The Sunday after my first foray into French church attendance found me on an RER train to the palace at Versailles. I’d done my research and had a folded receipt in the cell phone pocket of my black GAP sling bag. On that paper was written 5 Rond Point De L’alliance, the address of the nearest meetinghouse. We all arrived in Versailles and received our instructions, which kind of included, “Don’t die so we don’t get sued and take the RER back at 6:00 p.m.”

I approached an advisor, who helped me approach a guard and translated asking said guard how I might find my way to said address. Said guard shrugged his officery shoulders and suggested I ask a bus driver down at the main stop.

The advisor walked me to the stop with the promise of translating my way on to the bus. I was pleased to see that the first three bus drivers had friendly signs stating they spoke English. Yay! With pictures of the world! That’s friendly! I’ll be ok! And at church in no time! Ha! My tagalong translator was told the number of the correct bus and we waited a good twenty minutes—passing time and discussing Mormons—until my bus approached.

Which is hilarious, because did my bus driver have a sign? Did my surly, very hairy, and somewhat frightening bus driver speak English? No. Hahaha. That’s a funny story, eh? The advisor had me show him my crumpled piece of church-addressedness, I paid my fare, and I sat in the front seat. I smiled at the driver. He may have growled.

We left the palace grounds and headed into French suburbia. I still had a good 20 minutes before Sacrament Meeting was set to start, and I was feeling pretty tickled and proud of myself. I began to relax with the promise that my bus driver had pledged to my advisor that he’d get me to church in relatively safe fashion and my seeming uncanny ability to make life work.

Ha.

We approached a transfer stop and the growly driver summoned me to the front of the bus. In very slow and elementary French, he explained it was time for me to get off the bus. I leaped from my seat, grabbed my bag, descended the stairs, looked around and took in the churchy air. Except there was no churchy air to breathe because that whole Rond Pont D’Alliance thing wasn’t happening.

A young voice behind me said, “Excusez-moi, madamoiselle—my name is Daniel. The, um, le driver? He say you need help.” I said yes, please, I need to find this address. It’s a church. He looked at my crumpled, addressed paper and looked up, confused. “I do not know this place.”

I smiled, still knowing. Knowing it just had to be hiding around some building, within my grasp but concealing itself from my immediate view. Daniel excused himself and walked very far away, very quickly, and very suddenly, I found myself panicked in a quiet place—which place I did not know. As I took notice of the giant area map posted adjacent to the bus stop and began to search it for signs of of the street name, I heard the bus driver speaking behind me. “Where is your church?” he asked. “Je ne sais pas,” I shrugged. “There are plenty of churches around, you know,” he offered. “Oui,” I answered. “Mais, this is my church.”

We studied the map until I spotted it! L’Église de Jésus-Christ des Saints des Derniers Jours! Marked with a cross! Woo! There it is! How do I get it? WAIT! Why is it so far away from the “you are right here, you sucker” dot on the map? Why? I don’t understand. Is this right? Is this where we are?

I pointed, and said solemnly, “Voila.” The bus driver’s voice lowered as he sighed and growled simultaneously. I managed to enter a state of great depression before he looked at me and told me to get on his bus. I wondered what he meant or where he’d take me. “Pardon?” He repeated himself and pointed, grumbling in the direction of his grumpymobile.

I boarded. It’s all I really knew to do.

I sat in the same seat, this time deflated of the hope I’d had in finding church that day. Feeling dejected and somewhat depressed at the outcome of my great adventure.

We rode along for some time before I realized that something wasn’t quite right about the way people were boarding the bus. I am no public transit expert—neither domestic nor international—but what was happening wasn’t normal. When a patron, somewhat confused looking, boarded the bus, they went directly to the driver and asked a series of questions I didn’t understand. He answered with questions and when they found themselves on the same grumbly page, the patron would either take his seat or exit the bus. I wondered what kind of horrible interview he was putting them through. Some kind of grumpy attempt at only busing people who passed.

I knew we’d traveled some way when the driver called to me and directed me to stand next to him as he drove. I didn’t recognize the area as the place where I’d boarded, and fear flashed through my mind.

“Your church. There,” he pointed.

“Excusez-moi?”

“Your church. There. You exit here. You come back there.”

“My church?”

Grumpily, “Yes, your church. You get off here. You come back there.”

Several moments passed as he approached the stop ahead of us as I realized what was happening. This surly, grumpy French bus driver had driven me off of his route to find my church and to deliver me there safely. As he’d stopped for people along the lines, they’d discussed the patrons’ destinations and whether they were along the route to my church.

I thanked him profusely, saying “beaucoups” more than should be legal and I waved to him as he drove away, and the grin he let slip between grumbles did not go unnoticed.

I rushed to the church building on the cul-de-sac, and hurried inside. I could hear the sacrament hymn being played, and several minutes passed before a young mother brought her son into the hallway. I followed them back into the chapel and took my seat on an empty pew behind them. I noticed the young mother had a baby girl, probably six months old, in a carrier sitting next to her.

