Sandals, Singing, and

Bonjour mes amis and ma famille!

Wow okay this week has been a blast and a little sad since it is my last week here! For those who don't know I received my travel itinerary last week and it's headed for Cote d'Ivoire!!!!!!!!! I guess that it still doesn't guarantee that my Visa is here but I'd say it's safe to assume I have it because I'm set to be leaving Sunday morning and I haven't heard anything about reassignment. So yeah I fly out super duper early Sunday morning to Seattle, then I go from Seattle to PARIS(woohoo!), then from Paris to COTE D'IVOIRE(bigger woohoo!) It's crazy to see everything winding down so quickly here. I'm ready but also not ready to head out to the field just because I really do love the MTC a lot. It is like EFY on steroids it is great. 

On Sunday, Elder Pugh and I sang Merveilleux L'Amour(I Stand All Amazed) in sacrament meeting! It was super awesome and we made one of our zone leaders cry so I see this as an absolute win.(Avengers:Endgame) 

Then the devotional that night was given by Brother and Sister Hemingway and they hit the importance of Preach My Gospel very hard. They challenged all of us to study from PMG daily and of course we all accepted. Studying in PMG both in english and french has been an amazing way to expand my gospel knowledge because it displays the doctrine so simply, but then it gives you ways to really dive deep into certain doctrine and it is so fun! Elder Young and I have been doing a comp. study activity everyday and I've been learning so much! The Tuesday Devotional was by Elder Kearon of the Seventy Presidency! If you don't remember he gave the famous Refuge From the Storm talk in April 2016 about refugees. He also has a British accent so that was entertaining enough. We also sang a song called "Hurrah for Israel" which was inspired by Elder Groberg's mission story(The Other Side of Heaven guy) and Elder Groberg was there!!! Anyway Elder Kearon shared how we need to "Become the Message". When we are out preaching, we need to have to display the joy and happiness that this gospel brings us. He is such an amazing speaker I didn't want it to end.

We had our last Skype TRC this week and it went pretty well. We talked to a lady from Normandy and she had really nice french but that's all she spoke so that made it really fun. SHE HAS A CRAZY CONVERSION STORY. Okay so she grew up Catholic and then both of her parents died and after she had a dream about eating white fruit, so she eventually met up with the missionaries and shared her dream with them and I bet their jaws dropped and then immediately flipped to 1 Nephi 11.(Get it? Tree of Life, white fruit? Crazy Right???) So yeah that was super cool to hear that story.

We also had English face to face TRCs this week and we taught this guy named Dwayne and he's literally one of the coolest dudes ever! He has such a good outlook on life and is so loving! He just didn't have a good relationship with God so we taught him why we experience trials and also the power of prayer! We made him cry, laugh, and feel the spirit. After our last lesson he got a picture with us! He is super cool and I hope everything goes well for him.

Okay I finally gave in and had my parents send me some sandals because I realized that if i'm allowed to wear sandals on my mission, I'm definitely gonna take advantage of it. I love them so much I feel so powerful in them haha. Plus I get to flex on those non-sandal missionaries haha. 

The French is just getting better and better! No joke my first instinct for when I pray is to say it in french now it is awesome! I'm definitely not anywhere close to fluent yet but I can tell I'm making progress. I'm just waiting for the African dialect to hit me like a brick when I get there. 

I am so grateful for my teachers. I am definitely not biased in saying I got the best teachers in the MTC because they are so encouraging and loving to us and I have learned so much from them. Both in language and teaching aspects. I'll never forget them. 

I'm sad that my time here is coming to an end but I am so excited to finally get to Africa and spread this gospel to every mountain and to all the holes in the rocks(Jeremiah 16:16)

WEEKLY WISDOM: FEAR NO MAN

Lot's of Love to all of you and thank you for supporting me!

Au revoir!

Elder Perkins

The Baloonie Saga continues...

1. Baloonie has fallen I'll. I don't think he's gonna make it

2. Baloonie writes his last will and testament. He is ready to meet his maker

3-7. More pics of my and Elder Young messing around

8. Lumiere and Cogsworth reunion! 

9. The Gentle Giant of our branch presidency, Brother Sowards...what a legend.

Nous Nous Confions~Nous Croyons~Nous Baptisons!!!!

