I'm AN UNCLEEEE!!!
Congrats to Ellie and Taylor for having their first baby!! I couldn't be happier for them, more for me because I know I'm his favorite uncle! Love you Otteson!!
Wow! Kind of a little crazy of a week! We've had a lot of stuff do to in the office and in the field! Also, Ellie had her baby, like I mentioned before. I'm super sad that I couldn't be there, to be honest. But I know I'm where I'm supposed to be. Otteson will have to wait just one year more. Also, it was the 4th of July! I hope you all enjoyed your 4th of July. In the offices, we don't have any Mamitas, so we basically eat out always. So on the 4th of July, we went BIG and got really good hamburgers! It was so great!
I felt like such an American. There was unlimited fries and drinks! There wasn't that many fireworks, which was kind of a bummer... but everything is going good for me here in the mission. I feel like I'm just in the groove of the mission. Weeks just pass by super fast. It's honestly kind of sad. I want time to slow down more so that I can still enjoy the mission while I can. I'm so beyond grateful for the mission, without a doubt the best decision my life. I've felt the love of Christ stronger than ever being able to see people's lives change.
This week has been kind of rough for us to be honest. When I got called to Ecuador, I thought that it would be super easy to baptize and to find people. But wow! This sector has been really difficult for us. As of right now, we only have one investigator (Sofia), and I'm not going to complain. She is super super cool and such a miracle. But the rest of the time, we just contact or go in the offices the whole day. The office work is kind of fun. It's kind of cool being able to see how the church works to keep a mission working. But wow, contacting in this sector is super hard. Nobody has been even letting us talk to them. We went to a giant park one day and contacted about everybody that we saw and just nothing for a good amount of time. But after about an hour and a half, we went and found three Venezuelans at the park playing baseball. It was just like a little baseball field, the only one in Ecuador. One of them had a Giants hat, so I told them about how Seth got drafted by them and they got really interested. Then they asked us to play a little bit with them, so we got to bat, pitch, and play in the field. These guys were actually really good. They played professional in Venezuela but had to move because of the things that have happened there. So after awhile, my companion was pitching and the Venezuelan guy ripped one right into the ribs of my Ccomp! HAHA it had to be one of the funniest things I've ever seen. My comp couldn't breath or anything. It was super funny. You had to be there to see it.
But the good thing that we did was get their contact info to go and visit them, so that was pretty good.
Some other good things that happened this week is we were able to meet with our Bishop on Sunday. It was a completely different house than all of my other Bishops. He has a really good job and has visited hundreds of places around the world. He is super cool and we talked to him about what we need to do to help him in his ward. It was super effective and got a lot done. While we were there, he gave us some Guarana, a Brazilian drink that we brought back from Brazil. Reminded me so much when we went down as a family.
We had only one lesson this entire week, it was with Sofia. We passed by and taught her about the Word of Wisdom. We were really nervous that Sofia would have a problem with wine and coffee, so we taught her the commandment and she had a couple questions. She told us that one of her friends already taught her the Word of Wisdom so she had already stopped drinking coffee and wine for an entire week!! Haha she is honestly such a miracle!
Also, this week we had our Leadership Council. President only invites the Zone Leaders and the Secretaries to see what we can do better as a mission in general. It was really great. President taught us a lot of really good things. It was cool, as well, because I was able to see Elder Harris again as well as Elder Vega and Haslam. I missed those guys so much.
Also, this week we were able to go to Zone Conference. I was able to see a lot of my old buddies which was cool, like Elder Palmar, my first District Leader. President taught us some great things about how we can be better missionaries. It was a lot of time in meetings, but they were great.
Elder Palmar and Elder Copeland
Elder Copeland and Elder Haslam
Today for P-day we went crazy and hiked to the top of Pinchincha.
It is right above Quito and you take a gondola about half way up and you can see basically all of Quito! Quito is hands down one of the most beautiful cities that I've seen. Seeing it from up there was so beautiful. After, we decided to keep going until we got to the tippy top. It was one of the hardest hikes that I've ever done. We were about 15,000 feet above sea level, so it was super hard to breath and it was very cold. We had to climb up sand hills, rock climb, and so many more things. It was one of the best feelings that I've ever had in my life when we got to the top. We just pushed ourselves super hard. It definitely paid off in the end, which was great.
As well this week, I was able to read about the Anti-Nephi-Lehites--one of the best stories in the Book of Mormon. They were such horrible people, but than they because converted to Christ. Often we judge people from things that we hear about them, but if this group of people was able to change, I believe that anyone could change. They were willing to lose their lives than to sin again. The best gift that Christ ever gave to me and to all of us, is that we can CHANGE. He made it possible for the sinners of the world, including us, to be better tomorrow and the next day. And if we did do something bad today, well we have tomorrow to be better! How amazing is our Savior Jesus Christ! Love, Elder Copeland
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