FINAL COUNTDOWN

Bonjour!

Ok so this will be my last week on my mission, and probably my second to last time emailing. 

WEIRD!

Last Monday wasn't super eventful; we just went shopping and played some ping pong. Patrick and Rosaline (our amis) came over to our apartment to take a look at some stuff because they have they're own company where they do plumbing, electricity, and practically everything! 

Tuesday we had an exchange with the Aix elders, Elder McKee and Elder Kahn. We visited sister Martinez as all four of us; she did some tailoring on my trousers so we went to give her that and so she could do the measurements. We also stayed and visited with her for a bit and it was really good. She's been a member for more than 50 years. 

After that, Elder McKee and I went to teach Xavier who's a recent convert. Xavier then went and dropped us off at Steak N Shake so we could go meet up with the other six elders (the zone leaders had an exchange as well). Afterwards we went and visited Gabriel and Ananias.

Wednesday I did a lot of preparing for district meeting as well as apartment stuff. In the evening we went to eat at the family Mongas' home. The Mongas is a super cool family! Frère Mongas served a mission and so he was telling me what it was like going home and stuff. For dinner we also had a vegetarian meal... it was really good! I didn't even realize until I got home that it was vegetarian but I loved it. Sister Mongas also helped us find an apartment because she works for an agency. Sister Mongas also said she knows or is acquainted with Isabelle Horrocks from the ward! 

Thursday was district meeting. And Thanksgiving. So of course my district meeting had a big football theme to it. We talked about a lot of good stuff with a lot of football analogies. It was interesting though because there were like 4 people that have no idea how to play American football. For lunch, we had the southern crew (Elder strong from Kentucky and Elder Pistole from Texas) make us some southern food. They made fried chicken with biscuits and gravy. They did a great job and it was very American! 

Last District Meeting

Our thanksgiving dinner was spent just at our apartment; I marinated some steaks and grilled them up, as well as we had some stuffing that my  mother sent me (merci mom!)

Friday we made some pumpkin chocolate chip cookies to take to an American family that hasn't been to church in a little while.. the father of the family is a rugby player for the team here. We dropped by without notice and no one was home except Mike. I've talked about Mike before in my emails from this last summer. Mike is an absolute homie! He's such a cool dude. I wasn't expecting to see him cause I thought he already peaced back out to the states, but apparently he was leaving on Sunday. It was really cool to see him again because we got to talk about how he's been since the last time we saw each other; the last time we talked, he somewhat poured out his whole life to us and how he doesn't know what to do. We invited him to fast with us on July 3rd. We didn't ever see him after that... 

But 5 months later, we were able to see him again and follow up. He said he fasted for the first time in his life on that day. He said ever since he fasted, he's had a clearer sense of what he needs to do. He said that he's also had less desire to do stuff against the commandements. He said he's willing to take consequences of past mistakes so that he can become a better person and turn his life around. 

I was so grateful that I got to see him again. It wasn't coincidence that it was just Mike that was home; he was supposed to be only one home. This quick meeting we had with him made me feel so good because I saw some of the fruits starting to grow about 5 months later. I'm super proud of him and I hope to be able to see him again back in the states. 

My boy and I

Friday evening we went and ate with Elder Tehahe's sister and brother-in-law That just got back from being on the sea for 4 months (cause he's a marine). We had some super good steaks and it was a chill evening. 

It's funny though, because they invited us back over for lunch on Saturday! 

We had lunch with them again on Saturday, where we had poisson cru and poisson cru salade. Poisson cru is raw fish. I Really liked the fish! 

For the evening we just went to Gabriel's and taught him, and we also picked up my pants from sister Martinez.

Sunday was pretty normal. Gabriel came to church and he enjoyed it! He came because one of our members called him and asked him to come so he did. It's cool that the member was such a good help to us.

In the afternoon, our ward mission leader invited us to come over for some cake because he had a lot left over from the night before. He had millefeuille, Tropezien, Opera, and a bunch of other super good cakes! I'm really gonna miss the pastries and stuff here. 

Well here it is for my last week. We've got some good plans and it'll be a good time. I'll probably write an email for next week, but I don't plan to respond to a lot of personal ones next week because I won't have enough time.

I love you all and I'll see you soon :)

Elder Steadman 

Sometimes it kind of feels like California here 

Also here is my invitation for when I will be speaking in sacrament meeting at home! Please come!

Two Weeks Left and Not Trunky

Bonjour tout le monde!

