Week 24 New sector-Gandhi

Caleb’s last morning in N’Douci, poor Caleb was getting up in the morning and he stepped on the last step of the bunk bed and it broke! He came crashing down and landed on his bottom and arm. He’s fine but it definitely hurt and left a mark on his arm! Good luck to the next Elder on the top bunk bed! 

He packed up his bags and they were bulging! It’s a good thing I sent him a package so he could use the extra bag to fit more stuff!

Last pictures with Elder Kalem. He sent Caleb a kind text later telling him he was going to miss him and that Caleb is a great missionary. It was very nice. Caleb ended up giving him some of his personal money to buy a new suitcase because his was in bad shape and he left him a couple of ties. 

Picture of his apartment before he left. 

He called us while traveling. Here’s a picture of his luggage. He had to fit it in a three wheeled taxi to get to the bus stop. 

He was sitting waiting for the bus to come. He was anxious about getting his luggage on the bus. They load it under the bus. 

Here’s a video I took of him describing the bus stop. 

Here’s a video of him telling us about these ladies with a pan on their head.

We got to talk to him until the bus came.

This was his face when he realized the bus wasn’t picking them up right then but going to Tiassale and coming back for them. 

This was him fitting his luggage in the taxi in Abidjan! 

This is the view from his new apartment. He doesn’t live in his sector he has to walk to get there. So none of what you see is his sector. He has to walk through two different sectors to get to his own.

Here’s a video tour of his apartment he sent us. 

 

This is how people will get rid of their garbage.

This is so sad to me that the pretty canal is covered in garbage.

He got to see the ocean! Here’s a video he took of it. 

This is Elder Mayele, his new companion. He is from the Congo and speaks French. They knew each other very well since they were serving in the same district before becoming companions.

This is him describing the really crazy boundaries of his area! 

He found really yummy ice cream! He told us he buys one every day now since it's so good.

His new zone, they have sister missionaries. 

District meeting over zoom. 

An intense game of foosball. 

The church they meet at. 

This was church for him today, in a building! They had 40 people there which is less than he had in the little house in N’Douci. Super sad that the area has had so many struggles that they’ve lost lots of members. Hopefully that will change soon! 

They also have a piano so Caleb was able to play a bit on P-Day and loved it.

Grass area by the church.

They have a rooftop they can look out from at the apartment. 

Video’s of rooftop: 

Here is his letter for the week:

Salut

This week was a pretty crazy week. It started Monday as I finished up packing everything. I've gained more stuff than I've used so it was pretty hard packing up my stuff, but it all worked out. Monday afternoon we left N'Douci and headed to Abidjan. Traveling as a white guy with two big luggage and two big bags in the middle of a village is a very fun experience. We first hopped on a three wheel taxi with my luggage and headed down to the bus station. There we waited for over an hour for the bus. It was fine though because I was able to talk with my family since it was P-Day. Once the bus showed up I put everything I had under the bus, and then hopped on. I was more than a little worried about putting my luggage under the bus, but there was no problems and I got everything to the apartment we were staying at for the night.

Tuesday we headed to the stake center for transfers. We started not long after that. We all gathered together with President Litchfield and started doing the transfers. My new companion is Elder Mayele and I'm serving in Gandhi. I knew Elder Mayele pretty well which was nice, but our sector is a little broken. For the last two months there haven't been missionaries in our sector so we are both new to the area. I spent time trying to figure out our sector before we left the stake center. We spent a while there doing stuff with the sim card but it worked out. 

We are in a four man apartment and Elder Walker, who is my mt, is there too which has been a lot of fun. The reason our sector is broken is for a lot of reasons, but I'll keep it short. Our sector is very small and it feels like everyone has already been contacted. At least that's what it looks like in the Preach My Gospel app. It's also incredibly easy to leave our sector. But the real problem is the bishop. There have been a lot of problems with him but he basically chastizes everybody and now the ward is tiny and not many people go to church. He's been racist to certain ethnicities and publicly told the ward when people weren't worthy. Anyways, there are a lot of bad things. So our job is to basically fix the ward… which is pretty difficult when the bishop is still the bishop.

So anyways this week was just me and Elder Mayele trying to learn the sector. We tried finding some new people, finding members, and learning the area. One time we met one family who has been really hurt by the bishop, and without asking they told us the whole story while we just sat there. It was a little rough. 

Thursday we had district council. We have some sisters in our district which was my first time. Saturday we had some teaching appointments which went well because like I said our sector is small, so any time we don't need to contact is a bonus. 

Sunday we went to church. We met at a stake center which is pretty big and nice. We were excited to meet the bishop, but of course he wasn't there. There were 40 ish people there, even though there are 228 in LDS Tools. Me and my companion introduced ourselves and shared our testimony during sacrament meeting. Next Sunday will hopefully be better, and we can meet the bishop.

Monday we went to the stake center and played some soccer. The guy who does pagne ties is also in my sector, so now I'm on a hunt to get some sweet ties.

Spiritual Thought:

As we are figuring out what to do with our ward, one of the other Elders referenced me to the talk titled “The Testimony of Jesus” by Elder Christofferson in the April 2024 general conference. He shared a story about a family getting kicked out of church due to their daughter's illness. After getting upset the dad shared this to his family:

“I love all of you and I want us to be together, forever, as a family. And the only way that can be is for all of us to be good members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and be sealed by the holy priesthood in the temple. This is not the branch president’s church. It is the Church of Jesus Christ. We will not allow any man or any hurt or embarrassment or pride to keep us from being together forever. Next Sunday we will go back to church. We will stay by ourselves until our daughter’s sickness is known, but we will go back.”

I love this dad's response and he sets a great example to all of us. People offend us and that's a part of life. But that should never change what we know. We know the church is true and it's the only way back to live with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ forever.

Thanks for all of your prayers and have a great week!

Elder Robinson