Day 23

Wow day 23! That is insane. I don't know if it feels like I have been here longer or shorter than that, but it is still crazy.

Ally and I went to the institute in the afternoon and a bunch of us hung out for awhile. We headed over to the Palais Garnier for a fashion show. Supposedly it broke the genius book of world records for the longest run-way. It didn't seem that long, but if you said there were the most people in the show I would believe that.

It was La Mode C'est Vous. Basically people just sign up to be in the show and then get their hair and makeup done and walk down in whatever they want. I stayed for about 10 minutes. It was interesting.

I then went over to the church again and Michael gave me a blessing. I am not recovering very quickly and I get very weak and tired. I am worried about this, because I want to be able to o everything here. This was the first blessing that Michael has given me and it was a great experience. I love that boy.

I headed home and I learned an important lesson. Don't take the bus during rush hour. It took about and hour and a half on the bus to get home. I didn't mind too much because I was sitting down and the bus ride goes by awesome places, so I semi felt that I was accomplishing something.

Institute

Palais Garnier

Fashion Show

Hotel de Ville-Decorated with 'Love Differences' in all different languages.

The Tour of the bus ride home

Until it got dark...

Day 22

Well I got out of bed today-and early too! We left the house at 8h30ish and met our group for our art class. The class was great. We visited Saint Chapelle, le Concierge, and Notre Dame. It was interesting to get to look at some of these things in detail and understand them a little bit better.

Six of us went out to lunch in the Latin Quarter and it was good and cheap! I had some pita thing with some type of meat. It was good.

After that we took a 'Paris Walk.' It was a nice short one. We walked to a park and it was really cute. Can you tell that I am super tired and exhausted still?

Dinner with the family. We had duck-it was actually really good! I have also realized that the longer am here the worse my French gets. It's starting to getting embarrassing.

Short post-but it will have to do.

Cute shot of Notre Dame

PS-No I don't know this couple hehe

Saint Chapelle

Palais de Justice

Ile de la Cite

The Seine-I touched it today for the first time today!

Rue Rembrandt-Super cute street we walked down

Parc Monceau-my new favorite park! It had everything!

Loved this!

Day 21

Happiness=

Brian Regan

Well I'm still not feeling well today. Better for sure, but I have still been in bed most of the day sleeping on and off. I have been watching all of the Brian Regan videos I can find and having a wonderful time doing it. It is nice to be able to laugh even when I'm not feeling my best. Tomorrow is my art class and I will not be missing it, unless I can't move. Hopefully there will be more Paris pictures tomorrow!

Day 20

More of the same as yesterday but worse. I'm totally achy and I've been in bed all day.

Happy Birthday Grandma!!!

My wonderful Grandma is having a birthday today! I won't tell you how old, but it's a big one and I'm excited about it! It has been a little bit of a rough couple months for her, with her hip surgery, but I am glad she is back home to celebrate her birthday with the family! I'm sad I am missing the celebrations! Just wanted to tell everyone how lucky I am to have such a wonderful Grandma! I love you!

Day 19

Church. Late again. Jose was confirmed, with Michael in the circle. After that Michael repeated the English translation to the English room. Elder Johnson bore his testimony because he is new and Sister Smart bore her testimony because she it leaving. Then I went home. Im sick. The pic describes me for the rest of the day. Its freezing in our house.

PS its raining

Day 18

This afternoon I went to a baptism for one of Michael's investigators. I didn't really understand much, even so, by the end, I was able to feel the spirit as we sang Ensemble a Tout Jamias and the son gave the closing prayer. It was a great experience to be able to share that with Michael.

I also got to meet Michael's new companion, Elder Johnson. I like him a lot and Michael says he likes him too. I also got to meet Sister Elizabeth Smart today. It was interesting talking to her. She seemed so normal and chill. It was funny because I couldn't remember a lot of things about her. When she told me she was a music major I asked her what instrument she played. Duh! How could I not remember she played the harp. I also asked her where she was from. Well hopefully she just thought I was retarded. When I got home I watched an Opera interview with her and it was amazing that I had talked with her. I cant believe all she went through and how she manages to do all of this here. She is hard core!

Funny side note: After the baptism Michael and his new companion, Elder Johnson, had to go to the mission home so they left pretty quickly. Michael was trying to figure out how he would get his wet baptismal pants home, that Elder Gardner had worn. I said I could take them and give them to him at church tomorrow. So here they are just drying in my room. Once again I am taking care of my little brother.

After that I traveled home and Ally and I went out for the night. We were going to just head in to Paris and find dinner somewhere. There was an opening institute dance that we didn't think we would go to. We heard it was more of a party and that people didn't dance(boy were they wrong).

We checked out the institute and there was a fireside going on. We didn't think it started that early, but we thought we would just come back at eight when we had heard the dance was suppose to start. We got a nutella and almond crepe to hold us over until we could eat dinner at the institute. At Hotel de Ville there was a huge party. At first it was just somebody talking about what ever, but then the music started! It was so fun! There was this random American DJ from Miami and Ally and I jumped in on the dancing.

It was really fun and we were there for about 45 minutes. There was a big guy standing by me dancing. I noticed him, but I didn't think much of it seeing as everyone was just dancing and having a good time. He had been dancing by us for half an hour when Ally and I decided we were going to head back to the institute. As we went to cross the street about a hundred feet from where would had been dancing, this same guy come up and started talking to me. He was asking me to do something with him or something like that. He was speaking French. I said 'Non' quite firmly with out looking at him and then he said, "Pourquoi?"(why?) I said Non more loudly and forcefully. He wouldn't leave us alone and kept talking. I said Non a few more times and then I grabbed Ally's arm and we walked away. We watched to make sure he didn't follow us and I was glad we were only a few streets away from the institute.

So I had my first real experience with a creepy Frenchman. Not too bad. I actually enjoy the fact that I can be a total jerk and somehow its okay here : )

At the church there was dinner and then a dance. When we started dancing there weren't that many people dancing. But after a while everyone was dancing. There were probably at least a hundred people who stayed for the dance. We had a really good time. The dance was similar to our's back home, but different in a few ways too. All the songs were American which I thought was funny, but all the Frenchies knew the words, even if they had no idea what they were saying.

All in all, a good day and I haven't been to a dance in over two years, so I had a really fun time! Life is good. As I took a break from dancing and sat in the window of the church, looking past the beautiful architecture of our cute church courtyard, I had nothing to wish for when I saw the brightest star. Once again I felt grateful for the amazing life I have and all of the wonderful things that I get to do here.

The other church where the baptism was held.

Elder Gardner, Jose and Michael

Just Michael being Michael...

and then us trying really hard to be normal

Hotel de Ville party

Institute dance(Trish and Me)

(Ally and Berit)

(Oliver-an awesome guy in the ward)

(Trish and Me)

(Jayna and Me)