Days 259-266

18 mai 2010 (Day 260)
Today I went and had lunch with Emilien and Aurilien at the Japanese Garden. It was a lot of fun to hang out with them and talk. Poor Aurilien is on this awful diet where you can only eat meat for like 7 weeks. I definitely couldn’t do that.
Afterwards I went to commerce and met up with my Vietnamese friend from IRFFLE, Van Mao. The other week he asked for a BOM so I got him one and he bought me hot chocolate and we talked about it for a little bit. Go little me!
19 mai 2010 (Day 261)
Today Hannah and I met up with Maame to give her a BOM and go out to lunch. We went to this cute vegetarian restaurant and I got stuffed avocados (with polenta and Roquefort cheese) with a salad, toast with olive spread, and ginger lemonade. It was so delicious! Afterwards we did a little window shopping. I found Sister Layton’s broach and it was fun.
For dinner I went with Darryl, Cole, and Cheryl to the best kebab shop in Nantes. The elders found it and it is way good. The man makes his own white sauce and it was most definitely the best kebab I’ve had. We went walking around and saw some churches after and got ice cream. I got a gaufre instead. I love Darryl and Cole, they are so hilarious! We even saw Ian at Buck’s and said hi.
20 mai 2010 (Day 262)
Today was crazy busy. Jane was 20 minutes late to our appointment (20 minutes late when she said she would be in the office for only one hour) and I sent her a text after 15 minutes to see if she was coming or if I should come back later and she like freaked out. But anywho, I got my paper signed and then went off to breakfast at La Cigale with Nana. It was so chic and so good! I’m so glad that we went. Afterwards we did a little shopping and I bought my train tickets and those for my siblings. Had lots of problems with that darn plastic that we pretend is money. I went to a café with Cole and Darryl but didn’t get anything, went and got Bretagne stickers from this cute man, did more shopping, taught English, ate foie gras (look it up), gave away tons of stuff to my friends and went out for drinks (I got Amorino ice cream instead) with my hallway neighbors. I saw Juan at John Mcbyrne’s so that was fun. It was a late night! Luckily Baptiste drove Amadine, Maude, and I into town so we didn’t have to deal with the trams.
21 mai 2010 (Day 263)
Today I missed a lot of things. I have missing money floating around from the whole train think, Hannah and I missed the bus to Pornic, I missed out on the Elders BBQ. To consolidate myself I ate a giant warm chocolate chip cookie for lunch. It gave me a stomach ache and it was so hot today that I took a nap on the tile because it was cooler.
I did wake up though to go help teach Joshue the plan of salvation with the elders. I think it went alright with him, but he really is an interesting character. Afterwards I waited around for institute which we held outside, which was fun.
22 mai 2010 (Day 264)
Today Hannah came with me and we got the last of my missionary shopping done. I definitely would be a lot richer if I didn’t go on this mission, but now I have cute clothes and really expensive shoes! We stopped by the chocolate shop and Hannah tried her first macarons.
Claudine, Paki, and Gaelle invited us to their house for dinner. They also invited Cheryl and the elders as well. We had fun drinking (I got in trouble for only wanting water) and having snacks and pizza. We played loup-garou (it is like mafia) which was a lot of fun. Claudine told me I was getting married June 10, 2011 and that Hannah would meet her future husband in February, lol. Um, we ate so much cake, it was really good though. We all had a fun time and Bourg and Maxfield stole our sunglasses and went down to try to catch things in their mouth that we dropped from their tenth story window….crazy!
23 mai 2010 (Day 265)
Last Sunday in Nantes! Myself, Hannah, Elders Ford, Maxfield, and Bourgeois are all leaving this week so we all bore our testimonies in sacrament meeting. After the meeting there were lots of goodbyes. I was trying to teach Cecilia with Knapp and Anthony, but people kept coming in and knocking and looking for me and it was insane. It still was a good lesson on repentance though. Silly Anthony was being so lovely and was like I will miss you and kept telling me that every time he saw me. Lots of tears were spilt although not by me and yeah.
I met Van Mao with the elders at Facultes so that they could meet him and we could talk. We ended up talking for a really long time. I was with Van Mao for at least two hours. The lesson with him didn’t go super great. I still think that there is a language barrier and he does want to be a catholic priest. The missionaries literally running off mid-sentence to catch the tram was probably my favorite part. I talked to Van Mao for at least 45 minutes after that I think. I finally met up with Debora today and gave her a BOM in Portuguese. I hope she reads it Knapp called around his bedtime to see how it went and ask some questions about Debora. He got scolded by me for that one
24 mai 2010 (Day 266)
Last day in Nantes! And it was spent cleaning. It was intense but everything is now all packed, I caught up on a month’s worth of entries (sorry they suck), and all of this before midnight. I tried to get a RDV with Melanie to meet the elders but it didn’t work out so I ended up having this really funny goodbye to the elders on the phone. Mostly I got chastised for saying have a fantastic life since I will see them again. There is hardly any food in my fridge and my 3 bags are bulging and will be gradually decreasing in size as time goes on. I have a box to go to the post office and am going to try to close my French bank account tomorrow after I check out. I don’t know where I will be going on my mini-mission, but I guess I will find out soon enough!
Hannah and I said bye to Cheryl today and they were just all blubber babies. Especially Cheryl, poor girl still has time in Nantes and now we are all leaving. She’ll be okay though.
Wish me luck and write me! If this isn’t updated yell at my dad!
And I will see you all in July!
Soeur Mari Lindstrom
23, rue du Onze Novembre
78110 Le Vesinet
FRANCE