I soaked up the Spirit of the simple meeting. I smiled as an American pre-teenager, one of the daughters of the brand new mission president, gave a talk in English as one of the sister missionaries translated. I listened through headphones as an elderly man explained what the temple means to him. And when the relief society stood to sing, the first lines of my favorite hymn—”How Great Thou Art”—found me sinking into my seat in pure joy.

After the meeting, I introduced myself to the mission president’s family. I held the baby girl who’d sat in front of me, who is the bishop’s daughter, whose name was Leia. Like the princess.

I left before I wanted to, but knew I’d need extra time to find my way back to the palace. In my haste to soak up all things churchy, I’d neglected to worry about what kind of effort finding my way back might entail.

I found myself on the street in front of the church, not even knowing which bus stop was which. I looked, back and forth, trying to make one of them look more familiar than the other and I was standing in the middle of the small, residential road, when a noise from behind startled me.

I turned around to see a bus.

And then I looked up to see the same man driving that bus. The same bus that had brought me to that church 45 minutes earlier. And the same man who had gone off of his own route to get me there. And I took in a deep breath and with a giant grin on my face, I responded to his, “Want a ride?” hand motions by rushing to the door to be let in.

I looked at him, half-confused and half-hopeful that what I thought was happening really was happening. Had he really come back to find me and to take me back? I looked at him and asked, “Oui?” And he said, “The palace. Yes. Let us drive.”

When we made it back to his route, after going through the same pick-up-people routine as before, we stopped at a service station so he could catch up on time. He asked me things.

“Your church. Good?”

“Yes, so good.”

“Your church. An American church?”

“No, a worldwide church.”

Confused, “Oh?”

“Yes. And a good church. I am here studying. I needed church.”

And he nodded, and started the bus, and we were finished talking.

He was back on his route and when we approached the palace, he let me know it was time to go. I looked at him and tried to take in the sight of him—my gruffy, hairy, French guardian angel.

“Merci. Merci beaucoups,” didn’t seem like enough at that point.

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I participated in the 2006 Blogathon—one post every 30 minutes for 24 hours—on 29-30 July 2006, to benefit the American Lung Association. I’ve hidden the boring posts, but left the somewhat legible ones.

When I arrived in Paris in July 2002, one of the first things I did was to speak to a member of the staff and ask if I’d be allowed to venture out on my own to church on Sundays. I was granted permission.

The first week I was able to attend—the second Sunday there—I took the train to the end of the line and then … further. And then walked a mile. And then I missed my car. A lot. The wardhouse was in a several-story-high office building of sorts with a spire extending from the facade. Once inside, I made my way to Relief Society and found a quiet seat in the back.

Within minutes, among the quiet French conversation, I heard an American girl ask where the chapel was. The Relief Society president explained that we’d have Relief Society first and asked her to have a seat. She happened to have chosen the one in front of me. I leaned forward, tapped her shoulder, and said, “I’m sorry, but are you American?” and she quickly turned to face me and answered, “Yes! And I’m so happy to hear English!” I admitted I was, too, though I’d only been away from the hotel filled with American teenagers for an hour.

I asked her where she was from. And she said Georgia. And I was shocked. And my mouth dropped. And I told her me too. I said hi, I’m Ashley. And she said hi, I’m Lexi. Lexi Snow.

So we sat together in Relief Society and then in Sunday School, which was tucked away in a stifling hot loft upstairs, with closed window near the ceiling. Our teacher was a young African woman named Aurelie. She explained about hope, and light, and how they go hand in hand. How they are home. And Lexi and I cried together. We longed for home. And for hope of home. And I think we were both grateful to have one another there.

That’s the day things started to look up. It was more than the fact that I got to the right church and it was more than the fact that I got to be in church that day—it was knowing that things were going to be ok in Paris, and I was going to be able to make it that way. That knowledge was powerful, and the peace I’d found could have never prepared me for the next week’s adventure.

I have a ridiculously extensive memory. I remember being a baby. I don’t have a “first memory,” because most of them are there. I can see a picture, hear a song, or smell a perfume, and remember where I was standing, who was there, and what was said—all in greater detail than is really necessary or healthy.

The Minnie from my first Disneyworld. I stood in that spot while my mother photographed me. It had rained. The socks were tight on my legs. All the houses looked the same. We went back in two years, when Daniel was two. He was afraid of Mickey Mouse. During that trip, my father’s stepmother had just gotten a pedicure and as she sat on the couch and I walked between it and the coffee table, I stepped on a toe. Her toenails were red. She was cross with me. They had the most fabulously gold playing cards and I sat on the floor next to the dining room table and played with them, wishing I knew a game, and avoiding a nap. Their toilet seat was padded.

It was a hard day for everyone. Probably most of all, it was a hard day for my mom. But also so happy. Lynn and Leigh and I got ready together and Lynn offered me some perfume—but I didn’t know what to do with it. It was not in a spray bottle, and that’s all I knew. I waited until I saw Leigh dab some on her neck. Leigh did my hair. I felt so pretty.

I’d dressed myself and my mother was on the phone at the kitchen table. I’m holding a Bible my grandmother gave me in 1984. I had the hat on, but mom tied it. She laughed and I laughed and she photographed it.

Just kidding. I don’t know what I was thinking when that was taken. But I do remember a few months later.