Carson's Mission July 2022-July 2024 Côte d'Ivoire Abidjan West Mission

Hey everybody! Sorry I missed last week with getting here and training it just didnt really work out in a convient way however after a full week in the field I got tons to talk about.  First, Ghana airport. We went to the Ghana airport and it's pretty nice! I bought pizza, some candy it was as close as I've  gotten to an american looking place. I bought 2 bags of sour skittles, which I'm sad to say are already gone, and a giant thing of mentos, which I'm also sad to say I lost. The airport was awesome though and the flight was so quick! We flew on emirates and left ghana and I swear it felt like we were landing in Côte d'Ivoire 15 minutes later. It was really 45 but it went by super fast.  On the drive in to the mission homes for our first training we really started to get a taste off what Abidjan is really like. If you ever look up a picture of Abidjan you'll see a giant city on the coast with giant skyscrapers all of that stuff. That's not anything like wh...

  17 August, 2022   Dear Brother and Sister Ducker, Elder Ducker has arrived here in the Cote d’Ivoire Abidjan West Mission on 16 August, 2022.  We are delighted to have him as a missionary assigned to this mission.  We have assigned Elder Ducker to begin his missionary service in the area of Niangon which is located in the city of Yopougon.  Cote d’Ivoire is a beautiful country made more beautiful by the warm, welcoming people who live here.  There are many people here who are prepared to receive the message of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. We know that Elder Ducker will be blessed as he serves diligently and seeks to become a true, devoted and life-long disciple of Jesus Christ.  Your spiritual support and encouragement will be important to his success as a missionary. We are very grateful to be able to work together with Elder Ducker and know that life-changing experiences and blessings await him. Sincerely,   President R. Wade Litchfiel...

  Hey guys! I don't think ill be able to call this week because we've been jam packed with moving here to Abidjan starting proselyting and me getting trained and a new companion but I'll try and send a group email tonight if i can and call tonight but ill keep you updated! We have a phone now so i should stay in touch more often but we only have one phone per companionship. Love you guys and I'll keep you updated! Niangon 3 is the name of my mission zone also so feel free to try and find that or look that up. I'm alive love you all :) From the FB page where I got the pictures: They’ve arrived!  And what a memorable day it was!  We had nine smiling faces arrive from the Ghana MTC on August 16. They greeted us en français! 🇨🇮 Bienvenue Elders Knoll, Patterson, Jacobs, Hall, Ducker, Kesterson, and Hendrickson. And of course the lovely Sister Niyomwungere❤️  We can’t wait to put these young disciples to work building the kingdom in Côte d’Ivoire. Yesterday’s highlight...

This email is going to be mostly spiritual as i don't have a whole lot that happened this week but be prepared for next week's email it's going to be crazy! Wow, I love love love the MTC but I am so ready to go out to the field! I'm also terrified to go out into the field but I can't wait. This week has been pretty fun! Definitely learned a lot. The one biggest thing I can say that happened was I took upon myself a challenge to finish the entire book of mormon before I left the mtc. This is supposed to be a 3 week challenge but I started reading in the second week I believe. I really wanted to finish it so I was reading almost every opportunity I got. I made a key in the end of my book of mormon and I would highlight certain things, certain colors for certain topics and I would put a matching sticky note in the page so i can find it easier. Let's just say I have so many sticky notes that my book doesn't close all the way anymore so those sticky notes may be ...

  So to be completely honest I don't even really remember what's happened this week. The weeks have started to blend together a little bit but hey! I'm super super close to 1 full month out! Time flies, it's been a crazy month. In other news we got new roommates this week. One of them speaks pretty good English, the other, not so much. It's been great having french speaking elders in our room so we can get just a little more immersed in the language.  I was making a lot of good progress in the Book of Mormon until we had to alternate between French and English. This basically means I have to read in French, then read in English and try to interpret the verse and what each word means. It's good and has taught me a lot, however it really stunted my Book of Mormon study because it takes me a lot of time to get through just one chapter. But now, I'm making a goal to study the scriptures a lot for the last couple weeks before I leave. My goal is to finish around ...

I  miss all of you so much and the emails are so so so fun to read so make sure you all keep sending them in! This week was wild. We started french immersion this week and that's been so crazy and also about 80% of the MTC left! So for the next couple days for the first time ever there's probably more white people than black people in the MTC so that's interesting. It was super super sad seeing all the people i've  gotten close to leave. they were really sad as well but somehow at the same time super happy cause now they get to go serve in the field! I'm so so excited for them and I know they're gonna kill it. I've seriously met some of the nicest people. On P-day last week I got a haircut and they actually shaped all my hair and lined me up because they only typically cut black hair. they don't really understand with white people you just typically line up the edges but nope they just shaped all of my hair so thats cool. It was really really funny seein...

  Bonjour! Welcome to week two of your weekly (for now) missionary report! This week has been packed full of events and things to do. Right after I sent out my email last week I had the opportunity to go to the ghana temple and wow. It's so beautiful and so unique. We got to see the sealing room, the celestial room, and I got to go through the endowment as well! It really was an amazing experience and I cannot WAIT to go through the temple in the ivory coast once it finishes construction in 2023! I talked to all the teachers and leaders here and they're all telling me that I'll for sure be able to participate in the dedication of the temple and I'm so excited. I'm actually getting to become pretty tight with a lot of the Africans here in the MTC and it's been so fun! There's a couple of Africans who always grab me when we play football (soccer) and push me over to their side and say we want the american we want the american. It's happened a few times whi...