Week 54

This is awesome. Duolingo said he had a mistake because he put ‘re instead of are! He is doing great at his French. 

This showed the missionaries being transferred and the ones going home. 

This is the money Caleb has collected one of everything but the five or one bill I think. 

Caleb stayed with the same companion and area this transfer. He is the senior companion and still zone leader. It’s crazy now he is one of the elders that’s been there the longest because so many have went home now. 

This is the other companionship in Caleb’s apartment. Elder Basombela is from the Congo he is the zone leader that replaced Elder Kartchner and then Elder Woodard from LA stayed. 

This sweet lady was making them dinner. Men don’t make dinner the women do so they wouldn’t let them help. They really wanted to have the lesson with the lady so they waited. Caleb’s companion fell asleep while waiting! 

Futu banane with sauce arachide! He says it’s yummy!

This is how you eat it. 

Broken faucet. 

In Caleb’s words “A car some birds attacked” 😆! 

Caleb and Elder Bimai making faces!

Elder Stevens who was Caleb’s companion not long ago came home and we went to his homecoming in Las Vegas. He was such a great companion for Caleb and a great missionary. He got malaria twice survived the hospital stays, and served in the Gambia for several transfers. 

I love that Caleb is peeking in from the picture on the TV. Elder Stevens went through his pictures while we were there and it was so fun to see them all. Only some of the pictures gave me drama. But Elder Steven’s made it home safe and healthy and so can my Caleb! ❤️

They were all wearing pagne ties! Bryan was wearing the one Caleb sent home with Oscar.

Elder Stevens missionary plaque. 

I had him record a video I could send to Caleb. 

Elder Kartchner was in Caleb’s apartment for his last transfer before coming home. He is from West Jordan and his homecoming was right after Elder Stevens so we watched it on zoom. We will meet him next week at Elder Hurren’s homecoming who also came home from Côte d’Ivoire that is in our stake. 

His email for the week:

Transfers et Temples

Salut

This week was a pretty chill week, but nothing crazy happened. Last p-day was chill. We contacted for a bit and deep cleaned the apartment which was needed. 

Tuesday we had transfers. Because me and Elder Bimai are staying together we didn't go to transfers. I might of mentioned this in my last email, but I'm too lazy to go look, but this was my first time not to be at transfers and my first time doing two transfers with one companion. That morning President sent out a message saying a few things, but one of them was that we will no longer do language study in the afternoon. That gives us another hour in sector which should help speed up the work. 

Wednesday we had an appointment with Sœur Nadège. We are going to baptize her and her husband next week. When we showed up we had to wait a while for her to finish cooking for us. Once she finished we had a great lesson and then we had Futu banane avec sauce arachide. It was so good. 

Thursday we had district council in our apartment. Because of transfers, the other missionaries in our district weren't able to make it. So it was just the four of us in our apartment. It was pretty chill and fun. 

Friday we had weekly planning. On Saturday we had this lesson with one of our friends. We had taught her the law of chastity earlier in the week, but she wasn't settled about it. So we went all over it again. It was a good lesson because the Spirit was working on her. Not just it was working, but it was WORKING. She kept fidgeting around because the Spirit was working so hard. It was so fun watching and hopefully it helped her want to change.

This week we were going to baptize Anah, but unfortunately it didn't happen because they didn't get the second interview done in time. Sunday we had two more candidates pass their interviews so hopefully everything goes well and we can baptize all three of them Saturday.

Here are a couple random things people said to us this week:

« les jolies, y'a arachide! » (basically hey you pretty guys come buy some of these peanuts that I'm selling)

the kid: “le blanc good morning”

me and my companion: “Est-ce que c'est le matin ?”

the kid: “oh good night”

We do this a lot, but a lot of people will say good morning to us in English no matter what time of the day it is. This time it was around 5pm, so naturally we asked if it was the morning to try and get him to say good evening. That was the first time a kid said good night, and for whatever reason my companion and I laughed so hard.

This week should be a chill week with some awesome exchanges. 

Spiritual Thought:

This week our ward had a trip to the temple. We weren't able to make it, but we went and visited a couple of the members that went to the temple. One thing that stood out to me was every time I asked about how the temple was, they would get so excited to share and you could see a light in them. It touched me how there is really a power about the temple, and because of the covenants we make, this light and spirit can stay with us as we live worthy. 

“Whenever any kind of upheaval occurs in your life, the safest place to be spiritually is living inside your temple covenants!” - President Nelson October 2021

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

Elder Robinson