Double Digits!
Dear Family,
Tuesday. Today we started the new week going over to the Tolita )a sector= and having a little Zone meeting. Our Zone leaders organized a little message about our plans for this next coming change. After, we had our District Meeting with our new district. I´m so excited for my new district. It´s just a bunch of young guys that are excited to work! After, we had a lesson with some new people that we found last week. And we were really excited they showed us a little bit of potential. So we got there and taught them about the Restoration of the Gospel. They were all excited and participating in the lesson, and we asked them when we can come back and the girl basically said, "You aren´t coming back. We have our own church. We did our part listening to you and now you can go HAHA." Such a dagger to the heart. But it´s all good because after we went over to the house of one of our investigators and were able to put a baptismal date on her. She told us that she thinks that it is time to be baptized. She just needs an answer. So we put her together a little plan to understand more and get her that answer! After that, we went and taught this one guy from another church about how we need the Book of Mormon, and there was so many distractions it was so dang frustrating. We were never able to get the Spirit in the room ugh. But we left him with a good promise. We finished the day talking to Paola and how if they want to get married, they have to actually do something with their life. But yeah, they just need a job so that they can provide for their kid. She´s so ready for baptism, it´s a joke. She only needs to get married haha. The frustration as a missionary.
Wednesday. Today we had some plans to go out and visit with a member and visit her friends. We went out and none of them were there haha. So that was kind of a bummer. After, we just went contacting. We found two guys. One of them was so cool, and I have a lot of hope for him. His name is Erik. He was working, and he broke his leg )It´s so gross= and he was just sitting at home. So we knocked on his door and he was excited to listen to us. We taught him about the Book of Mormon, and he was so excited to hear about it. So I'm really excited for this next week to be able to talk with him again. After the lessons, we were in the street going back home and this one guy in the street was begging us to give him money haha, but I told him that I have something better and gave him a Book of Mormon. He didn´t accept it haha. Almost a miracle haha.
Thursday. Today we had inter-changes and I was with Elder Mostacero. He´s from Peru and has a solid eight days in the mission. The poor guy haha. We started the day off going to Karalis and Alejandra in the morning, and I was so direct with them. I basically just told them, "Hey, we are having a baptism on the 23 of July, and we are going to baptize you guys." They were scared at first, but I helped them understand more about what we are going to do to help them. And they accepted!! It´s about time that they got a baptismal date. So that was a great event that happened today. After, we went to look for some investigators and they weren´t there, so we contacted. We found this one girl that was so awesome. She used to listen to the missionaries and had a baptismal date. She was so excited to talk to us again. We had a long conversation about what happened before. So, I´m really excited to teach her again. After, we stopped by Karen's to see what the heck has been going on with her. She just isn't really progressing a lot. I don´t know what else we can do with her... But you can only hope with some people. After, we went and visited a family that are old investigators. They were so cool. Their oldest kid is so cool. He understands everything. We passed through lesson one and he basically taught the lesson for us. We got really excited because they promised us that they were going to come to the church, but nope haha. They didn´t show up! Welcome to the mission!
Friday. Today we didn´t have too much that happened. We went and had another invasion in Forestal again, so we went to help the new Elders open up the sector. So we went over there and were able to teach some new investigators and help them out over there. After, we had a bunch of lessons planned out and every single one of them fell through haha. We had a Family Night with Bishop which also fell through because his friend forgot about it. So we passed by some investigators, and still I don´t know why they don´t get baptized or come to church. They have so much potential and they are so cool, they just don´t come to church on Sunday. So frustrating because they are so cool and I want to help them out, but they just don´t do their part haha.
Saturday. Today, without doubt, was one of the hardest days of the mission. We had the perfect day planned, and it just didn't happen hahaha. We had plans to visit so many investigators that had potential to progress, and they weren´t home, so we spent the day basically contacting the whole day. Plus, the people were extra aggressive today. I don´t know why, but they did not want anything to do with us. The only thing positive that happened to us today is we were able to visit Jessica again, but this time with members. It helped us so much to have members with us. She opened up a lot and showed a lot more progress, which was great! But other than that, we were in the heat knocking dem houses looking for somebody to bless!
Sunday. Today, we went to church and we had one investigator come... Later, we ended up going to a different class for the 2nd hour so we had nobody to teach during the 2nd hour. It was so weird and pretty disappointing, to be honest. But we did everything we could do get people to come to church... After we had lunch and a grandma came to up to us that was crazy. The people here are really open and just say what they think. She was talking to my companion and asked him if he had a girlfriend before the mission, and she stopped him and said, "Oh, nobody with that face would have a girlfriend..." It was so brutal. She was so mean, and after all of this, she asked us for a Priesthood blessing haha. Later on today, we went to go and visit some converts to see how they are, which was pretty fun. After, we had a couple of lessons with some members and both of the lessons fell through... HAHAH It was just one of those weeks. But we were walking to our house to finish the day, and I saw a couple sitting outside the house. I told my comp that we had to go and talk to them. So we went to go and talk to them and they are from Venezuela and they have lived here for one year. They were talking about how hard it was for them to leave there. We shared a really small message with them, and they were so grateful for the small message. He asked us when we were going to come back and when we are in the church Sundays so he can come! MIRACLE!! It gave me so much peace after all of the things that happened this week.
This week was one of the weeks that was pretty hard for me. We had so many people with potential, and it just all didn´t work out. It reminded me of the story of Alma in Chapter 8 of Alma. Alma was preaching in Ammonihah and the people were casting him out, spitting on him, never listening to him. It says in verse 10 that he had to ¨wrestle¨with God in prayer. It got to the point where he decided to leave Ammonihah, but an angel stopped him and prepared somebody for him. After this experience of being beat down, he rose up and was stronger, strong enough to bring 1000s of souls to God. I have no idea if the Venezuelans are the Miracle, but I do know that the Lord is preparing a miracle here in Codesa, Ecuador!! Love you all so much! Elder Copeland
Some pics from today
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