A pretty pleasant priceless peaceful positively perfect Parisian Day (say that five times fast!)

Sunday (yesterday) was the hottest day of the year here in Paris. And what did we have for dinner? Soup. Cassoulet to be exact. We had it because basically that was the only dish that there was ingredients in the house to make. The French don't stock up on foods like Americans do. They buy enough food for a couple of days and it seems like we go food shopping 2-3 times a week. But the supermarkets all close by 7pm every night and they're not open at all on Sunday. So, if you run out of food on Saturday, well, you're just out of luck on Sunday. JC said that happened to him when he first moved to Paris; he didn't think about how much food was in the house until he opened the refrigerator but he couldn't do anything about it because you don't eat dinner until around 8pm here and most of the restaurants are closed by that time anyway, unless you want to buy train tickets and go into the middle of Paris to like, a touristy area. Sigh. Not even a pizza or chinese place to deliver (that's unheard of here). We're definitely not in Kansas City anymore, Toto.

Yesterday, JC and I went to a new church. Don't get me wrong, I really like the chinese church my family goes to and the teaching is definitely solid. But I think it's good to see what some of my other options are. JC is looking for a new church too for various reasons, so we're going church-hopping together. I dont think he was planning on coming with me yesterday, but he woke up for the chinese church service late and was running around like a madman trying to get showered and ready and eat something and he was already going to be about 20 minutes late, so I asked him if he'd just like to come with me instead. At least then I wouldn't have to go alone. We ended up going to Trinity Church because that had the latest service and we were talking quite a bit whilst getting ready but it was really nice because I always enjoy talking with JC. He's very down to earth, honest, and real about things but he's always happy. I feel like sometimes when I talk to people here (and I mean, this happens in the US too), they're just sweet and nice because they know I'm a foreigner and everything stays very superficial. JC always tells it like it is, good bad and ugly, but he's naturally good-natured and joyful all the time so it makes whatever we're talking about fun. I feel bad because I'd like add more in the conversation in general but I keep tripping over grammar and sentence structure so I usually just let him do most of the talking. Oh well.

The church was nice- it's actually in the building that another church owns but lets Trinity church use the building for their services. The service started about 15 minutes late but it was okay because JC and I got there a little late anyway. I admit I had to laugh a little bit because JC was so shy which I totally would have never expected from him- he's a very type A personality, very personable, and very social. But he says he gets shy when he has to go to a new place where he doesn't know anyone. I thought it was really funny though, because normally I've been the shy one since I got here, but I was ready to march up to any old stranger and strike up a conversation to get to know about them and the church better. We sang both french and english songs for praise and worship, but only 4 of them, 2 french and 2 english, and the second one (Hillsong's The Stand) we only repeated the last verse of the song a million times and never actually sang the song all the way through. It's not a bad thing, but JC and I were just expecting that there would be a little bit more praise and worship. The message was titled, "Singles, the Forgotten Majority". Ha. Ha. It was basically a short sermon about how it's okay to be single and the benefits of being single and that marriage is great too but not to complain if you're single because it can be very useful too. Again, a nice message, nothing really wrong with it, but I was looking for something deeper. I thought this message would be good for like, a small group or something, but not for a Sunday church service message. I honestly didn't learn anything I didn't know before and I thought it was pretty superficial. That being said, I'm sure that message was helpful for lots of people in the church to hear, and a good reminder of what I already knew. But I'm used to Calvary Chapel Quakertown where you really delve into the Scriptures deep and come out well fed and blown away from each message. There's a Calvary Chapel here is Paris too; maybe we'll visit it next week or the week after. There's a whole list of churches to visit, one Sunday at a time.

Towards the end of the service, the pastor asked all of the single people to stand up, and then he called them all to the front of the church (to prove that the majority of the church is made up of singles), but JC and I sat down instead of going up. He leaned over to me and said he felt too shy to go up in front of everyone, and I leaned over to him and said, "Well let's just pretend that we're married today for all intensive purposes" and he got a kick out of that and started laughing. After the service, they had a special reception where they baptized 3 people and had food, so we went and watched that and grabbed half a brownie each, then split.

Because the weather was nice, we decided to walk to the Metro Station instead of taking the bus like we had before. The church was actually just on the other side of the Luxembourg Gardens from the métro, so we walked through instead of going around it like the bus had taken us. Oh it was too perfect! The weather was warm and sunny, there was a perfect breeze, we were in (in my opinion) the most beautiful garden in all of Paris, and in good company. Here are some pictures I took last year when I went. There were tons of happy little french children with smiling french parents running all over the place, and even pony rides for the kids (and what struck me was that even the guy who was leading the horses was smiling and making conversation with parents. You'd never see that in the US- usually it's a bunch of people being paid minimum wage to work with smelly horses and deal with screaming children and they don't smile, they just want to do their job and leave). And what's the nicest part, was that there was a small pavilion with a grand piano set up and there was a small Chopin concert! Turns out JC loves Chopin, another thing you wouldn't expect from him because he comes off as being more of a jock, athletic, manly man type person hah. So we went over and sat until it was over. Oh it was just beautiful. Especially when the week is so busy and you're going going going... and then to have Sunday be a day where you can go to church and then rest, relax, and enjoy the people around you- it's just wonderful.

When we got home, Silvia, Gilles, and Yadira, were busy cleaning and putting together an armoire they got for me from the pastor of their church. Pastor Ngyuen gave us the armoire, completely for free- and it's huge!!! It pretty much goes from floor to ceiling and is really wide with two full length mirrors on each of the doors and an old school key to open the doors. It so nice and way better than anything I could have ever asked for! I mean, I didn't ask for the armoire either, but they decided to get one for me anyway. And then they all worked super hard to get it nice and clean and put together for me- I felt bad because they moved it from Pastor Ngyuen's house to our house and cleaned it and put it together almost all before I came home, so I didn't really help out, even though I'm the one using it, but they didn't seem to mind. This family is just too much, I'm so blessed to be able to live with them! It's all well worth hot soup on a hot day (and the soup tasted really really good anyway!)