Paris - Sunday

We were headed out to church in Paris, Eric with his triple combination in hand, the kids in their church clothes.

Tom’s shirt hanging out of his pants, a tie just a little off centre of his neck, the girls with their hair combed and me, even with a skirt on.

“Did you bring that skirt for church?”, asked Catherine.

“You gave me a hint that we might be going to church," I replied. "I do go to the opera in it as well,” I laughed.

Walking down the streets of Paris at 9 am Sunday morning is a solitary experience. No one else is on the sidewalks, but a couple of women who seemed to want to talk, but we hurried on by them, worrying about beggars.

The younger woman persisted in making contact. “Are you Mormons? If so, go no further. There is a sign on the church door. Regional conference is being held somewhere else today. I didn’t know if you were Mormons, but not many other people are out on the streets this morning dressed as you ... and then I noticed that the man with you was carrying scriptures.”

I wondered if they had watched Catie. She had on Catherine's new scarf. It was tied around her waist, then twisted around her neck, theand n thrown over one shoulder. Next, she had it twisted under her arms and around her neck and tied in a lovely bow, and finally it was swinging in the wind, gracefully hanging from her wrist.

"She is often wearing scarves," said Catherine.


On the next block a man interrupted us. “Excuse me,” he said. “Are you Mormons? The church ahead is closed, but I know the way to a place where another meetinging is held.”

Onto the tube we followed Kola, a new Nigerian member of the church. To our group we added another lost church – members from Salt Lake City they said.

Kola was surprised to find the doors of the next church building shut. No meetng there either. Catherine and Eric's train tickets were to be used in a couple of hours and there was no time to search out another service.

We returned home for a short sacrament meeting of our own – a song, the sacrament, a few shared words and our service ended. Oh, Tom wanted to make sure that his dad had said the prayers on the sacrament correctly and asked if Eric had read them or just said them.

Eric passed the test assuring Tom he had read the prayers.

The hardest part of having a sacrament meeting in a small room in Paris, using a French baguette for the bread, is that the outer crust of a piece of torn bread takes a long time to chew and that slows the service down. I thought about the bread and the many forms of it that have passed by me – deeply molasses-flavoured dark brown whole wheat bread in Salmon Arm, my own home-made white Hutterite sized loaves that I sent to our ward meetings one day, and now the use of French baguettes.

“Do you think the kind of bread matters?”, I asked Eric.

“Only in that it doesn’t distract from the purpose of the service,” he answered.

The Jarvis Family headed for northern Europe. Wyona, Greg and I headed to church again, Sacre Coeur, the first time Greg has ever been there when a service was going on.

I can’t imagine a Mormon service where visitors walk the perimeter of the church and while the worship service goes on in the centre of the church.

The organ played in full majesty. The voice of the soloist echoed through the vaulted ceiling. The arch bishop’s hand was raised to bless a small child who was staring over a velvet rope, partitioning the travellers from the worshipers. Lovely sights and sounds.

Lovely services for me – Sunday morning and Sunday afternoon.

Arta