After writing his email, we received the following text chain from Kartch (Elder P). So happy for him!! He leaves for Africa on Sunday morning Sep 29!! His MTC companion also received his Visa too, they will be flying through Paris together.

On Fri, Sep 20, 2019 at 11:05 AM Kartchner Perkins <kartchner.perkins@missionary.org> wrote:

Hola! Como estais chicos!!!

PSYCH ha I'm speaking French not Spanish you fools! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders!(Princess Bride) I guess the french title gave me away haha. Speaking of which one of my teachers, Frere Brenchley, created this awesome motto for our district!(What's a motto? Nothing what's the motto with you?!- Lion King) I shan't reveal it's translation you have to work for that.

Anyway it has officially gotten to the point of the MTC where all the days are blurred together and I just want to get to the field so bad! It's gotten to the point where my teachers and leaders are starting to say "When you guys leave..." a lot which is super scary but sooo exciting! Little update:  My Visa still is not here yet and I only have 9 days left in the MTC, so I still have no idea where I'm going which is HA very fun.

The devotionals this week were awesome. We watched the Face To Face with Elder Soares on Sunday and it was so cool how they spoke in all of the many different languages! He slid in some french so I was proud haha. They talked about a lot of stuff that will apply to me when I get home, but they also talked about some missionary stuff to and it's always amazing to listen to a prophet, seer, and revelator. On Tuesday we had the Young Men's General President Brother Owens speak to us! One point he talked about that I liked was that if we are obedient missionaries, we will find so much joy in the work no matter your rate of success! 

The language is really coming along! I'm starting to actually form sentences correctly and conjugate verbs more easily which is kind of important haha. We had a great role play lesson with our teacher and it really helped my confidence. Teaching and language wise! 

WEEKLY WISDOM(Let's see how long I can keep this up): Don't be afraid to open your mouth and share your opinion. Everyone has their own opinion so don't hold back and also respect the opinions of others!

We had our first Skype TRC on Monday! It was super scary because they told us not to even prepare a lesson and to just talk to them for a while and then end off with a short spiritual message. Her name was Rachel and she was so nice! She helped us whenever we were struggling to communicate what we wanted. Very grateful for that haha. At first it was kind of awkward because we didn't really know what to talk about and it felt like someone vacuumed all of my French out of my head. However she told us that she was from Belgium and I mentioned that my sister married a guy from Belgium and it turns out that she knows my brother-in-law! Super small world so that made it a lot more comfortable for me haha.

My room had the amazing idea to start watching a conference talk every night and then talk about it a little afterwards. It eventually got to our whole district being crammed in our room watching a tiny phone screen and it has been a blast! It really brings us together and some of our discussions get super deep it's awesome!

Something that is super fun we like to do in our district is to take popular songs that we know and translate them into English! We've done it for so many songs like the one Come Together song haha I forgot the actual name, Happier by Bastille, and LOTS of ABBA for some reason and it helps with the vocab!  

As I said before the days are kind of blurring together so this week is a little shorter but it's not like you actually read this and not just skip to the pictures haha.

Au Revoir!

Elder Perkins

Photos!

The Baloonie Saga continues...

1. Baloonie is ready to hit the town

2. Ballonie has had a little too much to drink

3. Caught Baloonie playing in the irons again...

4. Baloonie likes to dab on them haters

5. Baloonie doesn't like uno

        ~possibly to be continued~

6-8. A collage of me and Elder Young taking some epic pics please enjoy 

Waving Through A Window (WOAAAAOH)

Bonjour mes amis et ma famille!

If you've ever heard the phrase "The days turn to weeks and the weeks turn to days" relating to the MTC, it is completely true. But that doesn't necessarily mean a bad thing! Yes some days can be dreadfully long but definitely not boring! My testimony has been growing tenfold and I feel like I am becoming such a grown up it's super weird haha. And while the days are long, I feel like my three week stay here has been only a couple days. It feels like yesterday I was picking up my study materials and had no clue how to read Le Livre de Mormon en francais. Whenever I feel like I'm not progressing, I just look at how far I've come and it's incredible! I've said it before and I'll say it again. The Gift of Tongues is SO real. And I can't wait to be able to communicate the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the people of Cote d'Ivoire in their native tongue!

