A Tiny Church and a Huge one

Sunday was my first time at a Spanish church service. Most of the Presbyterian churches in Spain are very small and this one was no different. The church only had one room and it was filled with about 50 people.

We started by singing several songs, most of which were the same songs we have in English. The words were mostly the same with a few changes so they would still rhyme and flow together. I was excited to know exactly what I was singing the whole time instead of guessing. 

After each song, there was a list of 100 songs on the screen. For the first few songs, we went down the list and I was terrified that we were going to sing all 100 of these songs. However, I finally noticed that people were shouting out numbers after every song and giving requests. 

To my pleasure, I could understand most of what the pastor was saying during the sermon as long as I focused completely. The second I stopped trying to translate in my head, I had to wait for the next point to begin.  

Later that day, we were able to go into part of the cathedral. First, we went into a large room that was open to anyone. All around there were figurines in different scenes from Jesus' life. The ceilings were very high, like in all cathedrals, and they had designs everywhere. In the front, there was an altar with Mary sitting on a throne with baby Jesus on her lap.  

After this, we were going to go into the other rooms and outside tower but we did not know that we needed our passports for a $10 discount so we decided to save it for another time.