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

"He threatened me," said Elder Dietrich. "You all heard it. I'm sorry, but I have no choice but to report this to the Mission President."

"Come on, cut him some slack," I said. "He's going home in less than a week. Why make a big deal over something like this?"

"I'm just following the rules," said Elder Dietrich.

"Report it all you want, dickhead," said Elder West. "This time next week, I'll be on the beach sunning myself back home in California, and you'll still be here knocking on doors."

"You'd better watch it," said Elder Dietrich. "It's still not too late for your mission to end dishonorably."

"Why you little -- !" said Elder West.

"Let it slide," I said to Elder West, blocking his access to Elder Dietrich. "You'll be home soon -- there's no reason to get worked up over this." Then I turned to Elder Dietrich. "And you leave him alone. How he completes his mission is between him and the Mission President now."

That broke up the fight, and everybody started gathering their things to go.

"You were fantastic!" said Sister Bell.

"All in a day's work," I said jokingly. "I don't know what this mission is going to do without me."

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By the time Elder Beaverton and I got back to our apartment, it was past 18 heures (6 p.m.), so p-day was officially over, and it was time to get back to work.

The cool thing was that our work for the evening was hardly work. We finally had a referral for once -- in fact, better than a referral, one of the local members had invited us to dinner to give the first discussion to her sister.

The member family lived a few blocks from downtown in one of the typical single-story stone townhouses of Bordeaux (called an échoppe). The wife, Marie-Hélène, was born and raised in Bordeaux, and the husband, Robert, was an American guy, originally from Arizona, who had served a mission to France. They'd met at BYU of all places. Marie-Hélène had converted to Mormonism as a teenager, and had left her home country on her own to study at BYU. It was a pretty lucky find for Robert in my opinion since I couldn't imagine there were many more like her back at the Y.

When we arrived at the échoppe, almost as soon as Robert opened the door we were greeted by his two little boys, two-year-old Benjamin and four-year-old Kevin. They tumbled on us like two cute little tornadoes. The boys knew us already since Robert was always friendly with the missionaries and let us come over whenever we wanted.

Next Marie-Hélène arrived to welcome us with the traditional French greeting of a kiss on each cheek. We weren't supposed to encourage that sort of thing, but Marie-Hélène insisted and wouldn't have it any other way. She was really very pretty, and it was a treat to listen to her speaking French so naturally, like music, the way it was meant to be spoken. And it was cute the way she pronounced her husband's name in the French fashion: "Ro-BEAR".

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