Okay sometimes I can be a little trunky.. I mean come on, I get to see my family! Haha 

Last Monday we went and had some pastries in the morning (some giant pastries and hot chocolate). The rest of the day we just chilled and went to the chapel. Not really many things happened, nothing too eventful. Except for some shredded paper fight.. but there's no use going into detail on that :)

Tuesday we went to IKEA (my favorite store) to buy some stuff for apartment. After we did an exchange with the other équipe in my apartment because both our comps were sick. I went with elder Laney. We went and had a rdv with one of their amis named Azam. Azam is from India, but he comes from a French speaking part of India. Haha apparently France had some colonies in India and there are parts of it that speak french! So that's pretty cool. We also had missionary coordination meeting with our ward mission leader. During that day I probably looked at some apartments (its become everyday now.. we're trying to get this done)

Wednesday I legit can't remember what happened.. 

Thursday not much happened other than some appointment with a plumber. (He was late and so we were waiting for him forever) He came and fixed one of the many problems in our apartment. Let's just say that the shower wasn't able to used for a good part of the week.. haha no more comments on that.

 For the evening we went to the Patous' for dinner. They got us some pizza and we had a good evening with them! If you don't remember them, these are the investigators that have a baptismal date for next year because they have a really complicated situation. But they're super cool! They talked to us about their testimony of keeping the sabbath day. Ever since they had a certain experience, they've stopped working on Sunday and they always come to church. 

Friday we had an exchange with the elders in Gap. I took elder pistole and we quickly took a look at some apartment stuff, and I FOUND THE PERFECT APARTMENT! 

For me it was a straight miracle because it met all of my criteria perfectly and it's what we need. So I talked to the woman on the phone and we'll hopefully have it by next week. 

Afterwards we helped out the zone leaders with preparing for food on Saturday for the zone conference We were helping cook this giant ham. In the evening we had a missionary movie night at our ward and we showed "On the Lords errand." There were some amis that showed up so that was good. 

We also had interviews with president brown that same night. They got to Toulon around 7 and we had our interviews in the middle of the missionary movie night. It was an interesting interview because it was like a preparatory interview for my last one, we just talked about the last two years and how much of a journey it has been. I also talked to him about the apartment situation because I've been a little bugged by how much of our time it's eating up, but he reassured me that it's okay because the Lord will his part. I'm very grateful for President Brown, as well as Sister Brown. 

Saturday was the conference, and it was a zone conference not like any other on my mission.. we had like the actually conference for about an hour, then Elder Loosle, Elder Richmond, and  I all gave our departing testimonies. At the conference there was also Elder Kahn and à Elder Thangaraj, two of my former companions that I trained! It was special but it also seemed kind of weird. A lot of missionaries get up there for the departing testimony and talk about how they never thought this day would come. I felt the same way but I didn't say that of course because that's way too cliché and I tried to keep mine original :) 

We had a super good holiday lunch, a white elephant game, and a small ping pong tournament haha. It was a pretty good conference, especially being my last one! 

Sunday we had church.  Between the two companionship's, we had 10 investigators at church! President brown, sister brown, and the assistants all stayed for church and that was cool. President and Sister Brown were asked to speak during sacrament meeting, and I know the ward really liked what they said! President brings just such a powerful spirit to everyone. The ward swarms them. 

This week is thanksgiving, and next week is my last week on the mission. Pray for the people that need to hear our message :)

And happy thanksgiving!! 

Love Elder Steadman 

THREE WEEKS????

Bonjour tout le monde!

These weeks seem like they're taking quite a while, but then I realize I only have three weeks left... I don't even really realize that I'll be home so soon. It doesn't seem real to me at all. Haha but the work is still going! 

Last Monday we just went into ville and looked in random stores. I also bought a few things for after the mission. In the evening we went to Elder Tehahe's sister's home for family home evening. This time it was just us two and four Tahitian women. We had a really good spiritual thought that was shared between us and elder Tehahe's sister. And plus the food was great as always and I ate a lot! (I've probably gained weight this transfer just because of all the Tahitian eating)

Giant pain au chocolat And croissant

Tuesday was just a bunch of apartment finding stuff.. I'm kind of getting annoyed by it now just because people aren't super reliable following up, so I always have to be the one following them up (talking specifically about people in the apartment agencies). My parents would be proud of me though; I've never had to get an apartment on my own in the states, but here I am doing it in a different language and in a different country! 

Wednesday we saw Amerga who is a less active. He's doing well and we hope he'll come to church one of these weeks.. he wasn't there yesterday but maybe this week. We also saw our friend Jacques.. he took us to a bird park near his apartment and we talked a bit. 

