Week 21 Christmas week🎄

Caleb’s companion had to go to the Dr so Caleb was waiting in the waiting room and snapped this picture of their tree. 

This is the outside of the hospital that the missionaries go to. 

He made my cinnamon syrup and Kodiak pancakes I sent him❤️🎉! 

His water faucet broke but luckily it got fixed while he was gone to Abidjan. 

He woke up Christmas Day and traveled to Tiassalé and played a soccer game, his first soccer game in Côte d’Ivoire. He said it was super hot so they didn’t play long. 

This is his awesome tan line on his hands from when he rode the bike! 

This is one of their awesome rides! 

This was Christmas lunch it is a leaf sauce and some other things I can’t remember. 

We woke up on Christmas morning at 6am to talk to this cute elder! Christa actually said she liked it because it made Christmas feel longer! He was traveling and with several missionaries but he’s always so good to call and take time to talk to us. But I snapped little videos of him talking to the other Elders and people in French while we were talking to him. It gives us a little glimpse into his life there. 

Him showing us his awesome tan! 

By the end of the call you could tell he was getting a little sad missing Christmas so he said he needed to go focus on being a missionary so we let him go. We sure miss him❤️. 

Christmas night at La Boulangerie!

Cambri got us these shirts for Christmas. She designed them and custom had them made and paid for them all on her own. They say “Missionary Family, Elder Robinson, A piece of our heart is in Côte d’Ivoire”. ❤️ 

We posed like he did in one of his videos! 😆

He opened our stocking we sent him with the package last time. 

The girls watched the Santa tracker to see Santa make it to Côte d’Ivoire!🇨🇮 He got there about 5:30pm our time!

He sent us this video to show us the humidity. 

Cute cat.

Ice cream! 

A couple great edited photos he did. The second picture is the unedited version. 

Edited version. 

Unedited version. 

He got to see Liverpool’s fourth goal against West ham by Alexander Arnold. He said it was sweet! 

His P day is again changed to New Years Day and not Monday so we can’t wait to talk to him!

Caleb continues to do well with the language and finding people to teach. The people are so ready to learn more about Jesus Christ and he loves to teach. It’s common for him to negotiate taxi prices where the other three French speakers in his apartment can’t. He sure knows how to get around.

His email from this week:

Happy New Year!

This week was pretty chill, but that's what happens when almost everyone in your sector was and is in Abidjan for the holidays… haha. For Christmas and P-Day we went to Tiassalé for our district activity. We played soccer on a half grass half sand field, but it was great. It was my first time playing soccer here in Côte d'Ivoire. We played on an almost full sized field with 10 people total so we ran a lot. It felt weird running because I haven't ran in so long. It's always biking and walking. We didn't play for too long because it was hot, but it was still fun. 

Afterwards we hung out at the Tiassalé elders apartment and ate some food. It was Christmas and our P-Day so I called my family for a long while. It was fun. After that we headed back to N'Douci. We did some exchanges so Elder Mutombo came with us, but he was doing it with Elder Mondongue so it didn't affect me. We had a fun time talking that night which was fun.

Thursday, Friday, and Saturday were normal days. We had one teaching that I loved. It was this older guy, and our first lesson with him. We taught him all of the Plan of Salvation, why the gospel is important, and eternal families. My favorite part was seeing his countenance change when he learned he could live with his family forever. He seemed so happy and almost relieved. You could tell he loved his family and was ready to take steps for that to happen. We haven't gone back because of the holidays, but I hope he progresses. 

Sunday we went to church and didn't do much else. Monday we had a couple of appointments and then went to Soirée Familiale. Tuesday we had district council which was fine. It's the same thing every time. Tuesday afternoon we started heading for Abidjan. We went to Lokoa and hung out with Elder Kanh. We dropped off our bags at the apartment and then went out so that they could get haircuts. I had fun talking to kids for two hours, because that's how long they took. We also visited a members place and had some food with them. Then we headed back to the apartment, extremely past curfew. There were some fireworks and that was it. 

Today, so new years day, we went to a stake center in Abidjan with all of the missionaries for a mission activity. There was some fruit and croissants, soccer, volleyball, human foseball, ultimate frisbee, and more. I just unded up talking to the other Elders the whole time which was great. 

Spiritual Thought:

As part of Come Follow Me I read the Restoration Proclamation. My favorite part is the first paragraph where it focuses on Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. After the first paragraph it talks about the Restoration. For me I love how the most important thing is that God is our loving Heavenly Father and that his Son came to the world to save us. I encourage you go read it, if you haven't recently, and focus on Jesus Christ as you read it. 

I hope 2024 was good, and I hope you guys have a great 2025!

Elder Robinson