NOM

Hello all,

Just back from Paris, to see the new Temple.....
With all the hype surrounding it I felt like: Why not, just go and offer to drive.
So FIL+MIL + SIL5+BIL5+baby went, BIL´s TBM Mother also went.
My wife+kids.

Mormons being mormon, and Dutch at that the in-laws didn´t want to spend EUR 65,00 to pay the toll, so we took a long circuitous route to Paris, Free, and slow. An agonizing 8 hours later we had arrived, at 1630 right on the money. the Tollroute would have saved 3 hours at least.
Tour was scheduled at 1630.

A blazing sun, and a balmy wind werenice accompaniments.
But the public, where was it??? Well it was rather quiet.
We had a tour of 16 people, 10 Dutchies and 6 Utahns.

A nice building, I did feel some stirrings of the spirit, and even a bit of awe.
The grounds are really nice, capacity of the Temple is rather low, the Hague has 120 people capacity, Paris has 96.
Seems they don´t expect it to be too overly busy.
I felt a bit slighted being a Dutchman, with a temple so small, and efficient......

We left at 1830 for the Versailles Palace, and as we came around onto the Place d´Armes and gazed around I was stunned.
Absolutely in awe, in sheer awe of the size, magnificence and opulence of the Chateau of the Sun King.

The Temple, It´s not even an outhouse compared to the Palace.
Then again, 90 million USD is less than the estimated cost to rebuild the Palace (50+ Billion USD at least)

Visiting the Temple is I ever get a TR again (doubtful) No
Visiting the Palace again, a resounding YES.

The most strange comment about the came from my FIL who stated:
The collimation of the mirrors in the sealing rooms is the best I have ever seen.
I counted 17 visible reflections, impressive indeed and I agree with him.
Then again, I am an amateur astronomer who knows a thing or 2 about mirrors lining up properly....

Thanks Meilingkie, for the, shall I say- postcard? You gave very interesting descriptions. I appreciate all your contributions to this site.

Unfinished business

Christ is the living water, or so it seems.
Not potable though......
Some of my relatives passing, the guy in the sweater is my FIL. The tall 6`2" lanky kid is my DS.

The tree of life from Lehi´s vision, missing a Iron Rod though............
2 large and spacious buildings on the left (Tempel) and right (Patron-hostel).

And He saw it was nice and tithing-money well spent.

Thanks for the tour notes and photos. Your writing is so expressive.
What are you driving these days? That seems like a lot of people to shuttle around.
I'm so glad you're on this forum. I love hearing about the European experience.

Thanks.

I would have paid the freaking toll. Time is precious, especially when you're sitting on your butt in a car. When I visit Japan next month, I am paying extra for the bullet trains. I'd like to see as much as I can in the week I have.

Ah, Versailles. Je veux le visiter. Have you ever seen the movie "Le Roi Danse"?

We had 2 cars, one a Hyundai I30, and the other a Renault Espace.
Not my cars, I was the spare driver on hand.
So I didn´t have much of a choice. If it were my money, but it wasn´t.
And FIL wanted to see the other France too.
Oh well.....

Sometimes a nice drive through the French countryside might be a pleasant thing, but I'm not sure about 8 hours . Anyway, thanks for the report and the comparison to the Versailles is an interesting thought. For those of us in Utah or whose lives are integrated around the church, the church can seem like a VERY BIG DEAL. But on the world stage, it's small change, really. The Catholic church absolutely dwarfs it. As someone said on the old forum (or maybe it was the old View from the Foyer), the amount the world cares about the LDS church can be measured in "micro-give-a-sh*ts." But it's still a big deal to us.

fh451

I took a few friends out to the Paris temple. It's interesting to have feedback from total atheists who didn't know much about the Church. Here are a few points about how the LDS Church/members are viewed in secular Europe :

- Surprise about how nice the construction was, but no problem with building nice temples with donations from members. I didn't delve into financial opaqueness issues.
- The film they showed had very bad subtitles : not synced, words cut in half between slides, typos and grammar mistakes... Why did nobody fix them?
- Why does the guide not know what the symbolism means?
- Theosis is awesome!
- Not really having hell is awesome!
- Mormon doctrine is really weird and awesome.
- As soon as the video said "marriage is between a man and a woman", they picked right up on the LGBT-hostile vibe. Its super obvious to outsiders.
- TSM was described as president, not prophet. Holland was an apostle.
- I had to explain that mormons believe in personal revelation, because we kept on hearing mormonese for putting yourself in a state of communication with God, and phrases like "leave your problems outside and focus on Jesus and find peace" are complete gibberish for non-members!
- Do all mormons know each other? Beacause you were saying hi to a lot of people...
- Making leaving the church (denying the holy ghost) the worst sin possible is a hilarious way to try to keep people in.

Pics of the Versailles or it didn't happen!


(Thanks for sharing)

Thanks for the virtual tour, Meilingkie. Beautiful pictures.

Ah, dug up this old thread.
Why, just to finish it.

My inlaws decided 2 years ago to go cheap and avoid the toll-roads, saving Eur 65,00
Seems they received speeding-tickets for Eur 180,00.

My DD just reminded me how idiot she thinks her mom’s parents can be sometimes.

For some reason, I missed seeing these pics 2 years ago, so I'm glad that you brought up this thread from 2017 ! That is an example of supreme irony, that your relatives tried to save money by not driving on the toll road, so instead they received a speeding ticket that cost almost 3 times as much as the toll road.
Thanks for re-posting this travel thread, from Wndr.