♫ I'll show you that French joie de vivre! ♫

The days seem so long here when I sit down to write about them. I think it's because, even on days where we're not doing that much, we do a ton!

Today, church was really cool. We started with Relief Society, where one of the counselors (who was from Africa) taught a lesson about Elder Osgulthorpe's (sp?) talk Teaching Saves Lives (or something like that...I can't really remember the exact translation into English). I felt so cool because I didn't need the sister missionaries to translate, and I understood most of what was said! There were some Americans there who had to have translators.

One sister got up and told her story about coming to Paris from Africa, and her journey toward having a family, going to the temple, and surviving poverty in Paris. It was so cool! I didn't understand her as well, because she had a heavier accent, but the Spirit was so strong there! I love the Paris ward's Relief Society.

After that was Sunday School...in which, I must admit, I checked out a little because I was tired and I couldn't hear very well because we were sitting in the back.

Then came Sacrament Meeting, which was pretty cool. Some people were really easy to understand, and some were a little more difficult. But I think it's funny, because some phrases that EVERYBODY uses in bearing testimony in the U.S. are also said in France. And there are people who tell their life stories and people who give thankimonies. It was kinda funny. :)

Oh, and we met Elizabeth Smart. She's one of the sister missionaries in the Paris ward. That was cool, I guess. lol.

After getting home and talking to my family and Jeff on Skype, Paris and I went for a walk in the Bois de Boulogne. It's a huge park in the middle of Boulogne. It's really pretty, although it's a bad part of town at night.

Then while she was talking to people on Skype, I helped Madame Devarenne in the kitchen cooking chicken with a curry and coconut milk sauce, cutting strawberries for dessert, and arranging vegetables on a plate for our first course. Mme Devarenne is one of the funniest people I know! She told me all about her family, how they moved around a ton, and about how she only likes American movies. They have happy endings, she says, unlike European ones. She thanked me for probably ten minutes straight for helping her in the kitchen. lol.

Then we ate dinner, which was really yummy. We started with the vegetables and had some sausage-like stuff. We don't have it in the states. It's like dried meat, but it's not really dry. It's pretty wet. I don't know what they do to it, but it's not cooked, I don't think. It looks kinda gross, but it's not too bad. Apparently it's Monsieur Devarenne's favorite. (And Boby the dog's too.) Then we ate the main course of the chicken and rice, and then we had cheese and bread (essential in France) and then we had strawberries and this weird canned Chinese fruit for dessert. The Chinese fruit was different, but it was pretty good.

We talked a lot with the Devarennes at dinner. It was fun to learn more about them and to tell them more about us. (Although, explaining what my dad does for a living was ten times harder to do in French than in English, and it's pretty hard to do in English!) Mme Devarenne says a lot of random phrases in English sometimes, but with a really French accent which is totally hilarious! Mr. Devarenne is a little quieter and he uses bigger vocabulary sometimes, but he's awesome. He brings us French things, like the flowers and the sausage and a book of cool places to go in France.

So, we found out there's going to be work on the only line that gets us into the city from tomorrow until July. :P That means we take the Metro to where the line stops for construction, run to the next stop, and continue our journey. Although, Madame Devarenne said she's making us a yummy breakfast tomorrow, so we might just be late to class anyway. After all, Prof Erickson said we could miss class if we're spending time with our families or if we're feeling really tired or there's another cultural activity that would help us improve our French better than coming to class. I think we might be taking him up on that tomorrow morning...:)