Week 27

I love capturing his cute faces when we talk to him! 

He bought more pagne material for ties! 

This is where he bought the pagne. 

District council meeting. 

Luckily it’s not like this everywhere but oh man. 

More pagne material he was looking at. 

He bought this one. This is the guy that makes them. He is one of the counselors to the bishop in the ward. 

Picture with power. 

Picture when the power was out. 

Caileys birthday was Sunday so Caleb got permission to call. When it’s someone’s birthday and he calls he wants to talk to just them he said. But we all, except Bryan he was in meetings already, were hovering and listening! For Cailey’s friend party we did this how well do you know Cailey paper and she did it with Caleb on the call it was fun! 

We got him for 20 minutes🎉! 

He loves the roof top view. 

This is his companion being silly😆! 

Duolingo can be so funny! Which one do you pick? He said he got them right! 

He did a music lesson on Duolingo, nice score! 

Big rainstorm! 

Caleb tries not to walk in the water! 

He was reading in the Liahona they had in the apartment and he found his mission president in the picture! 

His email this week:

tu ne sais pas lire la Bible??

Allo tout le monde 

This week was a slower week, but we still had some very interesting things happen. Monday was a chill day and I bought some more pagne.

Tuesday morning we had district council. We do phone audits in our mission, and so at district council me and the district leader are the ones that do them. When we do phone audits we look for photos without their companion, using an app too much, using too much data, sending messages during the week, using your phone past hours, etc. Needless to say the district leader talked with almost everyone about something that we found on their phone…

Tuesday afternoon I was dizzy and so I took a nap instead of doing language study. We didn't have any appointments so we walked around in circles for a while, and then went back to the apartment.

Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, we had very few appointments. I think it was 3 appointments in those last 4 days. It was definitely a little difficult just because we don't have the space to go find more people. If we had the space it would be a lot easier. We also called every person we could in our Preach My Gospel app which was unfortunate. 

We did have some crazy things though like this prophetess lady started preaching to us. She bragged about how she's never read the Bible because she doesn't know how to read, but then went off on some wild doctrine that is not in the Bible. I've run into a couple people like that though, that openly say they can't read the Bible but think they know everything it says.

We also had this lady who contacted us and called us to set up the appointment. We went over to her place and then she shared her doctrine with us. I think her church is called Deimon. Anyways she told us what her church believes I was horrified with what she was saying. I kind of wish I lost the gift of tongues and just couldn’t understand, but I understood most of it. She didn't believe in the Bible, but was sharing doctrine from it as well which was funny. My companion wasn't too happy so he chastised her and straight up said what she said was wrong and then we left. After we left my companion was like we are never going back there again.

One day we went and hung out at Frere Koko's house. He's the pagne tie guy. We didn't have anything to do so we went and talked to him for about an hour about Gandhi and the members and what we could do. Then we talked to him for an hour about pagne ties. I bought some pagne baolai from him and it looks sweet. He's making it into ties so it's not finished, but it is pretty sweet.

One day we didn't have power when we got back to the apartment, and it was really hot. But everyone we could see also didn't have power. It eventually came back on and when it did you could hear everybody cheering about it haha. Our AC was also leaking a lot of water and we got that fixed this week. 

One of my favorite moments was messing with these kids. It was like 10 boys that were about 10 years old. We walked by and they were like “chinois good morning!” Almost every kid yells le blanc and good morning to me, but they don't realize that Chinese people don't speak English. I was in the mood so I started messing with them. I was like “good morning is what language” and then “you think I'm Chinese??” and then “Chinese people speak what language??” and then “if im Chinese how am I going to understand English??” They just looked at me and didn't know what to say. They understood because they started talking between themselves, and they just stared at me. It was pretty funny.

Other than that not much happened this week. I plan to go find some other pagne today, but we’ll see because I can’t go overboard… or maybe I can…

Spiritual Thought:

This week I listened to Elder Holland’s talk from the last General Conference titled “I am He.” I encourage you to go read it, but I want to share a small part of it with you guys.

“Consider this scene from the last week of Jesus’s mortal life. A multitude had gathered, including Roman soldiers armed with staves and strapped with swords. Led by officers from the chief priests who had torches in hand, this earnest company was not off to conquer a city. Tonight they were looking for only one man, a man not known to carry a weapon, receive military training, or engage in physical combat at any time in His entire life. As the soldiers approached, Jesus, in an effort to protect His disciples, stepped forth and said, “Whom seek ye?” They replied, “Jesus of Nazareth.” Jesus said, “I am he. … As soon … as he had said unto them, I am he, they went backward, and fell to the ground.” To me, that is one of the most stirring lines in all of scripture. Among other things, it tells me straightforwardly that just being in the presence of the Son of God—the great Jehovah of the Old Testament and Good Shepherd of the New, who bears no weapons of any kind—that just hearing the voice of this Refuge from the Storm, this Prince of Peace, is enough to send antagonists stumbling into retreat, piling them in a jumble, making the whole group wish they had been assigned kitchen duty that night.”

