French Toast, Missionaries, and More Photos From Heidelberg
Today Michael and I had a nice lazy morning, followed by a very interesting, atypical evening. We woke up to the sound of rain--not ideal on a Sunday, given the distance to our church and our lack of car. (And I have a cold--so this make me a bit grumpy.) We were just about ready to go, lamenting the weather, when I said "If we went to the second service, I could make French Toast and we could have a nice long breakfast..." Michael immediately agreed; after all, we had not even had time for a quick breakfast, and it was really raining.
Trouble is, by the time it came to leave for the second service, the rain was worse. There is a really excellent evening service at one of the state churches downtown. It is quite popular among the students that we know from our church, and Michael and I have occasionally attended as well. So you can all imagine what followed. Actually, we did leave for the second service, but we only got as far as the yard outside of our hinterhaus. There we realized exactly how wet we would get on our 25 minute walk to church, and promptly decided once and for all to go to the evening service. Then we had a lovely morning and afternoon full of reading, guitar playing and Scrabble feuding.
The rain let up, and we were able to remain dry throughout our walk to the local Church of Latter Day Saints center. Yes, that's right, Mormons in Jena. Michael and I have been approached by Mormon missionaries a few times here in Jena, and sometime last week Michael--ever a sucker for curiosity--agreed to meet with a missionary who approached him near the library. Here's how our conversation went:
Me, at home: "Hi Michael"
Michael: "Hi! I met another Mormon missionary today."
Me: "Again? Wow. there are so many of them in Jena!"
Michael: "Yeah, she is going to meet me tomorrow to give me a copy of the book of Mormon.
Me: "Uh...wow"
Michael: "Yeah, so...do you want to come with me on Sunday when I meet with her to discuss it?"
Me: (now laughing, having realized that this is a joke) "Ha, ha, ha"
Michael: "well, you don't have to come..."
Me: "Oh--oh, you're serious?"
So off we went to meet with her and two others this afternoon. It was a fascinating experience, but not one that can be easily summed up here. I spent a few hours researching the church before we went, and we both read some of the book of Mormon--though Michael devoted more time and energy to it than I did :) Suffice it to say that neither of us will be converting any time soon, but it was interesting. I will give one general impression: I had expected the missionaries to have packaged, neat answers to all of our questions. In contrast, I was surprised at how little they had to say about some of what we talked about...and how little they seemed to know about some aspects of their faith. Michael and I were not at all confrontational with them; we said little by way of direct challenge to their beliefs. We did ask questions, perhaps some prodding questions, and I was just surprised by the caliber of the responses. They were very nice, and we may meet with them again (though we declined the chance to just set up a meeting for next week, or to come to the services this week :) Still, I left feeling that the claims I've heard (and read) about secrecy with respect to church doctrines had been confirmed. On the whole it was an odd experience, but one that I am glad to have had.
We went from there to the evening service, which was great as usual. Seeing as we have no photos from today, and we have lots of lovely photos from Heidelberg, I thought I'd throw in a few more pictures from last week.
My dad walking along Philosophenweg, the philosopher's way :)
Michael, all philosophied out after a hard week's work, choosing instead to sit alongside the philosopher's way...
My folks, Kristian and Isabel...still along Philosophenweg
And finally , a brief respite for Isabel. She is 7, and we walked at least 6 miles this day. She was a real trooper. This was while we were walking up (and up, and up...) to the Heidelberg Castle.
No comments:
Post a Comment