I'll just start with Elder Stevenson coming on Tuesday to give a devotional!!!! It was awesome to see an Apostle of God come and speak to us. And even more cool was that it was broadcasted to all of the other MTCs in the world! So my fellow Elders in the Ghana MTC and I could share a devotional which I thought was pretty cool. We sang in the choir for it with Nearer My God to Thee and it was crazy powerful! Plus Elder Young and I got on the big screen during the performance so we're famous now. Elder Stevenson spoke about the missionary toolkit and how our toolkit is much simpler than before coming on our missions. Last little bit about this is when Elder Stevenson entered the room, we were all singing I Know That My Redeemer Lives and the Spirit flooded the room and it gave me a solid witness that we have Apostles and a Prophet on the earth today and they are divinely directed by God and Jesus Christ. 

My title is for when I am in class at night and the people walking or driving by can see inside our classroom. So me being right next to the window, I feel the need to wave at people and it's so fun! Sometimes they wave back or honk which makes it even more special haha.

My district got to be hosts on Wednesday! That means that we are the ones that rip the incoming missionaries from their families and start them on their missionary journey haha. It was such a cool experience because I remember my first day here and how crazy it was but it was nice to have someone there that knew his way around and could answer my questions. So it was cool to be on the other end of that experience. It was pretty awkward just standing there with a missionary's luggage watching them cry and hugging their family but other than that it was super fun!

The language has been getting more difficult for me this past week. I feel like I should be at a certain level with the language but I'm not there yet. I know it will come over time though!!!! I just need to have faith and keep studying hard and practice.

With the departing German districts leaving this past week, someone needed to take up the mantle of snack supplier and the title has been put upon me thanks to my amazing family sending me more than enough sweets haha. Seriously I think it's one of the biggest box I've seen here not to flex on you guys or anything. So now I have a big box of snacks also including contributions from my roommates and we feast almost as much as we feast upon the words of Christ. 

HIGHLIGHT OF THE WEEK- We were throwing a frisbee around in our residence hall with our church clothes. We were being pretty goofy with our throws and then Elder Cortes lunges super far to throw it between his legs, and then I just hear the biggest and most defined rip I have ever heard in my life followed by Elder Cortes' "NOOOOOOO". I was on the floor crying it was hilarious. It was a tragedy because they were really nice pants.

I only have 16 days left here in the MTC. I still don't know for sure if I'll be going straight to Cote d'Ivoire but I am getting so excited to enter the field! It's super scary for sure but I believe that I will be protected and guided while serving the Lord. 

This is Elder Perkins signing off.

Au Revoir

If you want to send him snail mail or a package at the Provo MTC, his departure is Sep 30, so please make sure your letter arrives by Sep 28:

Elder Kartchner Chase Perkins
SEP30 CDIV-ABIW
2005 N 900 E Unit 111
Provo UT 84602

So I sincerely apologize for my lack of pictures this week but honestly not much photo opportunities presented themselves this week so without further adieu...

The Baloonie Saga

1. Baloonie tries to sneak some snacks from our stache...bad Baloonie!

2. Baloonie grieves the death of his father(that was our first baloonie but he popped shortly thereafter)    ~Probably won't continue because I'm running out of ideas~

3. Returning to the single day I've seen the Cote d'Ivoire flag flying

                 

J'ai besoin d'une sieste...(p.s. HAPPY BIRTHDAY PRESIDENT NELSON)

Bonjour mes amis et ma famille!!

Week 3 has been super meaningful and inspirational! But first things first. It is the Prophet's birthday today!!!!!!!!! President Nelson is truly a prophet of God and he is so spry for being 95 right??? It's also great because we get to watch his birthday celebration tonight instead of class so that's a bonus. 

