Week 70 - November 26, 2018

Happy Thanksgiving!!! 

Wow, I can't believe Thanksgiving already passed through again.  I'm so thankful for the chance that I have to be here in Ecuador.  I've been able to learn so much here in the mission.  I'm thankful for my family who has supported me in every moment of my life.  As well, for all my friends that are all around the world preaching the gospel.  I'm so thankful for the testimony that I have gained of my Savior, Jesus Christ, and his atoning sacrifice that he made for us.  I'm thankful that his Father was willing to send his Son to die for us and for the scriptures that we have today.  I'm thankful for all of the challenges that I've had in my life and for the people that I've been able to meet.  They truly have changed my life.  I'm thankful for everything and love every one of you.

This week, we were able to meet a Seventy that came to our mission, Elder Gavarret.  He is from Uruguay.  He is a great man and we were able to learn a lot from him and his wife. They are awesome people.  We had to travel down to Quito to go and visit him, so it was cool going back to my old sector.  As well, we had to travel up to Ibarra to help out with some meeting that we had.  So honestly, a lot of this week we were in meetings, which was kind of a bummer because we lost some time in our sector.

But, this week we were able to find a really cool Venezuelan named, Faviola.  She honestly was so awesome and prepared.  She told us about how excited she was to meet us.  We are hoping that she will be a miracle and will be able to complete with the commitments that we leave with her.

On Tuesday, the Assistants came and stayed with us here in our house so we were able to go out with them and teach. But the cool part is, is that both of the Assistants have served in this sector.  So, they were able to help us out finding some old investigators and stuff like that, so that was a big help to us.  As well, we had a ministering night in the Imbaya Ward were we went and helped out.  We went and ministered to the less actives over there and that ward, so that was actually a cool experience as well.

But a cool experience that we had this week is on Wednesday.  We were talking to a member and he asked us to come and visit his wife that is sick so we went and passed by Friday night.  Wow!  It was such a spiritual experience, she was about 70 years old and had cancer... For the cancer that she has, she has lost basically all of her hair and her leg... But she continues to be so faithful to the gospel.  As well, they lost one of their sons not too long ago... They were such a testimony to me of the trails that we will have in our life and how we must continue to be faithful in these moments and God will bless us.  They don't understand how much they blessed me and helped me realize how blessed I am.  I am thankful for their example in my life.

Some other testimony builders this week that I had are from the Vera Family.  They are a family of 11 people and, to be honest, the situation between the parents is super weird and it's probably better that you do not know haha.  But they have three daughters who are members of the church and they live on a giant hill about 40 minutes from the chapel. Because they don't have enough money, they walk to church every single Sunday.  Keep in mind--they are 11-16 years and their parents don't even go to church with them.  They walk up and down the hill every Sunday, such an amazing example...

As well, we were able to teach Jose Mayua.  To know more about him, he's 75 years old and talks very little Spanish, only Quichaua haha.  So, we had to teach him with our Ward Mission leader, basically, just translating for us haha.  You have to see the video and see if you can understand anything they say hahaah.   Love you all.  Elder Copeland

Elder Copeland's lunch.  Hah!  

Plasa de Ponchos