south of France. It’s crazy how I don’t understand all the words, and yet I can watch the TV in French and be just as interested in it as if they were speaking English, it doesn’t seem to make any difference. I still understand the overall idea.