Well to get on with my week I'll just start with Sunday which is the best day!!! I'll b honest Sundays are pretty slow going because it is just meeting after meeting but I learn so much from them all! Elder Young and I taught a lesson during priesthood meeting about the Great Apostasy and the Restoration and it went really well! It was super stressful because right before we started, the second counselor of the MTC Presidency walked in and it freaked me out. But it was good because he gave a lot of good comments and afterwards he said we did a really good job! Choir practice was really special because we started practicing Joseph Smith's First Prayer which is one of my favorite hymns! Our director is really good at telling stories and relating them to the song to make it more special which is awesome! The devotional that night was amazing! It was by Sister Ulrich who is like a really popular psychologist who has written a bunch of books and stuff and she talked about the difference between a fixed mindset vs. a growth mindset. If we have a fixed mindset about something, then we can't learn and grow from that experience, but if we have a growth mindset, we have the desire and drive to learn from challenges and "Lean forward" instead of "leaning back".  Then since it was Fast Sunday(which may I add is way longer at the MTC because you don't have full control of the eating schedule haha) I asked if our district could share what we fasted for and it was super cool the spirit was so strong!

One thing that kind of hit me that Sunday was when some of the missionaries in my zone were getting reassigned due to Visas not coming in. And that got me thinking of the possibility of getting reassigned to the States since mine still hasn't come in yet. So that's what I was mostly fasting for. For in the case that I am reassigned, that I can be totally okay with it and be able to grow a love for the people as I have for the people of Cote d'Ivoire. And the awesome part is that when I prayed about it that night, I woke up with such happiness and comfort and I know that that was my answer. I know it is kind of premature to think about reassignment but I'm glad I have that comfort now.

 We had our first TRC en francais this week and let me tell ya, it was very stressful. We got not a lot of time to prepare for it and we kind of had to just walking and and make it up as we went along. The thing is, I was totally at peace the whole time, and even though I didn't speak amazing french, I could feel words just coming out and it really was an amazing experience. 

For choir practice on Tuesday, the director Brother Egget brought in the death masks of Joseph and Hyrum Smith which was really cool and he gave a really cool analogy that I want to share. Missionary work is like having an unlimited amount of gold bars. Since you can never run out of the gold bars, you have a desire to share it with everyone because of all of the joy those gold bars bring you. The gold bars obviously being the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It's such a good way of explaining missionary work but instead of handing out gold bars that are of worldly value, we have the gospel and happiness, which is of eternal value. 

Yesterday my district decided to do an English Fast and even though we kind of fizzled out of it by the end of the day, it was such a good experience to learn and build up my confidence with the language. By the way, it is way easier to be funny in french than english because all you have to do is a say a simple word like "bonjour" super crazy and it's instantly hilarious. French hack number two. When in doubt of how to say a word, just say the English word in a french accent and 70% of the time it's correct. But in all seriousness I really appreciate this amazing and crazy opportunity to learn french. It definitely got harder this week and I had a couple of bad days but I know that as long as I put the work in and have faith in Jesus Christ and the Gift of Tongues, I can learn this language. 

That's mostly it for this week! I am having the time of my life and I am not even in the field yet! I miss you all and I hope all is going well!

Heres my pics since it won't send via email.Background on the first few photos...we got really bored and recreated Baloonie from Phineas and Ferb. Elder Cortés was brilliant enough to remember exactly how to draw him so I give you... The Baloonie Saga

1. Mirror selfie with Baloonie

2. Baloonie rests after much studying 

3. Baloonie gets ready for the day by ironing his shirt.

4. Baloonie likes to play hide and seek

         ~To be continued...maybe~


5. District selfie with the awesome Moses mural.

6. Breaking of the Fast. T'was glorious!

7. Sunday nap time. Even missionaries need them.

Elder Perkins

Getting into the Missionary Handbook

Bonjour Freres and Soeurs!

First and foremost I want to apologise for my email last week because it was short and had no catchy subject title so I have already failed as a missionary...so this week I will do my best to please the needs of my fanclub(yes that's what I'm calling you). The title this week is just a joke that my district has been making all week because we all have been looking for ways to get into the Missionary handbook, and not in the good way. There have been a wide variety of things we've thought of including playing in the sprinklers, trying to capture a duck that sits on one of the fountains every night, chanting for our desired speaker for the devotional as we're being seated, or stealing the new missionaries mattresses on their first day. None of which we went through with of course but it's been fun to joke about.

