Week 79 - January 28, 2019

Well, I have a new companion!

 Elder Vidal!  He is from Lima, Peru!  He is a super cool guy, and we get a long super well.  It's definitely a change after being with Elder Fernandez for so long.  But Elder Vidal and I are super excited for this next couple weeks because we have a lot of potential here in Centenario!

This week I've honestly felt pretty sick.  I don't really know what I have, but today I do feel a little better, which is good! But we were able to have some pretty good experiences. This last week one of investigators basically disappeared and lives super far away.  But we decided that we needed to look for him.  We got on the bus and some how ended up finding him in the middle of no where, which was a big blessing because he has a lot of potential to get baptized.

As well, this week we taught Jakeline and she is doing awesome.  We taught her about some of the commandments, and she told us that she is willing do to whatever it takes to get baptized.  It's been such a miracle that basically came out of no where.  But we're super excited for her baptism coming up in these next couple weeks.

Something that was pretty rough is one of our investigators with a date for baptism fell through and we haven't been able to find him.  We're a little worried for him,  but I feel like everything is going to be okay!  This week we went and visited some members to try and get some references from them.  It worked out great.  We were able to get some great references that have a lot of potential to progress!

The best part about this week is that we have been able to teach some members about how they can be missionaries. We have been reading Helaman 6:1-5 and showing them how big of a blessing they are to the missionaries.  Also, we talked about how they need to be praying for missionary opportunities everyday to be able to bless more people here in Ecuador.  The people here are super excited to help us out with the mission work.  I'm super excited to see the results from showing the members how important they really are.

This week, I was reading in the Book of Mosiah learning about the teachings of King Benjamin.  As well, something that makes me super sad is to hear that people don't want to come to the church because someone in the church did something that they shouldn't have... I love one of his teachings that he teaches us in Mosiah 4:19-20:  "For behold, are we not all beggars?  Do we not all depend upon the same Being, even God, for all the substance which we have, for both food and raiment, and for gold, and for silver, and for all the riches which we have of every kind?  And behold, even at this time, ye have been calling on his name, and begging for a remission of your sins..."  As humans, I feel like sometimes what we do is that we instantly begin to judge others when we don't realize that we do the same thing.  I feel like King Benjamin said these things to warn us, to teach us that we have to be better.  I feel like this is a lesson very important to learn now so that we can become better disciples of Christ!

I love you all so much.  I'm trying super hard to be able to finish off my mission giving it all that I've got.  I love these people so much.  Pray for the people here to open up their hearts so that they can see the miracles in their lives!!

Love, Elder Copeland