Week 53

 Monday call! 

Caleb’s comment on this picture was, “ how did this get here?” He’s never seen simply lemonade in any stores!

Caleb and Elder Bimai. He is annoying like a little brother. He loves to pester Caleb and not listen and disobey! Even on our call he was pestering Caleb. 

Random helicopters. 

Bryan challenged Caleb that his calendar is more colorful than his! Man this kid teaches ALL day. He answers such hard questions. He was quizzing us on our call. I am so impressed. Questions like why don’t we pray to Mary, how do I know what you’re teaching me is right, why they shouldn’t baptize babies, it says in the Bible that you shouldn’t add to it (I learned this one for the first time today), why doesn’t my baptism in my church count…so so many questions. If you want to know the answers to any of them you can ask me, Caleb, Bryan, my girls or the missionaries! I was just so impressed with Caleb having an answer for all of these and so many more. I am so grateful for Caleb and his faithfulness throughout his life with seminary, church, family home evening, scripture reading personal and family…etc…and now studying as a missionary to learn so much it is truly blessing him and others. 

Teaching a lesson. 

A lady made futu de banane for them he was so grateful. She gave them a ginger drink that he said was good but burned a little going down?! 

Elder Kartchner goes home this week. He was in Caleb’s apartment and Caleb really liked him. He is from West Jordan. But apparently he knew how to cook cookies there. So here are his choc chip cookies! Caleb said no one knows who got it but they found a bottle of vanilla on their shelf. I guess angels deliver vanilla too! 

This was Missionary Leadership council (MLC) with Pres and sister Vore. Caleb is on the right. 

His email for the week: 

vous devrez rester à l'appartement 

Salut

This week was a crazy week. Last p-day was pretty chill. We just hung out and played soccer at the stake center. Once p-day was over we went out to sector. We were teaching a friend that is about to get baptized, and she asked us if birth control was bad… So we just read the “topics and questions” section in Gospel Library and called it good.

Tuesday we had district council. We had one lesson with this part member family. Most of the family are members, and last week we just baptized one of the boys. We showed up to their place and the older sister was like, okay so now it's my turn to get baptized. It was awesome. Later we had a lesson about the restoration with another lady. She had originally told us she was already baptized, but this time she understood why she needed to be baptized again. It was awesome.

Wednesday I had an exchange with Elder Woodard in our sector. In the morning we went to one lady's place. We are going to baptize her and her husband in a couple weeks which will be awesome. We talked with the husband for a while because the mom was cooking. Then she gave us Futu Banane with sauce Aubergine. She also gave us a drink called nn̈iamancou, which is like a spicy ginger drink. I ate and drank all of it, and at the end realized I hadn't even touched my water, which was surprising because the sauce and drink were very spicy. 

After we ate we had a good lesson with her. Because we were at her place for a while we skipped lunch, because we already ate, and language study and stayed in sector. We didn't have a lot of success contacting in the afternoon, but we got a couple new friends.

Thursday we had MLC. It was also the independence day for Côte d'Ivoire which meant there was no traffic which was nice. MLC went well. We talked a lot how we can be more efficient in the mission. It was pretty interesting so we'll see what they change.

Friday morning we didn't have weekly planning because it got changed to Saturday. Elder Kartchner and Elder Woodard weren't in their sector because Elder Kartchner was doing all of the going home stuff. So we ran two sectors that day. We had planned 7 appointments, two of them in the other sector, and a baptismal interview. Unfortunately we were not able to teach everybody, even with skipping lunch and language study. 

Saturday morning there was an election march. We had been told to stay in our apartment, which is why weekly planning was on Saturday. We saw nothing though, and at 15h we got the okay to leave our apartment. 

Sunday was a chill day. I feel bad for our bishopric because the first speaker spoke for 1 minute, and the second speaker spoke for 3 minutes. Those weren't kids, but ladies in the relief society presidency. So the bishopric had to wing the last 25 minutes. We also had some awesome member lessons in the afternoon which was clutch.

For transfers, me and Elder Bimaï are staying together, so it will be my first time ever doing two transfers with one companion. Hopefully my French will become insane after this transfer. This week we will see what happens with transfers, but it should be chill.

Spiritual Thought:

Moroni 7:16-17

For behold, the Spirit of Christ is given to every man, that he may know good from evil; wherefore, I show unto you the way to judge; for every thing which inviteth to do good, and to persuade to believe in Christ, is sent forth by the power and gift of Christ; wherefore ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of God. 

But whatsoever thing persuadeth men to do evil, and believe not in Christ, and deny him, and serve not God, then ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of the devil; for after this manner doth the devil work, for he persuadeth no man to do good, no, not one; neither do his angels; neither do they who subject themselves unto him.

This week one of our friends asked us why we have the thoughts to tell us to do good things and to do bad things. It was cool being able to teach her how because we are literally children of God, we have a light in us that helps us know the right from wrong. But because there is an opposition in all things, there will always be temptations. It's up to us to choose which voice we will follow. That's why we are here. We are here to choose to do the right thing. 

“Choose the right! Let wisdom mark the way before. In its light, choose the right! And God will bless you evermore.”

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

Elder Robinson

Pictures:

mangez-vous, comp, how did this get here??, helicopter