Week 5 of MTC

Caleb called us after playing soccer. He was super sweaty but had fun scoring goals! We LOVE hearing from him! 

His native French teacher is a funny guy! The Elders were giving him gruff for using a kids version to teach the letters of the alphabet! The characters were creepy! 

Caleb’s view at French class! 

Caleb gets entertainment while in class! This is the lid to his pen, he was using the spring in the pen to launch it!

Blue sky! 

His companion caught a Gecko and took it outside! 

Between classes chilling! 

Their teacher will call them on zoom and have them teach him a lesson, they have to record it and then watch it. 

Pretty sunset as seen from the window! 

This is a contract they had to sign that for the rest of the time in the MTC they would only speak French! 

Impression of Batman from a funny elder! 

This Elder loves the Chosen series and so he has it on his phone and is watching it but he likes to have the phone right up to his face when watching it! 

They made up a new version of uno where you play with your cards for everyone to see. He said it is a super fun twist. 

Saturday he had to take tests to see where he is at with his French and stuff. He is right where people who have learned French for three weeks would be at! 

He had to rate his companion, and it warmed my heart that he put him at best friend. Heavenly Father knew the right person to put my sweet Caleb with and I could not be more grateful he had such a great first companion experience! Thanks Elder Christensen you will be missed, thankfully they are going to the same mission and should see each other! 

Their teacher wanted to get pictures with them. 

Pretty sunset as seen from the window!

Here’s a video of Caleb speaking French! 

This is his email this week:

Hey everyone!

This week was pretty chill. We didn't learn much French this week since it was mostly just reviewing stuff we already knew. We had to do some mock lessons in French which also went pretty well. 

On Wednesday our teacher was really excited, and then proceeded to pull out a contract for us to sign. It was an Speak Your Language contract that said we could only speak French for the rest of our MTC stay. We signed it, and spoke French most of the time. We did okay for the first couples days, and in class. Just don't tell our instructor what language we spoke in our room.. lol

On Thursday we went to the temple. We did baptisms. It wasn't busy which was nice. We did confirmations first, all by ourselves. The temple worker took us to the room, and then left. That was a first, but it was cool doing it ourselves. It was nice being in the temple where it is so quiet. I don't know how much I'm going to be in the temple in the next 2 years, but I heard the Abidjan temple is almost done, which will be exciting. 

We had a few tests this week. The first test was Friday morning, and it was like 40 questions. We had to do some translation, write a testimony, answer some questions, and more. I did decently well, especially with the conjungation stuff. On Saturday we took a few more tests. We did some teacher evaluations, an MTC survey, a grammar test, and a couple small ones. 

The biggest test though is called the EI test. I don't know what it stands for though. You go to a quiet place, and then the test will say a phrase in French, and you have to repeat the phrase. You can only hear the phrase one time, and they gradually get harder. Most people learning French in the MTC get a 2-3 out of ten. If you have some previous French skills, a 3-4. If you get a 7, your fluent. I got a 2.3, which was about average. It means I can have a basic conversation, ask questions, and express myself. 

Spritual Thought:

On Sunday we had a MTC devotional, and then a devotional from Elder Gong. It was recorded since Elder Gong talked to the Provo MTC eariler this week. I'll just share two quotes with you guys.

My favorite quote from the MTC devotional was from the MTC President's wife. She said. "We need brave men and women to do God's work ... He knows you, He hears you, and He loves you." Life gets hard sometimes, especially when we try to do the right thing, but just remember that Heavenly Father is watching over you.

The other quote was from Elder Gong. He said, "The key to freedom, is obedience." As a missionary there are a lot of rules we follow, and as followers of Christ there are a lot of commandments that we must keep. The straight and narrow path may be hard sometimes, but in time that narrow path will widen, and we will be able to be just like Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. 

Bonne Journée!

Elder Robinson