Sorry it's a longer quote but I love how Elder Holland says that when we are simply in the presence of Jesus, we will know that he is the Only Begotten of the Father. I hope we can continue each day to be more like Him so that when he comes again we are ready to be in His presence.

Thanks for your prayers and I hope you guys have a great week!

Elder Robinson

This week was a slower week, but we still had some very interesting things happen. Monday was a chill day and I bought some more pagne.

Tuesday morning we had district council. We do phone audits in our mission, and so at district council me and the district leader are the ones that do them. When we do phone audits we look for photos without their companion, using an app too much, using too much data, sending messages during the week, using your phone past hours, etc. Needless to say the district leader talked with almost everyone about something that we found on their phone…

Tuesday afternoon I was dizzy and so I took a nap instead of doing language study. We didn't have any appointments so we walked around in circles for a while, and then went back to the apartment.

Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, we had very few appointments. I think it was 3 appointments in those last 4 days. It was definitely a little difficult just because we don't have the space to go find more people. If we had the space it would be a lot easier. We also called every person we could in our Preach My Gospel app which was unfortunate. 

We did have some crazy things though like this prophetess lady started preaching to us. She bragged about how she's never read the Bible because she doesn't know how to read, but then went off on some wild doctrine that is not in the Bible. I've run into a couple people like that though, that openly say they can't read the Bible but think they know everything it says.

We also had this lady who contacted us and called us to set up the appointment. We went over to her place and then she shared her doctrine with us. I think her church is called Deimon. Anyways she told us what her church believes I was horrified with what she was saying. I kind of wish I lost the gift of tongues and just couldn’t understand, but I understood most of it. She didn't believe in the Bible, but was sharing doctrine from it as well which was funny. My companion wasn't too happy so he chastised her and straight up said what she said was wrong and then we left. After we left my companion was like we are never going back there again.

One day we went and hung out at Frere Koko's house. He's the pagne tie guy. We didn't have anything to do so we went and talked to him for about an hour about Gandhi and the members and what we could do. Then we talked to him for an hour about pagne ties. I bought some pagne baolai from him and it looks sweet. He's making it into ties so it's not finished, but it is pretty sweet.

One day we didn't have power when we got back to the apartment, and it was really hot. But everyone we could see also didn't have power. It eventually came back on and when it did you could hear everybody cheering about it haha. Our AC was also leaking a lot of water and we got that fixed this week. 

One of my favorite moments was messing with these kids. It was like 10 boys that were about 10 years old. We walked by and they were like “chinois good morning!” Almost every kid yells le blanc and good morning to me, but they don't realize that Chinese people don't speak English. I was in the mood so I started messing with them. I was like “good morning is what language” and then “you think I'm Chinese??” and then “Chinese people speak what language??” and then “if im Chinese how am I going to understand English??” They just looked at me and didn't know what to say. They understood because they started talking between themselves, and they just stared at me. It was pretty funny.

Other than that not much happened this week. I plan to go find some other pagne today, but we’ll see because I can’t go overboard… or maybe I can…

Spiritual Thought:

This week I listened to Elder Holland’s talk from the last General Conference titled “I am He.” I encourage you to go read it, but I want to share a small part of it with you guys.

“Consider this scene from the last week of Jesus’s mortal life. A multitude had gathered, including Roman soldiers armed with staves and strapped with swords. Led by officers from the chief priests who had torches in hand, this earnest company was not off to conquer a city. Tonight they were looking for only one man, a man not known to carry a weapon, receive military training, or engage in physical combat at any time in His entire life. As the soldiers approached, Jesus, in an effort to protect His disciples, stepped forth and said, “Whom seek ye?” They replied, “Jesus of Nazareth.” Jesus said, “I am he. … As soon … as he had said unto them, I am he, they went backward, and fell to the ground.” To me, that is one of the most stirring lines in all of scripture. Among other things, it tells me straightforwardly that just being in the presence of the Son of God—the great Jehovah of the Old Testament and Good Shepherd of the New, who bears no weapons of any kind—that just hearing the voice of this Refuge from the Storm, this Prince of Peace, is enough to send antagonists stumbling into retreat, piling them in a jumble, making the whole group wish they had been assigned kitchen duty that night.”

Sorry it's a longer quote but I love how Elder Holland says that when we are simply in the presence of Jesus, we will know that he is the Only Begotten of the Father. I hope we can continue each day to be more like Him so that when he comes again we are ready to be in His presence.

Thanks for your prayers and I hope you guys have a great week!

Elder Robinson