But man oh man has it been a week!! So much has happened and I don't know where to begin and if I'll even get to it all. First of all Sundays are super cool here because sacrament meetings involve missionaries that are learning a language giving talks in their foreign language. I'm gonna eventually have to do that as well in a couple weeks which is terrifying but it'll be super cool! My whole district is in the choir which is awesome even though a lot of them aren't super comfortable singing. It's just great to be able to praise God in such a beautiful way. We sang Hope of Israel and our choir director told the whole backstory of Israel to us so that we can fully appreciate the song and it totally worked. The sunday devotional was from the first counselor of the MTC presidency and it was funny because they also taught about the history of Israel! It was about how we can use Joseph(coat of many colors Joseph) as an example for our missionary work. Afterwards, all of the new missionaries stayed and watched a devotional that Elder Bednar gave a couple years ago at the MTC and I gotta say. It was probably the best talk I've ever heard. I'll keep this spoiler free for all of you future missionaries reading this but it was about the Character of Christ and how we can embody Christ's example as we serve our missions. Tuesday devotional was by Bishop Fausse of the presiding bishopric! He's a french native which was cool but he didn't speak in french of course even though I wish he did. He talked about how to be a bold missionary and brought up some really good points and then to finish off he said he was going to be bold and he played an arrangement of Come, Come, Ye Saints for us it was really cool!

We taught our first couple of lessons this week! On Monday Elder Young and I got an email saying that we're teaching a woman named Madisyn on Tuesday and Thursday(in english thank goodness) and it was so exciting. My companion and I prepared a whole lesson about God's purpose for us because the email said that's what she was struggling with but when we started to teach her, we had to throw that out the window and just focus on how God loves us and the importance of prayer. We invited her to pray and on our follow up lesson she said that she prayed but didn't really feel any assurance from God. We then taught her how we need to have the faith that God does hear us and answers our prayers. We invited her to pray every day and have the faith that God will answer her.

The language is going pretty good actually! Considering I knew next to nothing about french when I came here, I'd say there have been improvements. I can more or less teach a full lesson in french and I can pray and bear my testimony in French! It was really cool when we first learned how to bear witness in french. our teacher took us to our branch room where we have the sacrament and had us all bear our testimonies in french and it was one of the best testimony meeting I've ever been to even though all we knew how to say were basic phrases. Our teacher, Frere Brenchley, then shared the story of Brigham Young's long awaited conversion in how it was the simple testimony of an unlearned man that finally touched him and converted him to the church. I know the Gift of Tongues has already had an effect on me here as I've been learning things so fast and I'm starting to fully understand my teachers when they speak in French! It's so exciting!!!!!

I honestly love my district so much. We all come from different backgrounds of gospel knowledge and french knowledge and we all help each other out with everything we need but at the same time we are having such a fun time getting to know each other! Elder Fiore is from Canada and he's teaching us all canadian slang like "Tryna reach that Jam?" which directly translates to "Are you coming to the party?" And so much more! Elder Pugh who also did theatre in high school and he's BYU famous because he's the crazy fan that always screamed at the opponent's server in BYU volleyball at every game and was on BYUTV because of it and he's hilarious! That's just two of the 11 amazing Elders in my district that I've come to love and appreciate so much!

I know that I am here in Provo for a reason. For those of you who don't know I was supposed to go to Ghana but I couldn't due to visa problems. But I'm so thankful that I am here learning how to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I know that this church is true. I am so thankful for the Book of Mormon. I know that Joseph Smith is a prophet and that he brought the restored gospel to the Earth. I'm so thankful for this opportunity to serve and to be an instrument in God's hands. 

Au revoir,

Elder Perkins

1. Elder Pugh! The famous BYU crazy fan and we also both played Benny in In the Heights at high school which is crazy!

2. Sharing the donuts my dad sent me with my district!

3. The MTC finally hang up the Cote d'Ivoire Flag

4. Most of my district after we thought our second TRC lesson

5. Our study crib courtesy of the Samoans down the hall.

6. I had to explain  the timeline and plot of Star Wars to Elder Fiore. Canadians am I right?

7. Really bad picture of the BYU v. Utah game from the top of our building. RIP the cougs