Hello, Family,
This week was another great week here in Otavalo! Honestly, it was a pretty long week with a lot of mixed emotions, but the good news is that everything turned out okay. We started the week out with Mission Council in the house of President. They're always so amazing! We are able to learn so much about leadership. I really liked the training of Sister Murphy. She talked Discipleship. She asked us a question, "Soldiers or Disciples?" It really got me thinking about what the difference was. We talked a lot about the difference especially how a Disciple is a lifetime calling as well, how it takes a lifetime to be able to be a true Disciple, while maybe a soldier is only a calling for an assigned time. There were a lot of other answers, to be honest. But I loved what Sister Murphy said at the end. "As a disciple, you are going to have to sacrifice a lot, but God has promised us that he will always, ALWAYS bless more than what we sacrifice." Keep learning about how we can be true disciples of Christ like Ammon, Peter, Alma, Nephi, Mormon, and Moroni!
As well, this week we had Zone Conference and we were able to learn even more from President and Sister Murphy. They talked a lot about how we don't need to fear, but that we need Love,Trust, and Do. Also, they taught us a lot so that we can find more people to teach and help them come to Christ.
So, this week we had a lot of meetings so we didn't have a bunch of time to be able to work in the field, which was kind of frustrating. Also, I got sick again which was just another day that we lost... we lost a lot of time but I think we worked hard enough to be able to get everything done that we needed to.
A little kid asked me to baptize him which was pretty fun.
One of the miracles that we saw was being able to visit our recent convert Indy and his family. I explained a little bit before about their situation. Humberto is the dad of Indy. He has lived a very hard life. His wife passed away 6 months ago. He lives alone with his five kids--the oldest being 19. Also, one of the kids has down syndrome, and honestly he's just not doing so well. We felt like we had to go by and visit them, and we got there and he just started crying. It was so sad to see him like that. It truly was a miracle that we were able to visit him and give him a little more hope to keep going! A really special experience.
As well, our investigator Edwin passed his baptismal interview, but not that's end of the story. After passing his interview, we got a call at 9 PM from Edwin and he told us that he wasn't ready for baptism... We ran over to his house and when he saw us, he ran away haha... Later on, I called him and he answered and I had to explain to him that he was ready for baptism and that he had to pray. After that, he hung up on me... Later on in the night, we got a message from Edwin saying that he prayed and that he felt like that he wanted to be baptized, such a scare to be honest. But such a miracle that God answered ours and his prays...
Honestly, this week was just stressful, and I've been thinking and seeing how hard Satan works on the people here. Not just investigators, but members, husbands, wives, recent converts, etc. I see families get destroyed every single day, investigators lose their hope, members go in-active for things that are so simple to fix. It honestly gets me kind of frustrated. But, it also makes me realize the importance of the invitation that Nephi makes us in Nephi 32:8-9: "Pray always." It is so important that we are always praying to God and asking for the things that we need. Such as, if we need health, we should keep the Word of Wisdom. Or if we want a happier family, we should keep the law of chastity and the Sabbath day. "Pray always" doesn't just mean to always be praying, rather it means that we should live our prayers so that the "evil spirit" has no power over us. We must be prepared when the adversary attacks us, and we must keep the commandments so that it may be for the "welfare of thy soul." This is one of the most important lessons that there is in this life. We must always be prepared, for whatever comes. Love, Elder Copeland
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