Thursday was zone training. It was my last zone training of the mission! This next week we have zone conference, which will also be my last interview with president before the going home interview. For lunch we had kebabs (another thing that I'll really miss). After zone training, we had a big exchange with Vitrolles Elders And Marseille Elders. They're not in our district, but they stayed in Toulon for the evening, because if they went back to Marseilles they would've been there after their curfew of 6:00PM. My comp and I went in a trio with Elder Loosle (my roommate in the spring!) and went to do some work. First we visited a single woman named Helene and gave her a blessing. After we visited a member named Sylvain. We then went and visited our Brazilian homie Gabriel and his parents. We shared our lesson with them and then we brought Gabriel with us to eat at Burger King with the other 5 Elders. Elder Thangaraj was also there so it was chill chilling with my homie.

Friday we did some more apartment stuff.. but afterward we went to pass a member to see how she's doing and it turn out that she's not doing super well.. so we called the other équipe of elders to come over for us to give her a blessing. It was s very spiritual moment for us and this member. 

Saturday we went and had lunch with one our amis named Henri.. he invited to come eat with him.. now my parents and family aren't going to believe this one.. but for lunch we went to a seafood place. It was a first for me for a lot of things and i actually enjoyed it. I ate mussels, salmon, stuffed octopus, and swordfish! I wouldn't say that in the future I would choose that over a steak, but I actually liked it! I'm glad I got to do it because while being in a Mediterranean Sea city, it's somewhat obligatory to do that. So we finally did :) 

Seafood lunch

Crème Brûlée 

After that we went to Henri's home for a lesson... it lasted a lot longer than I wish it would have, but he just had so many questions. We gave him a Book of Mormon to read and he said he would do it. 

That same night we were walking home with the other elders and we saw a couch and arm chair on the side of the road.. and so we sat down on it. It was right by a stoplight and so people at the stoplight were smiling and laughing when they saw us just sitting there... so we ended up sitting there for a half hour during our dinner hour just waving to people. Haha it was really random and dumb but people liked it! We got some funny reactions and some photos taken of us. 

Sunday was a pretty normal Sunday, other than the fact we had 11 investigators at church between our équipe and the other elders équipe! It was incredible.  It's probably the most I've seen my whole mission in one single ward.

My comp also somewhat passed out in the late afternoon.. he was in the kitchen and he blacked out and fell and hit his head on the cabinet door on the ground. He busted it open a bit. We didn't even hear him fall but Elder Laney found him laying on the ground with his eyes open but he wasn't responding. He came back to his senses and says he doesn't remember falling. He said he started to blackout but he has no recollection of falling. We called the mission nurse and she suggested resting and drinking water. It really scared us for a moment but he's doing fine now :)

Well that's about all. I love you all! Have a great week!

Love three-weeks-left Elder Steadman

(As you can see I'm taking advantage of all the food I can) 

Tahitian Tidal Wave

Bonjour!

This week was interesting but pretty sweet.. I'm down to less than a month left now, and I'm kind of stressed out about that. Elder Richmond (who's going home with me) and I were talking about and thinking about our homes. It felt superrrr weird to think about our actual house! Like thinking about my room is weird... hahah anyways.

Last Monday we just spent the day shopping cause it was Elder Tehahe's birthday.. but that evening we went to a Tahitian sisters house (his sister haha) for his birthday. We ate really well and we got to meet some people. 

Tuesday we had an interesting rdv with a guy who's a practicing Jew but accepts Jesus as his savior and redeemer... I don't even understand how you can be both.. He's a nice guy and he wants to see us, but he doesn't really let us teach anything. So we'll see if we continue with him. He has a neighbor who's Tahitian, so we'll probably go knock his door :)

Wednesday we had an exchange! I actually got to go with Elder Kahn, who is my bleu. So that was pretty chill being with him again! We just contacted for a bit and taught some people and got their phone numbers. After we made two trios, and I went with Elder Kahn and Elder McKee to go teach a lesson to a woman. It turns out that the woman's husband was super interested too. So we somewhat taught about the restoration with an emphasis as God the eternal father, and we got a return appointment with them! So we're super stoked and we hope to be able to make some good progress with them. 

That evening we all went to Steak 'n Shake... Super good stuff.

