I must write down my thoughts about church in Peru, because I think I’m becoming accustomed to the bizarity of it all and I don’t want to forget some of the things that blew my mind when I first got here.
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| We see some pretty crazy things... |
1. The music cracks me up seriously every time we sing. I’ve been singing these songs my whole life and can read music pretty decently. Thus I know how the tunes should be sung and I know that they aren’t sung the way that we sing them in America. It’s usually the last measure of a song that gets twisted and conformed into something completely different than what is written on the page. It’s hard to follow sometimes, but I’ve come to love it.
2. On that same note, (haha good pun, no?) we don’t have a piano in our building, thus the key and octave of the song are begun in whatever key that the chorister would like. Then, if somebody with a loud, booming singing voice doesn’t like that key, they can simply change the octave/key simply by overpowering the rest of us with their voice and then we get the hint and follow suit with the new key being sung. It cracks me up everytime.
3. I can’t remember if we do the following in the states or not, so somebody help me out. After the sacrament prayers, we all say amen after the prayers are read. It makes sense that we would say amen, but for some reason, Abby and I keep thinking that we don’t say amen in the states.
4. Our ward is actually pretty good at starting on time, Ricardo is trying to whip them into shape on that, but it would not be unusual for us to start 15 or so minutes late. Also, on our first Sunday here, we got out of Relief Society twenty minutes early! We thought that that was going to become routine. False! We get out at least twenty minutes late everytime and then by the time we’ve thanked and kissed and pretended to understand every single woman in the room, we usually don’t head home til about 45 minutes after the hour. But it’s nice.
5. The kissing. Our first Sunday here blew us out of the water on this topic. We got to church on time, but it didn’t start for maybe 10-15 minutes. In that time, every single person who walked through those chapel doors greeted us with a hug and a kiss (or a hand shake if they were a loyal married man). Apparently the rule is that when you come to church you go and kiss everyone already there and then sit and wait for those who come after you to kiss you. It was just crazy to us the first time because we had no idea who these people were and they were welcoming us with open arms!
6. I can understand when Gringos speak Spanish perfectly. I can understand Miguel’s Spanish pretty well too. But when just about anybody else gets up at that pulpit and starts speaking at a million miles an hour, you’ve just got to rely on the spirit to give you some sort of spiritual lesson for that day because you don’t have any idea what they’re saying.
7. We have trained ourselves to listen for words like, “Gringas, pelo rubio, altas, Estados Unidos” to know when we are being talked about. Usually one of those words is followed by an outroar of laughter from the congregation and we know it’s about us, but we have no idea what was said so we just laugh along and make a note of it to ask somebody about it later.
8. Sunday School is awesome because Miguel is our teacher and it’s the BOM. Thus we know the stories already and we can follow along in both our BOM’s and LDM’s. And Miguel makes us read and pray in there in Spanish all the time, so it’s good for us.
9. This is sad, but we dread Relief Society. It’s not our favorite one bit. Mostly because we have no idea what is going on and on some days (like today) we don’t even have a lesson, we just discuss (and when I say discuss, I mean argue) about upcoming business…such as the upcoming Relief Society Anniversary Activity. The ladies had a hay day arguing about who should prepare the meal and which was the best way to cook potatoes. They all had their own opinions on how the food should be cooked, but nobody seemed to have the time to volunteer to cook it. So Brittany and I volunteered to do so and everyone laughed at us…. But they couldn’t argue with us because they had all said they didn’t have time (and we wouldn’t have understood them if they had tried to argue with us) so the three gringas are going to prepare the meal for the activity. Stay tuned :)
10. Boys are so cute when they are dressed up in white shirts and ties….but I guess I’ve always known that :)
Also, speaking of church, I'm speaking in it this weekend, along with doing the musical number....ahhhh!
If I may express a personal opinion I must say that now you have experienced first hand how is it that the church is still "en pañales" (young) in many areas outside of the US. There are many places with similar characteristics here in Mexico. It's not that the people are bad, it's just that they need guidance and knowledge.
ReplyDeleteMy point is that sometimes people (like you and me, etc)who have more experience and knows how the church works and it's supposed to work should be more than willing to help others. I believe that sometimes we want to stay in our comfort zone because we are just fine with a "small" calling. But there are other places where we could be very useful in helping others to learn more about the church and how it works.
Sorry for all this jibby-jabba but I think we sometimes can be selfish in keeping ourselves comfortable rather than helping others. I thought I'd share that.