LDS Missionary: France Paris Mission

Alençon

Châtelet. One of the busiest metro stops in Paris was our destination. We were headed to the main chapel in Paris. We fought our way through the crowd and arrived onto the longest escalator I had ever seen. It led onto the busy streets of tourism-filled Paris.

They had everything from gigantic Nike stores to kiosks with souvenirs of everything stereotypically France. There were berets, keychains, shot glasses, and everything anyone would want to collect while in France. We walked through it all and landed in an open area that led up to a strange looking building. The stairs and elevators were on the outside. The building looked like it was built inside-out.

"What is that building?" One of the group I was with asked.

"That's the Georges Pompidou Center. It's a modern museum, but missionaries aren't allowed to go inside of it because it has a lot of pornographic images apparently," Elder Helvey responded.

We walked past it and found a courtyard full of random, ugly-looking statues. There was a man drawing with chalk a picture of something I couldn't make out yet. We continued across the street and turned onto a little alleyway named Rue Saint-Merri. We turned left after only a minute in the alley and found a courtyard. This was the chapel. It wasn't anything spectacular, especially compared to the chapels I left in the United States, but it was beautiful.

Here, we ran into so many missionaries. I didn't recognize any of them. Then I saw the nametag, Elder McQuay. I didn't know if the trainers knew yet who they were training, so I didn't say anything, but I saw him. He was about the same height as me, maybe a little shorter, lighter brown hair. Upon first glance, he reminded me a lot of my cousin, Spencer.

"Elder Abel," Elder McQuay inquired after he was told who he was training. "I'm Elder McQuay. You're going to love Alençon."

"Good to meet you," I replied simply, not really knowing what to say.

"Usually, trainers take their sons to get ties, but we have to get back to Alençon pretty early, so is there anything you want to see?" Elder McQuay asked.

"Sons?" I asked, still trying to wrap my head around the fact that I was in Paris. "I don't care, I'm sure I'll see the Eiffel Tower eventually, so whatever you want to do works for me."

"Yeah, when someone trains a new missionary, we call them their son. It's just mission lingo," Elder McQuay explained. "Do you want to go see Notre Dame?"

"Ok," I said. "Yeah, that could be cool."

We headed back to the road and turned left after exiting the alleyway. We passed the Hotel de Ville of Paris as we went. It was a giant building. We eventually made it to Notre Dame and I was shocked at the size of the building. It stood higher than any other building around it and possibly taller than any other building I had ever seen.

It was built like a box with two tiers heading towards the sky. Around the front entrance of the cathedral were beautiful sculptures of people. Some of them I recognized as Apostles of Jesus Christ, others I didn't recognize at all. We walked in and it was dark inside. The only source of light within the cathedral full of people were candles. The ceilings seemed to go up forever. The place was huge. Around the seating area was a 3D depiction of the New Testament in mini sculptures. In the alcoves, there were random items made of gold which were blocked off. The alcoves were dedicated to a certain saint.

"What did you think?" Elder McQuay asked as we left the building.

"It was really cool. It was just really dark in there," I said.

"Yeah, most cathedrals are like that," He replied. "We should go though. We need to get back to Alençon."

We went back to the LDS church's courtyard off the little alleyway and grabbed my bags.