I love the Benedictine Sœurs of the Sacré-Cœur of Montmartre!

I have come to a conclusion regarding my learning French this year and it comes from the friendship that Chris and I have made with the Sœurs of the Sacré-Cœur of Montmarte that live right across the street from our church. I have started volunteering for the nuns on Tuesday mornings and am really enjoying it. I think people are meant to work! Being given this year where I don't have to work actually doesn't work well with me. By just adding a few hours here and there I'm finding that I am overall much happier and I get more done. So, anyway, I have been battling over whether I actually really want to learn French or not this year. Two months have almost passed, and I've gotten by just fine not knowing more than "bonjour," "merci," and "Je ne parle pas français." I know that this is a great opportunity to learn French but I also can't help but think about how little I'll probably ever use it again. How often do I encounter French speaking people? 


But - back to the sisters - they have been so kind to Chris and me. Today after ironing some dish towels and napkins Soeur Marie Bridget, who I normally work for and who knows a little English, passed me on to her other sister who feels very uncomfortable with the little English she knows. This sister never told me her name but I have seen her often. She showed me what she wanted for me to do with organizing some papers and putting them in a binder. Then every half hour or hour she'd come in and check on me. She started off telling me the word "arrangé" which means to organize or arrange. Then she said "J'arrange" - "I organize." Later she came back and said "J'arrange les papiers" - "I organize the papers." 


When it was time for me to go, another sister who speaks very good English walked down the stairs with me and spoke to me first in French something like "Avez-vous eu une bonne matinée?" and then translated, "Did you have a good morning?" and I saw that she was trying to help me learn French. All that to say, I think I should learn French and my reason won't be so much because I'll use it in the future, but because I know French people now and don't they matter enough to work at it? They're working on their English with me and putting themselves out there, making themselves uncomfortable so that they can communicate with me. Sœur Marie Bridget was very shy about her English at first but she always says to me "Good Morning" or "Good Evening" and "How are you?" So, while I feel pretty overwhelmed by the language, I think I'm just going to work on it a little bit at a time every day and I'll try not to focus on the largeness of it. And then I have such nice safe environments to practice it - with the sisters at church and then also in my art class on Wednesdays. So, we'll see how it goes ...