“Nobody Steps on A Church in My Town!”

I have pictures of our visit to Notre Dame somewhere.

More importantly, I have the feeling of visiting Notre Dame.

And that feeling is a feeling of quiet peace that I felt visiting pretty much every church I’ve been to, whether in Europe or the Americas.

There is faith in the grandiosity. A love of God in the stained glass, the carefully-carved and laid stone, the hewn wood.

I admit I don’t feel it much the same in LDS churches, but I certainly do in LDS temples. That feeling that you’re in God’s home.

I served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in France and visited many a church there. I was lucky enough to start my mission in Perigueux, home to the marvelous Cathedral Saint-Front.

I love how the cathedral’s domes and turrets dominate the city landscape, perched close to the Dordogne River.

And I know the church has changed quite a bit as a building over the years, with the domes I love so much appearing in the 19th century. We weren’t always welcomed there as missionaries, but I still loved to go into the building, look at the art and architecture, and imagine seeing God there.

I would love to go back and see it again. Because it is a beautiful building. But also because of the beautiful feelings I felt there. I lived in other towns in France, but when I think cathedral, I think Saint-Front.

Notre Dame I visited with my wife in the late 1990s. The feelings I felt in Perigueux I felt there, walking in the cool light shining through the windows.

To see it burn this week hurts. Because a house of God has burned.

I have no doubt it’ll be restored. Whether for secular or spiritual reasons, the cathedral is important. And whether they replace the oak and lead with more oak and lead, or do something more modern with steel or aluminum, I know God will still be there. That feeling will still be there.

And when churches burned in Louisiana earlier this year – smaller churches, less architecturally-significant churches – I still felt the pain. No one deserves to have their place of worship taken from them.

Or stepped on, as the case may be.

Le Petit Nicolas, Computerized?

Just so you know, it’s not just Hollywood that messes with good books.

While I was on my mission in France, I was introduced to the “Petit Nicolas” books by Rene Goscinny and J.J. Sempe, and I loved them. Goscinny writes them with charm, definitely capturing the cadence and malapropisms of a young French speaker. As I read them in my own pidgin French, I could hear the voices of Nicolas and his friends, faithfully recreated as the voices of children.

And Sempe’s drawings, well, perfect. Though the Petit Nicolas books aren’t familiar to Americans, Sempe’s art has adorned enough New Yorker covers to be familiar to us in that way.

So imagine my joy when I discovered an animated version of the stories on YouTube.

And boy do they suck.

This is the first one I watched. They changed the story. Meme – Grandmother – was not involved in the story at all, as far as I remember. But more important than that – gone is the point of view of the story through the eyes of Nicolas. We’re presented instead with a glass wall between us and the characters. Perhaps that’s the simpler way to get the stories across in real-time, rather than told through recollection, but the material suffers. The humor in Goscinny’s characters come in the words and phrases the boy Nicolas uses to tell his tales, less so in the tales themselves.

Here’s a sample from the story this episode appears to be based on, “A La Bonne Franquette,” or “Living Simply.”

Mama! I cried. You forgot to set a place at the table!

Mama gave a little scream, and turned around quickly.

Nicolas! Mama said, I’ve already told you not to scream like that in the house, and not to enter the house like a little savage. You scared me, and I don’t need anything else to make me more nervous.

So I asked Mama to forgive me. It’s true she was really nervous, but then I explained again that there was a place missing at the table.

No, she told me, we’re not missing a place, Mama said. Go do your homework, and leave me in peace.

But we are missing a place, I said. There’s me, there’s Papa, there’s you, there’s Mr. Moucheboume, there’s Mrs. Moucheboume, that makes five and there’s only four plates at the table, so we when we go to eat, if you, or Papa, or Mr. Moucheboume, or Mrs. Moucheboume don’t have a plate, there’s going to be trouble!

This is, of course, my weak effort to translate the jibber-jabber from the French, but it’s clear that the childlike quality – not to mention the story as a whole – has been sacrificed a bit, which is a shame, seing as it’s that jibber-jabber that brings the stories their most endearing quality.

I understand, however, the film based on the stories is better. I’d dearly love to see it.