Thursday we just had district meeting and stuff. We have three people in the district that are native French speakers and don't speak fluent English, so we did the meeting completely in French. That was a first for me doing the district meeting in French but it went well. We ate supreme nachos for lunch. Afterwards I was feeling pretty sick, so we took some time at the chapel to look for apartment stuff (I've kind of taken charge of the whole apartment search) and we went in for the night to do area book stuff... I'm not sure if I mentioned last week, but we finally got the area book and planner app! After a year and a half of having an iPad, we now have the app. Honestly it's pretty tedious trying to transition everything over to it, and it's also hard to be motivated to work on it cause I won't even use it for long.. hahah

Friday we took a bus to a place called the Rivest to meet one of our friends named Henri. Henri is a philosopher. Henri thinks a lot about everything. Henri has a lot of questions. Henri talks a lot. Henri is also a really nice guy. He lives in Toulon but wanted to have our rdv in the rivest because he lived there for fifteen years. It's a beautiful little village in the mountains behind Toulon. I wasn't able to grab any photos but maybe the next time. 

That evening we went with a member to visit a member woman. She doesn't really have the capability to come to church in Toulon, but she still has a lot of faith and is doing a lot to grow it. I actually met this woman back in Bordeaux because she came to church with her daughter, who lives in Bordeaux with her husband.. so I met that woman over there and I see her again here! She made us some chocolate chip cookies and wow! those made me so trunky. Hahah 

Saturday was pretty crazy.

So as you know, my comp is Tahitian, and so naturally if we see Tahitians on the street we easily start talking to him. We've been invited by multiple tahitian families to activities with  their friends. So we've been meeting lots of really cool tahitian people that are open to the gospel. Elder Tehahe's sister has been a lot of help as well. Specifically there's this one couple that we've been thinking about. The subject line comes from this. 

For Saturday afternoon, we had about two hours open. In my mind i was just like "okay we'll go contact" but my comp was like "No let's not do that. Let's go find miracles." So I was like okay, that's a better Idea! So we started to find some miracles.. we found one in the first five minutes. We taught a guy sitting on a bench; he was interested and we got his number. Later on, we were walking around, finding miracles, but at the same time looking for an apartment.. so we see these three huge towers, and decided to go take a look at it, to see if there's anything there that we could check out for an apartment. We're walking in between two of the towers in a small park, and I hear something from one of the towers.. I look at my comp and I said "do you hear that? That's a Tahitian ukulele!" Now Tahitian ukuleles aren't just normal ukuleles. They have 8 strings, they sound higher than a normal ukulele, and they have a different body shape. So I was just thinking that there are for sure Tahitians in the area. We walk to the other side of the building, and the doors are wide open. So we just go in and start looking at the mailboxes. We find three names that are potentially Tahitian families. We started to make our way through this maze of a building and get to the sixth floor. We go to a door and we hear a lot of people talking... so we're just like, dang it's a party and we wouldn't want to interrupt them. But I was also thinking "dang it's a party let's go join them." So we decided to knock the door..

A Tahitian guy opens up, and his wife is behind him and she's like "hey come in and eat!" We met the wife last Monday at a family home evening! and there was that couple that we've been thinking and praying about, plus a few other people we know, and like 15 Tahitians we don't know! Literally it was insane that we found ourselves there! They invited us in to come eat with them because it was their babies birthday. I found myself again surrounded by Tahitians and being the only American haha. We ate well and got to talk to a lot of people! 

We had planned to find some miracles, and when we had thought the miracles were done and we moved on, we realized that we were constantly being guided toward our miracle.

We have another family home evening tonight with a few of them and we're excited for that. :)

That same night we went to our Brazilian friends' home, and they fed us pizza (Side note: yes we had second dinner because both of them were unplanned. It's a miracle that we've had these random dinners because our stove top in the apartment broke and so all we have is an oven and a microwave, and it's kind of difficult to make stuff without the stove top.. so the fact that we're just getting food randomly has been great!)

Sunday was pretty normal. Last week there were a lot of members that were gone on vacation, so I got to see some more members again so that was nice. My comp and I got to give a blessing to a woman in our ward with our bishop and one of his counselor.. she's going to get surgery this week and it's running a lot of risks because it could mess with her nerves. 

We're seeing miracles and trying our best to help people come unto Christ :) 

Love you all! See you soon!

More of Toulon with a Tahitian

Note from Mom and Dad:  We got talk on the phone this last week  with Jake on Wednesday.  His Grandma Lois  (Karls mother) passed away on Wednesday and we had contacted the mission secretary by email to let them know we were emailing him to tell him the news. Before we even got the chance to tell him, President Brown called him and shared the news with him and had him call home to talk to us.  He is doing really well and said he is so busy he doesn't have time to get trunky.  (34 days left today but who is counting???)   He said he only occasionally thinks about how much he is going to miss France. ( I don't think he wants to come home haha)  But it was great that we could talk to him, hear his voice and know what a wonderful mission president (s) he has had.

