Day 167: the phrase 'you're hot' equates to the best. valentine's. day. ever.

14 fevrier 2010 (Day 167)
I’m pretty sure this was like the best Valentine’s day ever. I woke up to a text from Hannah saying Happy V-day and that she’d see me soon. I got dressed for church in my fantastically bright pink tights that match my bright pink shirt. I was super smart and made the very good decision to put on my sweat pants and socks before heading out. Hannah and I took the tram today because the wardies that normally take us are on vacation. Needless to say, we were out in sub-zero temperatures for quite a while. It was cold enough that we decided to walk towards the tram (aka in the opposite direction of the church) so that we could get onto the tram sooner for the sake of Hannah. I was happy temperature wise and therefore enjoyed reading Preach My Gospel while Hannah chattered her teeth. We were welcomed on the train by this lovely gentleman checking out our butts and saying, “Salut” (hey). We didn’t sit by him. Instead we sat by the hung-over man whose face looked like he had leprosy. Or that this dandruff spread to his face. We met the Rakotovao family (Paki and Gaelle and their mom- the ones from Madagascar that are all super short) on the tram. I was hoping that the new missionaries would be on the tram, but they weren’t so we had to wait to get to the church to meet them.
It was really cold in relief society today so Hannah and I had a snuggle-under-the-coat party. In Sunday school I passed out the cookies that I made for Valentine’s Day. Paki said that they were the best cookies that she had ever tasted, and was quite enamored with the cookies. Poor Quinton was so tired that he was just sleeping in class. We talked about the Abrahamic covenant and then went to Sacrament. We heard some great news in sacrament meeting today. Adessa, one of the “amis” (what we call investigators in France, though ‘ami’ means friend), is getting baptized on Saturday. She is a really nice black lady who has been coming for about the past month or so to church and is always really nice and helps to do the dishes and stuff.
We had choir pretty much right after Sacrament today, so I didn’t get to eat lunch beforehand like normal. Choir was mellow today, besides Isabel’s “French dad” being hilarious. He is always such a jokester and today was no exception. He sang with the altos and sopranos and was just a hoot.
So the new missionaries…oh the stories to tell! First things first…We still have Elder Bourgeois and Elder Maxfield here. They are the zone leaders and both have brown hair. Maxfield is the tall silent type and Bourgeois is a little shorter, blue-eyed, slightly cocky (he’s Texan, which explains it), and is amazing at improvising with songs to make them sound really pretty. Bourgeois roomed at BYU with Elder Abe McKay (from Kaysville) before coming on his mission.
Elder Lazarev is the Chinese-speaking elder that is not Chinese. He is actually American and from Washington DC. And French. His dad is French, his mom studied French in college, and he went to a French university in America and has been speaking French all his life. He has been in Paris the past 14 months serving his mission Chinese speaking so he is here in Nantes taking a well deserved break from Paris. His companion says he’s never seen anyone so excited to see an animal that isn’t a pigeon or to see trees. He’s pretty tall with dark hair and dark eyes and a bad buzz cut. He was at BYU for a year before going on his mission.
Elder Knapp is one of those stocky baby-faced blondies. He is from Pennsylvania although he’s lived all over. He went to high school in Utah, so he is actually really good friends with Elder Smiley whom he went to high school with (Smiley is the one that gave me the blessing). Before coming to Nantes he was in the mission office. He told the Mission President that he wanted to learn Chinese and that is why he is Elder Lazarev’s companion.
I talked with both of them after choir. I talked more with Elder Knapp though. Our conversation covered anything and everything including where Anthony should go on his mission, me going on a mission, the White missionary handbook (which I got to read some of), breaking mission rules (apparently you can kiss a girl and not get sent home…you have to break commandments), French, marrying French people, French bisous, etc. They are really great and super nice. They fed me some of their leftover rice and after staying at the church for a very long time we went to the tram. While going there they helped me some with my French accent. Oh it was so great! I can only imagine how nice it would be to be on a mission with a companion to teach you the language. Hopefully I’ll get better since they were both giving me tips and helping me. Elder Lazarev is hoping to stay here for a really long time (I don’t think he wants to go back to Paris anytime soon). He is a great missionary though. He doesn’t even know how long he REALLY has been out or when he is supposed to go home. You can tell that he is really excited about being here and finding Chinese people to teach. He’s hoping to get a whole entire little community of them so they can go back to China and be leaders there it is just so excited. I hope he gets to stay a while, because you can really tell that he needs a break from Paris. EVERYTHING was just so exciting and great and perfect in his eyes.
When I was at Recteur Schmitt Elder Bourgeois called me. He was wondering if I could look online for when the train was that came to Nantes from where he was at. I was more than excited to help out the missionaries. Great thing was he didn’t tell me he wanted to me look for a train and not a bus, so after a few minutes of frustration I called to ask what bus line number. He then corrected me and said it was a train, so I quickly found the times and they went off on their way.
I saw a ton of Chinese people once I switched trams and was no longer with the missionaries (how ironic). I had talked to them about my friend Zang Chao and how he was from China so I’d ask him if he wanted to talk to Elder Lezarev (it’s a Russian last name…ironic, I know). I remembered that I am Facebook friends with a chinese kid in my hallway. I quickly wrote him a note on Facebook saying that I had a friend who was here in Nantes that was American but spoke Chinese and was looking for people to talk to in Chinese about Christianity. Vitusx said sure! I was so excited and so I called Elder Lezarev to see if I should give Vitusx his number or ask for Vitusx. Elder Lezarev was super excited. So excited that he wasn’t paying attention to what I was asking him. I don’t think it helped that all the Elders were there. I heard Elder Knapp yell, “Are you wearing your black skirt?” (This was a reference to his earlier comment about when he first saw me he thought, “Wow pink!” To which I had to explain that I only had one skirt here in France, and that the skirt was actually made for my sister’s friend when she was on her mission, and so I “accessorize” as he put it. This led to a conversation about missionaries and ties/wearing the same tie/do you make sure your ties match before you leave.) The black skirt question led to lots of laughing and Elder Bourgeois yelling at the phone that it wasn’t him that said it. It was pretty funny and I didn’t say anything. I finally got my answer from Elder Lezarev and wrote Vitusx again. Elder L also invited me to come on Saturday to help teach English to Chinese people at the church.
It was only about an hour later when Vitusx wrote me back with his phone number and said that he he is excited and thanks a lot! I naturally called Elder Lazarev back to tell him the phone number (don’t worry, it wasn’t late). He was totally blown away and super excited. He was actually in the middle of making coq au vin, a French specialty (rooster cooked in wine…the irony, I know). Out of nowhere I hear from Elder Lazarev [in English], “You’re hot. (pause) Oh wait, no. I didn’t mean that….Oh man, I mean the pan. Not you. It was hot, I’m cooking.” Needless to say, neither of us could stop laughing for a good two minutes. I never thought I’d have a missionary say, “You’re hot” to me. He thanked me for the phone number, saying that I was super great and that all the missionaries loved the cookies and valentines and that the other missionaries said to say thank you.
Yeah, that pretty much made my life. Elder Lazarev is NOT living that one down anytime soon. I’m just proud of myself for refraining from pretending that I was offended that he didn’t think I was hot.
I also got the greatest email from Amber. She was asking if kissing someone with a paper in between your lips counts as a kiss if you are VL (virgin lips). She only asked the question with no explanation. This led to lots of speculations on my part as to what happened (ward valentine party, obstacle course, part of the course, later ended up accidentally kicking the boy in the crotch…ha ha). Man did Amber and I have awesome Single’s Awareness Days today.