Little deer graze in the field in front of our apartment
(click on the picture to enlarge it)
FHE was celestial (or terrestrial or telestial): Monday’s family home evening for the Spanish folks was terrific, with about 45 people in attendance, 12 of whom were not members of the church. The elders had prepared a little game in which the people were divided into groups of 6-8 to accomplish some task or play a game (our group was to play UNO). Each individual was given a little packet of folded paper with various colored squares of paper inside. After about 10 minutes, the elders came around and asked us to “pay” for our participation by giving back all but three of the little colored squares. They then had us all line up and they looked at the colors of paper we had retained before they directed us into one of three rooms (all of the children went into the library). One room was dimly lighted; one was normal, and the library was brightly lit. Then the elders and the sisters taught the groups in each room a brief lesson about the plan of salvation and the 3 degrees of glory, whose brightness corresponded to scriptural references (1 Corinthians 15 and D&C 76), and they explained that the choices we make in this life (the colors of paper we keep back) determine where we go afterwards. Br Gillet, the Rive Gauche Ward Mission Leader, then showed a narrated slide presentation to the reassembled crowd that told about the choices we had made in our pre-mortal existence. Afterwards, the refreshments turned out almost to be a banquet, and people stayed to visit until past 9 pm.
Take a card, but not just any card: Tuesday, we went to the mission home to have the elders make us labels to paste onto the back of pass-along cards in Spanish to distribute to those who attend family home evening so that they will have a direct invitation to come to church services. (Each label has the address of the church, the bus to take to get there, the Sunday meeting times, and a line where the upcoming activity can be entered before the card is given.) The thought is that if they have something in their pocket when they get back home at night, they will remember the invitation much better than if they simply hear it offered during the meeting.
Johanny and Sergio Bustamante await our Peruvian dinner
Peruvian dinners are great, but we appreciate friends even more: The best part of Wednesday was our dinner with the Bustamante family. For a year or more, they’d been crammed into a single room (about 10x15 feet) that was part of someone else’s apartment, and they’d then had to share the small bathroom with their “landlord’s” family. And during the summer months, it was not just the 5 of them, but also the three Montoya sisters of Nely and Rosa. Now they have a much more spacious apartment of their own. Sis B had prepared a Peruvian dinner that consisted of a “Russian” salad (with finely diced beets, carrots, and apple, over a bed of lettuce) and an Arroz tapavo (Basmati rice in a bowl – about half way up, then a layer of chopped chicken and hamburger, onions, raisins, olives, and hard-boiled egg; then another layer of rice, after which the bowl was inverted and removed so we had a cute little mountain on our plates). Dessert was canned fruit cocktail. But the best part was the love and warm hospitality they showed us. We told them that we will do everything in our power to go with them to the temple when they are sealed as a family this September (a year after Nely and Rosa’s baptism.
I drove while Sister Hinman fed us warm lasagna: While our 3 young adults and the two elders in Yverdon enjoyed the lasagna Dede had prepared Thursday morning, we took our plates (plus a plate for Anthony) and headed up into the mountains. This was important, since Anthony had agreed to teach the lesson that evening. He did a good job, and then we took him home afterwards. When we got home shortly before midnight, we’d put more than 300 km on the car (nearly 200 miles) for the day.
One young adult couple; two wedding celebrations (or 3?): Friday, we drove to Neuchâtel’s chapel for the marriage celebration of Jeff (Jean-François) Bise and Aude (Guillet). Because Swiss law requires a marriage at the mayor’s office before a temple sealing, they were married legally this morning and will go to the temple tomorrow. The chapel was packed with friends of the couple. Sadly, Aude’s parents were quite unhappy with her getting married (to a Mormon, to a Frenchman, before she finished college, and perhaps for other reasons) and so they boycotted the whole evening. In addition to beautiful music – a quartet with a flute accompaniment, another young couple took turns sharing words of advice from President and Sister McKay and President and Sister Hinckley.
Am I happy or what, Aude asks
As each recommendation was offered, they placed a small gift related to that advice into a large decorated bag which they finally gave the couple, who sat on marked chairs at the front of the chapel. For example, a little Bonsai tree was one gift: it represented the need for daily care and careful treatment, one for the other. Another was a mirror in a wrought-iron frame to represent the need to ask oneself each day: Am I becoming the eternal companion I ought to be. More than once we had tears come to our eyes.
There was a modest buffet afterwards, before most of the guests drove out to a nearby town and its chateau for the reception dinner. The dinner itself took several hours, with activities in between the courses.
In front of the chateau fireplace, Aude & Jeff welcome their guests
Could YOU make a swan using a napkin and a rose?
One activity involved a sort of “musical chairs” where at first a dozen volunteers sat awaiting a command to go get an object such as: a spoon (there were none in the table place settings), a ring, a woman’s shoe with a high heel, something blue, and finally, the groom’s necktie. As they all rushed out among the nearly 80 guests, one chair would be removed, and the last person to return with his or her prize was eliminated.
My shoe disagrees with your shoe
Another activity involved the bride and groom standing on back-to-back chairs with their backs to each other, holding a shoe in each hand, one of their own and one of their partner’s. Then questions were asked, for which they responded by holding aloft the shoe whose owner matched the answer. For example, who talks the most; who spends the most money; who wants to have the most children. – Sometimes they agreed, but sometimes they differed and were surprised at their companion’s answer. When the 4 tier cake was brought out by the serving staff, at a 45 degree angle from the next-to-the top tier there was a pair of 1” diameter tubes about 14” long spouting flames that resembled sparkers.
After the flames died down, this ice cream cake served 80
Each layer of the cake had a pastry bed topped with three different kinds of ice cream in which were embedded chunks of hard meringue and which were topped with chocolate and fresh raspberries and strawberries. The cake’s elegance matched that of the dinner itself (for example, there were rose petals on each plate).
Do you THINK these might be missionaries
at a Saturday exhibit of Rodin sculptures?
No comments:
Post a Comment