La Moutarde

As everyone knows, it’s a very important day. It’s Mother’s Day and I wanna give a shout out to the best mom on the planet, Beckie Steele. Thank you for the example you are to me and for all of the sacrifices you’ve made for my sake. You are truly the best and I love you so much! Thank you for everything. Wish I could be there to celebrate your day with you! L

LOVE YOU MOMMA!

Well I survived another day of church in French. I actually even read some scriptures! I was in the wrong chapter for a second so that was a little embarrassing, but other than that it went great! Sunday school was awesome. Our teacher taught in French and English! And sacrament meeting was well...not very good. I mean, the sacrament itself was good. I read my French scriptures and everything was dandy. I was just a little miffed that we got kicked out of the French meeting and into the English one. Mais, c’est la vie I guess.

After church, McKenna and Erin were kind enough to feed me lunch so that I didn’t have to buy anything. Their apartment is down the street from the Bastille monument downtown and it’s gorgeous! It was built in the late 1800s and still has original floors, fireplaces, and mirrors. So cool! We had some leftovers (and toast with chestnut jam that was surprisingly delicious) and then it was off to the metro to meet Paul, Amy, Caleb, and Claire (a Parisian in our ward) to go to a young adult fireside on the outskirts of town.

The train ride wasn’t too bad and it gave us the chance to talk to Sophie, Claire’s friend from work who’s getting baptized in three weeks! She’s super sweet and is so excited to get baptized. It was fun to practice our French with her! Once we got to the station, it was a little walk to the chapel. The town is kind of small and old but it was very quaint! There were about 40 or so young adults in attendance to listen to...oh man, I forgot his name. He’s SUPER smart. I think in his introduction it said he’s been to school in the U.S., England, Sweden, Germany, and Switzerland. Talk about overachieving! He started out his talk by comparing genomes to our purpose here on Earth. Then he started talking about penicillin and then jumped to Beethoven. I tried so hard to pay attention but 1) I was starving 2) it was in French and 3) the chapel was really hot, so I dozed in and out for a while. Not good, I know! But he was very nice and talked for about an hour and a half.

After the fireside, they provided us with dinner! I’m all about the free meals - especially on Sunday when we don’t get dinner with our host parents. We had sandwiches, chips, cookies, pudding, and lemon water. Everything was delicious! That is...until I took a bite of the sandwich. Have you ever had REAL French Dijon mustard? Well if you haven’t, use sparingly my friends. That stuff is HOT. I’m talkin’ wasabi hot. I thought it was normal mustard, so I put a lot on my sandwich and it was a HUGE mistake. My mouth was on fire and my sinuses are definitely cleared out. McKenna and I made sure to eat extra pudding and cookies to mellow out the spiciness of the mustard. Definitely a good decision on our parts!

We were going to stay and watch the CES fireside after dinner, but it was getting late and we live pretty far away from the town we were in (the name escapes me, sorry). We got on the RER and we were back to Croissy in an hour or so.

I made sure to Skype my Momma for Mother’s Day, which was so fun! I got to see the whole family and it was fabulous. Hope you had a nice nap afterwards, Momma! I also Skyped some friends after that. It was so great to talk to people in English for a change!

Finally, to end my day, I decided that it was high time to explore my meditation loft. It took me FOREVER to get the ladder down and I looked ridiculous trying to do it, but it was hilarious. Ali said that if she were living in my room, climbing to the loft would have been the first thing she would have done! Sorry I’m not as adventurous as you Ali. J It was kind of uneventful (there’s nothing up there), but now I can have a place to escape to if I get bored at my desk or on my bed.

Well, it was a pretty uneventful day today. Sorry! Tomorrow should be good though. A group of us are going to the chateau Fontainebleau tomorrow morning, so that should be great! Pictures to come. J OH! I also booked a ticket to Nice, France today! A group of us found pretty good deals, so I’m way excited. Yay for beaches!!!!

À demain!