Close to Home

I have walked in this neighborhood. It is mere blocks from the LDS meetinghouse in the city of Toulouse, a city I remember with some fondness. I worked hard there, and found among the difficulty a lot of good people doing good things.

So to see something like this happening in a city I love kills me. Of course, seeing this kind of thing happen in a city I have no connection with whatsoever is also nasty above all that is nasty. Here’s to catching the slimeball that’s doing this. And here’s to the French justice system and the French sense of justice which, despite the stereotypes, is nothing to be sneezed at.

The Monkey Store Has Closed

I lived, for about three and a half months, in an apartment on la rue Denis Papin in the city of Blois, France, a few floors above the Monkey Store.

We called it the Monkey Store – and I’m sure we weren’t alone – because of its name. It was a Singer sewing machine store. Singer is a familiar brand in the United States, but in France it has one of those unfortunate names that don’t translate well. Singe is the French word for monkey, and singer, the French verb for “act like a monkey” or “to monkey around.” So obviously it was the Monkey Store.

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We lived on the third floor – second to the French – right in the middle. One night, Elder Merchant accidentally knocked a two-liter bottle of Coke down onto the balcony below. He was content to leave it there, but Elder Duersch wasn’t. We tied some sheets together and he climbed down, retrieved the Coke, and came back up. No one in the Monkey Store was the wiser, but we called Elder Duersch the Blois Monkey from then on out.

Now the Monkey Store is no more. Gone. Replaced by something called “Sergent Major,” which apparently is a kids’ clothing store. That’s fine. But no one wants to live above military personnel, do they?

At least the Caisse d’Epargne is still there. Classic French bank/lending society, whose mascot is a squirrel – and that’s probably one of the hardest words to say in French: ecureuil. Ironically, squirrel is one of the hardest English words for the French to pronounce. So there’s some equity there.

Mission Memories

I have many regrets stemming from the time I served as a missionary in France. I didn't work hard enough, that's for certain. I didn't work as diligently as I should have to learn the language, love the people, and do so many of the other things that missionaries do. Oh, I'd never give up the chance to have served -- I loved France and I still love it, and I have many fond memories of not only the country but of the times when I did work hard and when that whole learning another language thing was really, really working out well.

But after Mom handed me a small envelope of photos I took while on my mission, I certainly regret not having a better camera with me at the time. Here's the album.

And here's an example; this is even one of the better ones.

That's me playing the traditional French game petanque -- you can see one of the croquet ball-sized balls being hurled through the air in front of me -- while my companion Elder Jackson (Michael Jackson of Astoria, Oregon) and Elder Vance watch.

For all you missionaries getting ready to go out: Work hard. Learn the language and learn to love the people you serve. Also, take a good camera.

I actually went through three cameras in France, none of them any good. The first was a little Kodak jobbie that took that old 110 film in the little cartridges. It always took very grainy photos and, after a trip to see some cheateaux outside Perigueux, it fell in the toilet. Luckily, the film popped out and floated.

My second camera fell out of my jacket as I was riding my bicycle in Toulouse. It might have survived had the bus not run it over. Fortunately, it was also filmless.

The third camera I don't remember, but I do know it didn't come home with me. Very happy now with the suite of digital cameras we've got.

Oh Non, Mon Collier

This isn't as easy to enjoy if you don't speak French, but still, the cartoons are pretty self-explanatory and they're funny to boot. This one is about a poor giraffe that loses its fancy pearl collar, lamenting for, well, you'll see. Then there's the payoff. Excellent.

Oh that poor thief . . .

Here's one if you've ever wondered why your cell phone reception is so bad.

Another Film I've got to See

I was introducted to Le Petit Nicolas while serving a mission in France. I love these stories, and now it looks like a movie's been made. I'd dearly love to see it. It came out in 2009, so it's recent. Hasn't seen the light of day in this neck of the woods, apparently. Not surprising. We only have one art theatre in the entire region, and it's not likely they'd bring a French film here. Maybe I can find it on DVD somewhere? Hm. Released in France just last month. They have it at fnac (another wonderful memory of France) but do they have it in the United States? Apparently not yet. Well, something to look foward to.