Week 28

Monday morning call❤️! 

Caleb got these pictures sent to him. N’Douci the area Caleb was in before this one was just a group while he was there but last Sunday it was made into a branch! Which means they have enough members to make it into a branch. A couple of the people called to serve in the branch Caleb baptized while he was there. Such an awesome thing for the people there and I am so happy for them. It is so cool that Caleb had a part in that. 

They rented a tent for Sunday to hold church.

The sacrament, see the table with the bread and water, it is so cool to see. I’m so glad someone took pictures. 

I believe this is the second hour split up in all their classes. 

I went and looked up the picture of the ones serving in the branch that Caleb baptized and these are the ones Frere Fontaine and Frere Joel. The first counselor is Frere Sebastian, the second counselor is Frere Fontaine, and the DMP is Frere Joel. He wishes he could have been there, but it is so cool seeing the fruits of their labors.

Caleb went on exchanges. He went with the Kuweit elders. This is where he stayed the night. 

Here is a cute dog curled up underneath him during a lesson! 

The apartment he stayed at had Great Value brand and Grill Mates! I am thinking someone brought them on the mission and left them. 

While Caleb was gone on exchanges there was drama in his apartment and now he is in a trio for the time being. So this is Elder Jenkins he is from Liberia who is joining them. He was in the apartment already but his companion isn’t there anymore. 

Caleb is wearing one of his cool pagne ties! 

Elder Jenkins was thinking how he could go fishing! Cool picture with the bird though! But oh the garbage. 

Birds in his apartment! I hope they eat all the ants in his apartment for him! 

Real Madrid Soccer game!

Caleb's email:

Bonjour

This week was definitely one of the more interesting weeks. It started out well and ended up being in a trio... Monday was a chill p-day and after that we had a mangez-vous with some inactive members. We chastized them a little bit for not coming to church, and they admitted they knew what they were doing. They said they'll come back but just not right now.

Tuesday we had our district council. After district council we bought gas for our apartment. It is just like a propane tank that we use for the stove. We went out to sector. We found where the second counselor in the bishopric lives. We taught a young woman who lives there. I think she's their daughter but I'm not sure. We taught her and she said absolutely nothing for over 30 minutes. It was really rough and because she didn't say anything we ended up teaching the whole restoration lesson. 

After we went over to one lady's place who wasn't super interested, but her son had served a mission. We just talked with the lady and then left. We said hi to one friend on the way to her place and said we'll come back when we are done with her. He was totally cool with that. When we went back to his place he was really upset at us and was speaking a ton of nouchi. My companion didn't understand and so just said okay next time. He was like there won't be a next time. Later in the week we called him and it was the same thing, so we marked him as “do not contact” in the Preach My Gospel app.

Tuesday night the zone leaders came over to our apartment to do an exchange. Elder Stevens stayed here and I went with Elder Ramamonjisoa to Koweït 1. Wednesday I went to sector with Elder Ramamonjisoa. Their sector is really nice and way better than Gandhi. As we were in a lesson we saw some messages through WhatsApp between the other zone leader and our mission president. It's kind of a crazy story and I can't share much. Basically our President said they couldn't touch their phones, they had to head to the apartment immediately, and that the mission chauffeur would be there immediately to take them to the office. 

Long story short something happened that night after I left with one Elder and our neighbors. There was a dumb action followed by some misunderstanding, that led to emergency phone audits and one of the elders in our apartment getting emergency transferred. Luckily because I wasn’t there that night, nothing happened to me and I had a wonderful exchange with the zone leader. We taught a lot of people, invited one guy to get baptized, and then tried not to die in the rain storm on our way back to my apartment. When we got back to my normal apartment we finished the exchange, learned what happened, and then became a trio. 

Thursday morning we got a surprise visit from the office elders to handle some things. It was awesome to talk with them for a bit. Now that we are a trio we have to work in two sectors that are not close to each other. It went well even though the Kouté Elder is a little newer with the mission and the sector. We were able to teach one person, and then we walked around his sector and try to nut-meg each other with rocks. It was fun.

Friday we did daily planning and then worked in Gandhi. We taught that young woman that doesn’t say anything which was a little rough again. Nothing else crazy happened. Saturday morning we went to Kouté. We were going to go contacting until Elder Mayele found some things to make fufu congolese, so we ended up just buying that. 

For the afternoon we went to Gandhi. A guy in the road stopped us and seemed cool at first. It ended up being a Bible bash about the trinity again. It wasn’t the worst I've had though. After him we went and taught someone about the Book of Mormon… without a Book of Mormon to give them. I guess I'm the only one in the trio who carries a Book of Mormon to give to people. The problem was I had already given it to someone else just before him and didn't have a second one. I felt quite stupid teaching about a book that I didn't have, when the Book will literally change his life. It also didn't help that my companion had me and the other elder teach the whole lesson while he watched the Bayern match going on next to us…

Sunday was a chill day. My companion got told he was the district leader which he didn't like. We chose to only go to Gandhi’s sacrament meeting even though we have the time to do both. In the afternoon we taught one guy and contacted a bit.

This week should be interesting because we should learn about transfers and will hopefully listen to an apostle speak with us.

Spiritual Thought:

There is a video the church has, an inspirational message, called “Weaving our Spiritual Tapestry.” At the end of the video a lady says: “we might not be able to have so many miracles in our life, but we might be able to be a miracle in someone else's life”

I also like 2 Nephi 27:23, “For behold, I am God; and I am a God of miracles; and I will show unto the world that I am the same yesterday, today, and forever; and I work not among the children of men save it be according to their faith.”

There are miracles all around us. They are usually small miracles that are hard to see, but they are there. God is always there for us and knows what's best for us. As we focus on serving others, following the Spirit, and trying to be a miracle for others, we open the way for God to do more miracles in our lives too.

Thanks for your prayers and emails, I hope you guys have a wonderful week!

Also sorry if something I write doesn't make sense, my English is not as good as it used to be haha.

Elder Robinson