Late-ish

I awoke to my doorbell ringing and looked at the time on my phone. It was terrifyingly 8:49: our train for Marseille left at 9:24. I opened the door to see my internship partner standing expectantly in the hallway. I must've been a sight in my pink-patterned pajamas, undone hair, and puffy sleep-eyes. I clearly wasn't ready for the day, and I spoke in English to top it all off.

"I just woke up."

As if she couldn't tell.

In a miracle of all miracles, we made it to the station at about 9:22. We took our seats on the train in relief and then watched as a family trooped in and sat down near us. Three little boys--10, 6, and 4 I would later hear--confidently took their seats and their mother followed after.

I tried to be covert as I watched and listened to the scene that played out as the train sped along. 6-year-old boy (after having chosen a seat behind his family next to a random guy) decided to take a different row all to himself, and played a game of pretend. The 10-year-old sat patiently in his seat across from his mom, quiet and polite. Little 4-year-old in the window seat sat quietly, too, moving only occasionally to put his head against his mother's ample shoulder. Despite my attempted subtlety, my gaze crossed hers twice or thrice, and we shared a grin each time. Her teeth were bright against her skin and her eyes were pleasant and content.

What a beautiful family. What a beautiful family. I felt blessed to watch their interactions during the one-hour ride: they were all full of love. Mom had to correct the boys every once in a while, sure. But how they smiled! How they enjoyed each other! That's what a family should do; that's how a family should be.

I'm glad we weren't late for the train. We would've missed them.

Broken-ish

It was just another regular normal typical internship day...cleaning tile.

Another volunteer, an older-ish guy from the Czech Republic, had put in some new tile at a vacation house that Les Petits Frères owns near the beach. He didn't want anyone helping him--except for us, the American girls, who he decided to trust to help him swab up the extra chalky grout on each carré. We'd already done another room, in fact, with much success.

This room, on the other hand, was more difficult despite its relative smallness. The white paste refused to give under our water-and-vinegar-soaked towels. We were using the metal spatula a lot more to scrape chunks of grout from the corners, passing it back and forth across the room. So it wasn't surprising when my internship partner asked for it and I slid it a couple feet across the floor to her. What was surprising--and slightly horrifying--and completely stupid in hindsight--was when the metal spatula caught on a raised tile and chipped the side.

Are you kidding me? I whispered, breaking out of French in frustration and fear. I knew how hard Czech Man had worked on this (all by himself, no less) and I was supposed to be being careful with his project. So, wondering what he would do, I called out to him. "I ruined your tile," I told him in French when he stepped into the doorway.

To my great relief, he didn't even look surprised. "Don't you worry one more minute about it," he said in his halting French. "It's not your problem, it's a problem with the tile. But next time, could you crack one on the edge over there?"

We laughed, and to add to my comfort, I found other chipped tiles as I continued cleaning. I wasn't the only one making mistakes around here. But I was the grateful recipient of the forgiveness we all seek, for the little things and the big things, from our friends and from our Father in Heaven.

Junior-ish

This week I have been praying to know who to give a Book of Mormon to.

Actually, I've been praying to know that for a long time.

Once upon a time, before winter semester ended, a guy in our ward challenged us to give a Book of Mormon to somebody. No timeline, no check-up date. Just a challenge for life. I started praying, got lazy, then started again. I wanted to do it. I've never done it before. And when I knew I was going to do this internship in France, the thought came that why not give someone a Book of Mormon (or, rather, un Livre de Mormon) here?

But this week, as I prayed, I kept feeling like I needed to ask my internship partner about it. So I finally did, and when I did, I understood why the feeling had come.

She spoke plainly about the gospel and about how it worked giving out copies of the Book of Mormon when she was a missionary. She suggested that I make a list of people and then pray about who from that list. She then read me D&C 84:85 and 88, testifying that the verses were true, and that it had happened to her on her mission--that words came like *that* when she needed them, and that they weren't even hers. She added that I could fast about it, too.

Good advice, clear and Spirit-filled. Just like a senior companion is supposed to give.