The happiest elder on earth
Elder Maxfield, Elder Quiet, Elder Bourg, Elder Laz
Mari, Elder Frenchie, Elder Knapp, Justin
1 avril 2010 (Day 213)
Hannah wasn’t feeling well today so she missed out on class. It is a bummer because our linguistics classes were pretty funny today. In morphology and syntax we did an exercise with English words so all the French kids were trying to pronounce the words and sounded very French. Our teacher would say it with a correct English accent and then would say it how the French kids say it. I laughed a lot. Phonetics was also funny, even though Ali dictated over 3 pages of notes to us. He was sick so he was a little loopy and then someone gave him this little beeper thing that plays this funny little song. He would randomly press it during his lecture.
I met up at Place Royale with the Elders to get ice cream. Elder Bourgeois picked a great day and time because it stopped raining for us to eat our ice cream. For the past week or so Mother Nature has been very temperamental with Nantes. Multiple times a day it changes from hot and cold, windy to not windy, cloudy to sunny, rainy to no rain to hail, and so on. I used to think it was bad in Utah, but this is even worse! Even the humidity will vary up to 50% in one day, it is crazy! It took a while for all the elders to get there because there were six in Nantes today. Elder Bourgeois and Maxfield were the first to arrive with an investigator, Justin, aka Little Dragon (his name translated from Chinese). We talked a little bit and then Elder Knapp and his companion for the day, Elder Frenchie (I don’t remember his name) arrived. They decided to talk to some girls from an organization called CARE, which was interesting. Knapp decided to go talk first, so we were laughing that he was trying to drague (or flirt) with this girl. Elder Frenchie then started having a steamy conversation with this other girl that Justin and I listened to. Elder Frenchie definitely doesn’t have the same approach that I would have. Ever. He also has a philosophy of never taking phone numbers, and that if the person is interested that they will call them. Yes that is true and great, but some people need a little shove.
Elder Lazarev and Elder Quiet (he didn’t say anything) came and we decided to leave the other 2 elders talking and go get ice cream. I bought everyone ice cream (happy birthday to me, a present from me!) from Amorino. The people there thought we didn’t speak French at first so it was just funny and a little awkward that they didn’t think that we spoke French. The elders were all really excited and loved their ice cream, especially since you can get as many flavors as you want! I got strawberry, vanilla, chocolate, nutella, chocolate chip, and this amazing caramel-y one. I really enjoyed it and apparently so did Elder Knapp. I was talking to Elder Maxfield and needed to write something down so that I remembered to do what he asked. Elder Knapp was the closest so I asked him to hold my ice cream while I dug into my bag. He agreed and I dug in my bag and wrote my little note. When I turned to get my ice cream back Elder Knapp was eating it! That swine! He definitely got a lecture about stealing my ice cream (I love ice cream, I’m protective, what can I say?) and he said I could steal mine. I told him I didn’t want it and that my father would cut off my right arm if I was eating a missionary’s ice cream and that he now had my germs in his mouth now but he didn’t care. Dirty boys. He told me I could steal some of his ice cream in July then because he won’t be a missionary anymore then. I then went on about how he stole my good Amorino ice cream and he commented that there is good ice cream in Utah, like Cold Stone. I do like Cold Stone and so I said so and that birthday cake remix was my favorite flavor because I’d always get it after surgery. Elder Knapp disagreed and said that some oatmeal cookie something or other (because he didn’t remember the name) was the best and told me that he wasn’t going to let me buy birthday cake remix next time. Well then. We all enjoyed our gelato (and for some of us, other people’s ice cream) and went our separate ways. Elder Knapp and Elder Frenchie ended up coming on tram 2 to Michelet-Sciences or thereabouts. I got off at Facultes so that I could go get money out of my account for my trip. I saw a group of four Chinese looking people so I stalked them instead lol. I followed them a little bit and then asked them if they were Chinese and ended up getting their phone numbers and emails for Elder Lazarev. I then went to my bank to withdraw money (I just pretended to at the Faculte ATM…I’m such a stalker) and saw another Chinese person. I was going to talk to her, but then she walked away. I turned around and saw another Chinese person, Hao, who was at the Chinese dinner last week! I asked him if he was at it (I wasn’t completely sure) and he said yes. He was going on the tram towards commerce (aka away from my house) but I got on anyway and talked with him and got his info as well. As soon as I did I got off at the next stop so that I could head back home. I walked out of the tram and the Elders were right in front of my face. It was quite remarkable. And funny. They were talking to a girl from Brazil and once they finished up I gave them my five references. Elder Frenchie thought that it was a joke and Elder Knapp just laughed and said, “No, no it’s not.” Elder Frenchie wanted to cry and decided that he needs to learn Chinese and have Chinese Elders in St. Nazaire.
I finally did make it back to my housing. Elder Knapp said I could come street contacting but then decided that I should probably do my homework. He is a firm believer in not letting missionary work be a higher priority than my homework. So I did dorm contacting instead. Going up the stairs I saw some girls who were Asian eating on the first floor (that being the second floor in America). I grabbed my cooking stuff and went down to start to cook and after listening to them realized they were Vietnamese. I ended up talking to them anyway and they were very nice. I gave one of them a card and the info about free English lessons. I am hoping that she will come sometime. It is a bummer that Han left, otherwise it would have been perfect! While eating my wonderful creation of steamed broccoli, rice, and crème fraishe (think sour cream) I got the great idea to go knock on the door of the room that has the Chinese flag in the window. I knocked with the excuse that I was writing a friend a note in Chinese (I will have to do that now) and saw the flag. His name is Ming Yao and he was super nice and taught me the four Chinese tones and we talked a little. Ming Yao has lived here for two years, but doesn’t really speak French because he is doing engineering and his classes are in English. He is protestant and actually invited me to his church on Sunday.
I called the Elders after this just so I could say that I got them six contacts in one day. Elder Knapp just started laughing and Elder Bourgeois started yelling and telling me that he wants French contacts and that I need to talk to French people and just say that I have American friends who want to speak French…ha ha. It was pretty funny. I’m tempted to give Elder Bourgeois Oscar’s info, a friend who grew up in SLC, loves the church, but isn’t a member, as a little joke.
So how is that for a missionary day?!
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