Today we went to church at the Gazcue ward. You would pronounce that with a hard G as in gas, the a sounds like the doctor telling you to say Ahhh, the z is like an S, and the cue would be like KWAY. I have no idea where that word comes from. The building has a chapel upstairs, and downstairs are mission offices for the Santo Domingo East mission.
We pulled into the parking lot about 10 minutes before 9:00. One other car pulled in right after us. It was the bishop. Moments later a bus pulled up to the gate and maybe a couple dozen people got out. A bunch of dentist related people on a humanitarian trip (mostly from Utah) just happened to be in town today. Tomorrow they'll head out into the country to do dental work for lots of people. One of the people we knew from our ward in Elk Ridge. Go figure.
We wandered upstairs and found a cute little chapel with tile floors, no carpet, benches that were not fastened down, so they had a tendency to move on the tile floors, and otherwise looking very much like a typical chapel. People rolled in a bit later, but the bishop started the meeting pretty much on time.
We met several young missionaries, the mission president and his wife, another senior missionary couple and several locals.
They speak Spanish here! Other than that, it was a pretty typical three hour block of meetings. For the most part I found I could understand when people spoke loudly enough.The Sunday School lesson was about "every member a missionary". The instructor asked Sherrie and me how we prepared for our mission. We managed our first Spanish class participation without any undue problems.
Priesthood meeting was something else again. I suspect the teacher was an auctioneer. I could scarcely believe how fast he could talk. It sounded sort of like a machine gun, only not so loud. Nevertheless, I found I could understand most of what he said. Had he been speaking English I don't think I'd have understood much more.
Sherrie wins the prize for participation today. In Relief Society the teacher was trying to get someone to lead a particular song. Apparently nobody knew it, so Sherrie taught them "Oh Hush Thee My Baby" in Spanish. How about that? That's my missionary companion. Cool.
You guys are so brave to go immerse yourselves in another language. I don't know if I would do it. But maybe. If the consequence was spending two years in the Caribbean. Ehh, still, I think not.
ReplyDeleteI don't think I know Oh Hush Thee, My Baby, but I find it highly humorous that Mom would teach a song telling those Spanish-speaking people to hush.
Is that a Christmas song??? Woot!
ReplyDeleteCHURCH IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE???!!!! Wow, you win the prize for overseas experiences for sure. Again, we live in our little English Speaking Ward bubbles, and have yet to deal with this.... and again, we will increase our prayers on your behalf.
ReplyDeleteAnd that is so neat mom had a chance to put her music and spanish skills together to teach them that on her first day in RS! I don't even know that song, and I'll have to look it up. And in Spanish! Bien Echo!!