Jakes Journey to France

Bonjourrrrr!!

Hello! Here's my week..

Monday we went to "jardin public" and had lunch with the other six missionaries in Bordeaux. After we did a little shopping and then came back to the institute to do emails. Nothing too interesting. 

Bordeaux

Tuesday was interesting... we spent a large chunk of our afternoon at IKEA. Our apartment is really lacking a lot of stuff, so we talked to the office and they approved of us going to ikea to get what we need. And as I was in the moving equipe and Elder hall was in the office, we knew exactly what to get. Our motto was "Be frugal but not too cheap." And so Friday morning we'll be getting a nice delivery with all of our stuff :)

I'm literally considering taking up a summer job at IKEA next year.. I know that place so well now. I love it. haha

Wednesday we had an exchange with Angoulême. I was with elder Duffy for the day and we had a day full of rdvs! (We actually had nothing planned... so we planned to teach lessons on the street haha it was a pretty cool day. Elder Sorenson (who is from draper) was with my comp elder hall. Between the four of us, we were able to teach 14 lessons in one day! It was really cool and we had a great day. We met a lot of people that seem pretty interested. So it was. 

Thursday we went to Limoges early in the morning for district meeting... it was soooooo cold! Haha it took three hours to get there.. and another three to get back. District meeting was great! And one of the elders, Elder maiava, went all out on lunch and it all looked really nice. We came back from Limoges and went straight to our first English class! There were 5 people that came so that was pretty cool. They were people we all know pretty well so it was a very chill English class, but it was fun!

District Meeting

Friday we got our IKEA delivery (our apartment needed a bunch of stuff) so we spent all morning setting stuff up. After we went to visit Bruno but that didn't work out, so we went contacting for a little bit. We didn't have much success. In the evening we met up with a potential investigator to learn more about him but we won't be able to teach him because of certain circumstances.. he's a really nice guy but he's not in a good position to receive the gospel and be able to follow everything. That evening we went out to dinner with the sisters and Yuwei, who is one of their amis. She's Chinese! A few weeks ago I asked her if she knows any good chinese hot pot places in Bordeaux.. which led us to setting a day and time for all of us to go get Chinese hot pot! I had Chinese hot pot for my first time in Toulouse last year and it was super good, but this time was even better! 

Let explain how it all works..

On the table is a small burner for a pot. You choose the kind of soupe you want (I chose a spicy one with chili peppers and stuff) and then you put the pot on your burner and let it heat up. After that you can order all sorts of stuff à volonté (I dont know what the correct way to say it is but you can have as much as you want.. for example there's beef, pork, ham, vegetables such at carrots, noodles, rice cakes, shrimp, etc) and then you place the food in the pot, let it heat up and then you pull it out and put it in the little bowl of sauce that you've made, and then eat it. It's SO GOOD! Like absolutely amazing. And apparently I really like shrimp now, so that's new. (My family just knows how much I didn't like seafood before the mish)

By the way it's  now sweater season in France so that's always a wonderful thing!

Saturday we played sports in the morning and we played soccer. We met some cool people and there were some members there. After we came home and ate, then we went back to the church for a rdv that didn't actually happen cause the girl didn't come.. but we taught the member that came and that was nice! Afterwards there was a baptism for a girl in our ward and we stayed for that. There were quite a few nonmembers and we were able to talk to them. We had our missionary meeting with our ward mission leader and then came home!

Sunday we had church.. our Ami Jordan came so that's good! He's hesitant to accept a baptismal date, but he's super integrated and loves the church and the ward and the doctrine. So we'll see what happens with him.. after church we contacted and then went to Frere (brother) Defranchi's for a little spiritual meeting with some young adults and  Jordan. It was really good. Frere Defranchi Is an opera singer in Bordeaux; he has an "Im a Mormon" video if you want to try to find him! He's super nice and loves helping us. 

Afterwards we contacted to try to get our 20th lesson of the week and we taught the first person we met! She wasn't super interested but it was still good. But we were happy to get our twenty lessons! We were able to meet some really cool people that we hope to see this next week. The whole push of twenty lessons comes from Elder Neil L Andersen's promise of "if you teach twenty lessons a week, you will baptize once a month." So we're striving to get that! 

Our week was pretty crazy but still went really well. The spirit is here with us and it is helping us be where we need to be! Thanks for your support and all you do. 

Love you all!