Le Dimanche

6 mai


Emily and I have got our metro routine down.  We know what time to go get on the train, we know which staircases are faster than the escalators, and which metro exits to take to get to school/church in less than 30 minutes.  No more getting lost! 


Church was wonderful again today.  My favorite part was the hymns again.  I enjoy interacting and listening to people in the ward.  It was fast and testimony meeting today.  I kind of expected it to be some miraculous, new thing...but it was like it is in the United States.  Simple testimonies of the hand of God in one's life.  Inspiring testimonies of devotion and faith.  God is the same everywhere and loves so many people.  His influence is so far reaching.  


I feel like I am understanding more and more everyday, but it is so easy to space out in church as it still takes lots of active brain power to comprehend and translate everything which is difficult when I am tired. 


The missionaries the day before had invited the BYU students to go to a baptism after church on Sunday.  About 8 of us went over to another church building in Paris where there is a font for the baptism.  The man getting baptized was part of the Senegalese ward.  Again, it was cool that things were so similar to the proceedings that I am used to in America.  Afterwards, the ward members had prepared a Senegalese feast!


After the baptism, I went with a few other people in our group to a free organ concert that was being held in a church by the Louvre.  It was in a beautiful catholic cathedral with a gorgeous organ.  Nothing beats the acoustics in a cathedral and nothing beats a pipe organ.  The organ concert was played all by one lady.  She was incredible and played Bach and Beethoven among other things.  The best part of the whole day was after the concert when we snuck up the stairs to look at the marvelous organ.  My friend Char also plays organ and so she was freaking out with me as we freaked out over the awesomeness of it.  I love how the organs in these old churches are built right into the church.    








4 keyboards! The stops were all colorful and ornate...the only thing is I could not figure out if there were any preset combination stops which made me so confused because there is no way she could have changed registrations so quickly in her songs without them.  Hmm, I'll have to research up on these old pipe organs to figure out how they do it.








I was in awe as you can see :)





The view from the organ balcony





Looking up at the pipes





Then Char realized that there was no one up there with us so we started snooping around.  I found some cabinets on the back of the organ and so of course I had to open them up and we found all the interior pipes! Rows and rows of them. 





And all these things that I don't know what they're called but they were cool.





Then oh man, we found the bellows.  Sooo cool.





Then we got really snoopy and found some rooms on the sides of the organ and so of course we went in and found even more huge bellows contraptions.  This one was cool because you can see the foot pedals there on the left for when they used to be manually operated.  


Great day in Paris!