Week 8

Sharing hotspot with his companion stinks. This phone call was pretty choppy but I’m so grateful to see his face and talk to him it is such a blessing. I can’t say enough how grateful I am for it, when it works! 

They rode their bikes for district meeting to Tiassale. It’s about a 30 minute bike ride.  

They have a church building in Tiassale. 

The baptismal font. 

Eek! This is what living in humidity will do! 

This was the exact uplift Caleb needed. He was able to speak English and see his MTC companion❤️. 

Dogs are everywhere, not as pets, but man they sure look cute from afar! 

The trek back home. His companion went super fast on the bike so they got back in record time! But they snapped this picture along the way! 

He loves when his companion makes banana bread! 

His fridge, he is still trying to figure out what to eat. 

Traveling for zone conference. 

Crazy crawling bug! 

Rain storm! 

Tiassale has some more food options. 

The church building for zone conference! 

I think these are mission cars. 

Zone conference Caleb and his companion are in the  back left. 

This is where zone conference was. There is a family search center there! Bryan works for family search so that’s cool! 

Dude! This chicken came and sat next to Caleb!

They had to wait at this bus stop for three hours! He thinks the bus must have just left when they got there. So they had to wait for it to make the trip there and back. 

He sent this screen shot, the humidity makes it feel like 97, dude! 

He was waiting for his companion and snapped this beautiful picture of the stars❤️. 

These just roam around everywhere. 

Caleb gave a talk at church in French Sunday! They had 59 possibly 47 people at church on Sunday! His companion counted 59 but Caleb counted and got 47?! A lot seeming his first week it was like 12! Here is his talk in French❤️. He told us today they have 10 or 12 people down to be baptized after conference next week! The book is blue and the church is true, mic drop! 

His email from this week:

Salut!

This week was almost a repeat of last week, which I'll take. Tuesday we went up to Tiassalé for some district stuff. We started by going to the church building there and having a district council. It went well. After we went and picked up lunch on our way to the Elder's apartment. There are 6 Elders total in our district. After lunch the three Americans talked. Me and Elder Christensen don't know French very well since we both just got here, but the other Elder was able to translate for us. 

After we split up and did some contacting. We were able to talk with a couple people and hand out some brochers. After we headed back to Tiassalé. We rode our bikes there and back, which if you look on the map it looks so far away, but it was less than a half hour. 

Wednesday evening we left for Abidjan again. This time it was for Zone Conference. We stayed over at some Elder’s apartment that night. We slept on some couch cushions on the ground, but it was actually decent. Thursday we had Zone Conference. It was my first one, so I didn't have many expectations. I really enjoyed it. We had a bunch of trainings from the AP’s, office Elders, zone leaders, and President and Sister Litchfield. It went for about 5 hours, with a lunch break in the middle. After we did some quick interviews with our mission president. 

Then we headed back to N’Douci. We got to the bus station and then bought our two tickets. We then proceeded to wait over 3 hours for our bus. We got to the station at 5pm, and made it back to our apartment close to 10pm. It was crazy, but the Elders from Tiassalé were with us, so if we didn't make it back, neither did they. 

The rest of the week was pretty normal. The French is still really hard. Especially being able to understand them. They talk fast and are lazy a lot of times. My English is that way, but so many French words already sound similar as it is. Although that means after my mission I will be able to understand anyone that speaks French because they won't be able to speak faster than the people here. 

A really high note this week though is that we have over 10 people with a baptismal date for after General Conference. Hopefully they all go through, but it has been cool seeing these people change and accept the gospel. 

Spiritual Thought:

There was a lot of good things I read this week, but this week's spiritual thought will be a little different. There was a Church News article, I don't know when, but it shared a study a travel agency did of “the most peaceful tourist spots.” They shared the 20 most peaceful spots that people recommend visiting. 4 LDS temples made it on that list. The link is below to see the list, hopefully it works. 

It got me thinking though at how special the temples really are. They are definitely an architecture masterpiece, but the Spirit that is there is what sets it apart, even when you're outside. We are lucky to have so many temples in Utah, but they are still working on temples in Africa. Right now the closest one is the Accra Temple. I hope you cherish the ability to go to a temple, and the covenants we are able to make with God.

https://www.thechurchnews.com/temples/2023/11/12/23952035/four-temples-among-top-20-peaceful-u-s-tourist-spots-according-to-national-survey/?utm_campaign=churchnews-en&utm_content=entry&utm_medium=social_share 

Thanks for your emails and prayers! A bientôt!

Elder Robinson