Church in German

[Those of you who aren't Mormons can feel free to skip this post. It's full of Mormon insider references. If you find it overwhelming, just take a deep breath and remind yourselves that Sarah Palin beat out Mitt Romney for the VP spot on the Republican side. You'll feel better.]

[Well, maybe not. Anyway . . . .]

Today was the annual Primary program. In contrast to the Lakeville Ward, which has about a hundred kids in the Primary, the Lucerne Ward has about a dozen. The ward still went to a lot of work, though. They even dressed the kids, except for Tanner, as sheep, complete with sheep hats for the ears. Tanner had the distinction of being a shepherd. There was one point where the shepherd was looking for one of the lost sheep, so Tanner had to wander around the podium searching for the straggler.

I wish I could tell you exactly what the program was about, but of course, it was in German. They did have a banner above the podium saying "Ich bin ein Kind von Gott," which is a sufficiently simple phrase that I can translate it with my limited German ability. It means "I am a child of God." Other than that, I don't know what was going on. I'm sure it was all very meaningful, and it was definitely cute. Tanner and Lindsey did their best to sing along with words they didn't understand. I hope they'll be a little more Swiss by next year. Just by watching, we could tell that Lindsey had an easier time learning the words than Tanner, which illustrates the point that the best time to learn a foreign language is when you're really young.

Overall, church is an interesting experience. When we showed up on the scene during the summer, they continued to hold services in German rather than switching to English to accommodate the ignorant Americans. Imagine that. We do get some limited translation from one of the missionaries, but the headphones don't always work, and it's kind of clunky. I know enough German that I can sometimes follow along a little bit as long as they're speaking high German. If it's Swiss German, forget it. Luckily, they usually speak high German in church. I just go it alone during Sunday School and priesthood meeting.

I could say more about the distinction between Swiss German and high German, but this post is already getting a bit wordy, so I'll save that for another day.