First Sunday

Today we set out to find our church building in Nice. We had to wake up the girls early to leave the house at 7:15AM. We walked 30 minutes to the train station, took a 40 minute train ride, and then a 10 minute taxi ride (to avoid figuring out the tram and bus ride on our first Sunday morning). The first family we met had three little girls just older than ours, and the parents were both missionaries in America so spoke English. This was hopeful! It is so nice to have instant family; a group of people who care about us, are offering their phone numbers if we need help with anything, and have the names of our girls memorized. The primary has about 12 kids. I went with Adele to her class and her cute teacher had Adele who doesn't speak French, an Australian little girl whose French is pretty good, and two Italian girls, only one who speaks French. Tennie jumped in and read two scriptures in French in her class, and Ceci ventured to class on her own. The ward (congregation) was half French and Italian with a few other nationalities mixed in, a fun mix of people. My brain hurt after trying to listen for familiar words for three hours, and the girls were tired, hungry and bored, begging to go home by the end. I spent a good hour last night preparing breakfast and lunch for today, and it didn't last (somehow it never does), and water didn't keep up with our overheated bodies. A very nice fellow sister saw us at the bus stop trying to interpret the schedule and route and offered to take us to the train station (bless her soul through all eternity!) We had to wait in sweaty line for about 45 minutes to buy a return ticket, everyone had to hold their bladders as we barely made the train, we rode on a crowded, older train, and walked slowly home, uphill and dehydrated.

Geoff, Tennie and Adele on the walk home from the train station

Eight hours and 50 euro later we got home. This is some serious dedication to Sunday worship! We're brainstorming how to make it work more easily next week...

Darcie