Jakes Journey to France

VALENCE VILLE

Note from Editor (mom) - feel free to flood Jake with congrats on his 1 year mark on December 17th and Christmas wishes, he would love to hear from everyone.  His email address is jsteadman@myldsmail.net

So this is gonna be short and lame cause I don't have time.. Sorry!

LES MEMBRES
We had a bunch of meals with members this week. They've been feeding
us a lot. The members are super. After church on Sunday they all
come to us and they're like "ok you can come for dinner this day and
then lunch on this day" so we're just like chillin. It's pretty cool!
They're super supportive of us!

I'm not gonna go into detail about all the meals, but my favorite one
was spent with the Tuilevuka family. He's the rugby player from Fiji
and his wife is American. They hook us up! He was a missionary, and so
he's always like "I know what it's like guys...  Now let's go get some
mcflurrys" hahah so we really appreciate them!

We also had dinner at Sophie's house. She's this cool young adult in
our ward, and she's coming to Utah for 3 weeks! So we had a little
farewell dinner for her on Sunday night and it was super fun.

D'AUTRES CHOSES
Honestly I can't remember what else happened this week...
I went on exchange with elder little. He's very bleu (we say bleu, not
greenie) and from England. He's very English. But it was a good
exchange. I've been getting use to being around really young
missionaries and being the one that needs to know how to speak French.
In our district of 8 elders, 3 of them are blues and one of them just
finished being a blue. So we're pretty young out here.

We hung out with one of our Amis Odile. She's super cool! We want to
try to start teaching her this week. She knows a lot of stuff already.
It's just that in the Past she was pushed a little too much by
missionaries. So we're just being her friend right now :) But we just
went to centreville valence and looked around at the shops. We might
go on the Ferris wheel this week.

We're going to Lyon next week for a mission conference. We're supposed
to leave Monday evening and be there until Wednesday evening, but
we're gonna change the train and go Monday morning. That we can spend
all day in Lyon just hanging out! I already called my homie Gabriel. I
get to hang out with him next week! It'll be the first time I'll see
him since his baptism. So I'm stoked for that!

One thing that stood out to me this week was how we judge others... Do
we ever look around at church and judge others? Do we complain about
other members? Do we judge them because they have different weaknesses
than us? Do we judge them because of their "class," occupation, or the
way they're dressed?

We're all here for the same reason. We all deserve a chance to listen
to the gospel. We all deserve the right to utilize the atonement of
Jesus Christ, even after many failed attempts. We're all children of
God :)

I love you all :) have a great week!

One of the only pictures I took this week.. Valence Christmas time