1. The last P-day of my mission
2. Not some dorkaziod missionaries
3. Even if the church is perfect, the people aren't
4. It's not that simple

• (character chart)

1. Young Women's
2. Youth Conference
3. Saturday's Warrior
4. Brigham Young University
• Gratuitous Love Scene
5. Polygamist
6. Temple Wedding
7. Orem High
8. Bordeaux Mission
9. Exmo Conference

Elder Beaverton raised an eyebrow disapprovingly as Andrea looked us over. "Oh, okay," she said, as if she hadn't considered the possibility before. "But with all the effort they make to look like an endless series of identical clones, you can hardly fault me for thinking that one's as good as another."

When we got to the Jardin Public, the girls started getting out the food. It was true that they'd gotten a ton of tasty stuff. They'd also brought three bottles of wine. Elder Beaverton looked pretty shocked that they'd apparently had the idea that they would drink a full bottle of wine each with lunch, but it didn't stop him from serving himself a big plate of food, or from digging in after we'd said a quick prayer, which the girls ignored.

Fortunately they started by opening just one of the bottles. Of course they offered us some, and of course we declined.

It looked like some people were looking at us. I didn't think we were really breaking any important rules in any serious way, but still it seemed like maybe we weren't presenting a good image of LDS missionaries. Trying not to be too obvious about it, I took off my name-tag. Elder Beaverton shot me a look as if he weren't too pleased about this whole thing, but he took off his name-tag too.

Once our meal was underway, Elder Beaverton said, "Now ladies, about that discussion. I was thinking it might be prudent to start with the law of chastity."

That really set the girls laughing. They seemed pretty happy to have invited us along since Elder Beaverton was clearly the funniest guy on the planet.

"Oh! Oh!" said Tanya, "Can you teach us all how to become eight-cow wives?" Then they were falling over each other laughing. "Dammit, Andrea, now you've got me doing it!" she said. Elder Beaverton and I both laughed too. After all, it was true that that "Johnny Lingo" and his "eight-cow wife" thing was pretty cheesy...

"So what brings you ladies to Bordeaux?" I asked. "Besides looking for me, that is."

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"We spent a few days in Paris," said Kim, "and we were thinking of traveling all over France, but we have such a sweet set-up here in Bordeaux, we might just stay here for the rest of our trip."

"Some of my parents' friends from Princeton own an apartment in town, and they're lending it to us," said Andrea.

"Ah, yes," said Tanya. "It is very important -- no one is ever to forget -- that Andrea's not really from Orem." Then in a haughty tone, looking down her nose, she said "Andrea's from Princeton." Then the three of them laughed.

Once we'd eaten our fill, the girls started gathering the remains back into the basket. In the end, the girls had drank just the one bottle of wine and hadn't opened the other two. Then Andrea took us to go look at the turtles. There really were turtles -- actual turtles, not half-naked guys -- sunning themselves on some branches in the little lake near one of the grassy islands.

I went to get my watch out of my bag, and as I was opening it up, a copy of Le Livre de Mormon caught Tanya's eye.

"Can I see that?" she asked. I handed it to her as I was putting on my watch and closing my bag.

"Wow, this is really wild," she said, paging through it. "It's the Book of Mormon, all in French!"

"Well, of course it is!" said Elder Beaverton. "Do you think we expect the French people to read the Book of Mormon in English?"

"Sorry, I guess I'm a little slow," said Tanya. "I hadn't thought about it." Then she said, "You don't need this do you?" and ran off with it to one of the little passerelles [foot bridges] to the island.

It was pretty clear what her little game was. She wanted me to chase her, and then to catch her, and then...

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