Happy Halloween!

Monday was a pretty crazy day.. I left Bordeaux in the morning and had a direct train to Marseilles. It stopped in Toulouse for five minutes so we got off and said hi to the missionaries there. It's the last time I'll see a lot of them so it was nice to see them! I arrived in Marseilles and had about 30 minutes til my next train. There were quite a few of my mission homies! Elder Thangaraj, Elder Engel, and Elder Moss were there. It was fun seeing Engel cause I didn't think I'd ever see him before I go home, but we ate dinner with him at night before he got the ferry to Corsica! Elder Moss is headed out to Pau, so it was probably the last time I see that homie. Elder Thangy, the homie that I served with in valence is in this zone! As well as my trainee elder Kahn! As well as my future college roommate elder Loosle! It'll be cool to see those guys again. 

My homies

So a little more about my comp.. His name is Elder Tehahe,he's from Tahiti, he's like 6'7 and he's super chill. Today (Halloween) is actually his birthday! This morning elder Richmond and I ran to a boulangerie and bought him some pastries. He's in his fourth transfer but I can tell already that he's a baller missionary. It's super interesting though because he has a sister who's a member here and Toulon, and he knows a couple other Tahitians.. he talked to president and the assistants and apparently they are aware of it and they dont have any problem. 

My companion I feel so small next to him!

Tuesday we did our groceries in the morning. We just did some organizing in the afternoon. That evening we went to dinner with some members! It's some Tahitian members that I knew, and they knew my comp from before his mission.. they've apparently been to his house to eat! So we went and ate food with them and it was nice to see them again. Always a good time eating with Tahitians!

Wednesday we did some more organizing stuff for the apartment (we're four in an apartment that isn't super big). Elder Tehahe and I went and did some finding in the afternoon. We dropped by a members home really fast to say hello, and then we went and visited some old people I taught. In the evening we went and visited Ananias and Gabriel, the Brazilians! It was super nice to see them again. 

My Companion and I

On Thursday, Elder Tehahe's sister took us to lunch with three of her nonmember friends. We went to a Chinese buffet and it was super good! One of the friends might be interested to learn more, so we hope to see them again. That day we contacted for a really long time with not much success.. then around 7pm we were waiting for the other elders in ville to go to a dinner appointment. We had like five minutes so we decided to talk to some people and we started talking to a woman who was super cool! She's from Reunion Island and she was down to talk about God. So we got her info and all so that will be cool. We had dinner with Ananias and Gabriel, our Brazilian homies. They made these things that are like homemade Brazilian hot pockets, and they were really good. 

Friday we met with Amerga, who was a less active member that I met when I was here. It's nice because every missionary has there own personal, mental area Book, and it's nice that we don't have to start with no knowledge. Amerga is from Ethiopia and he'd like to come back to church, but he has a lot to do. He has a pregnant wife who isn't a member and we're going to try to teach her soon. We went to try to pass one our old investigators, but her name wasn't on the mailbox.. so we tried talking to some people and do some contacting and the first person we found a woman that would be interested! It's crazy how the Lord will put us in places and things might now work out, but in the end there's another reason that we're supposed to be there.

Saturday we contacted for a really long time in the afternoon. We weren't having much success until our last conversation with some old guy that just got off his bike. In our conversation, one random dude just walked up and asked the old guy about his bike, and the random guy was pulled into our conversation. We ended up taking his number and we will see him soon! It's cool because not many people approach us like that. In the evening we went and played some sports with our Brazilian Ami Gabriel and some other random Africans. Gabriel is really into skating and so he was showing us some cool stuff at the skatepark! 

Sunday we had church and it was so great to see members again! They all remembered and it was a warm re-welcoming to the ward, as well as the two others. They're pretty stoked about have four missionaries so they're ready to work with us. After church we did our one hour of feu de joie.. i dont think I've ever explained this, but president brown has given us one hour every Sunday to work on our spiritual and temporal autonomy, as well as genealogy. So we have a lot of different things we can do; for example we can do indexing or family history work. We can also work on things such as applying for universities, learning a new skill such as sewing, and et cetera. So lately, I've actually been teaching myself to play piano and practicing! It's coming.. slowly, haha but it's nice that president gives us that one hour so we can try to develop ourselves in many different ways.