Week 78 - January 21, 2019

Well, to start off, thanks for all of the birthday wishes that you guys wrote me. They honestly meant a lot. 

After writing you guys on Monday, we went to visit some investigators and when we got there they had a cake waiting for me.  Honestly, one of the best birthday gifts that I have ever received... 

This week we had interviews with President, and they were awesome. We talked a lot about the future and what is going to happen in my last four changes. Got me super excited for the future!

As well, this week we had the baptism of Indy!!  Indy was honestly super excited for his baptism and was so prepared. He told us that all he wants to do now is be a missionary.  He was a good example and a reminder to his family when he got baptized.  His family has been struggling to be happy after the death of their mom.  It made me happy to see all of them together smiling and happy!!  Such a great day.

Other than that, it was a pretty rough week for us.  We have been looking for new investigators basically the whole week and didn't really get anything.  But, nothing to complain about.  We're doing great here and have some solid investigators as of right now!  As well, this week I was able to go on divisions with Elder Quitnero (Columbia).  He is super cool!  I hope one day we can be companions.  We had a super good day.  We were able to teach Familia Ipiales Rojas and help them understand the Sabbath day a little better.  It was honestly a super cool lesson.  The husband, Jose, told us that he was Catholic, and we started asking him a bunch of questions.  All of a sudden, his heart changed and he started understanding everything that we were teaching.  He was became super interested in what we were sharing and later did the prayer to finish the lesson.  The Spirit was so strong. 

As well, we had changes this week, and I will be staying here another change!!  I'm super excited to stay here another six weeks.  We have a lot of potential here for this next change!! I'll be receiving a new companion, Elder Vidal.  I'm super excited!  I don't really know him super well.  I just know that he is from Peru.  He seems like a super good guy.  I'm going to miss Elder Fernandez, though.  He is without doubt one of my best companions so far.  Should be a good next six weeks!:)  Elder Copeland

Week 77 - January 14, 2018

Hello, Fam,

Well, I guess I'm 20... Super weird to think that another birthday has already passed by... Even weirder to think that I'm not a teenager anymore... But everything is going good here.  It was a good week here to be a missionary.

One of the miracles that we had this week was on Monday. We were looking for old investigators that the old missionaries had taught before, and we were praying to see which of these people needed to hear our message again. The name Margarita Rojas stuck out to us a lot, so we went to her house on Monday to go and teach her.  We passed by and visited her and her three kids.  Her husband was not there, but it turns out that she's a member of the church, but her kids and her husband are not. The kids are beyond interested and want to be baptized, but the problem is, is that her husband is super Catholic and won't let his kids be baptized.  But she told us a story that her husband about a week before we got to her house, the husband got super drunk and did some things that he should not have done and that he felt super bad and that he needed God again in his life.  So Magarita told us to come back another day to visit her husband.  We went back on Thursday, and he told us that he is ready to change and he wants his kids to have the Gospel!!  It was such a miracle how we found them!  I know that God has a plan for them and that he sent us there for a reason!

As well, our investigator, Indy, was able to have his baptismal interview and will have his baptism this next coming week. The best news is that it is very likely he will do the baptism of his son.  It would be a boost of help for him and his family. We are super excited for them and for the blessings that they need as a family, especially after all of the afflictions that they have had in the past couple months.

This week we, also, received a reference that lives soooo far away, so we called him and he told us that he wanted us to go and visit him.  He told us that he would like us to pass by and visit his family.  But wow, he lived so far away... It was an hour away in bus and honestly is was 100% farm land--just basically corn fields and pigs haha.  But we got to the house and we able to teach them about the Book of Mormon in a very simple way because of their lack of Spanish (they speak Kichwa.)  But it was amazing to see how a family with nothing can be so happy.  I think that is one of the biggest lessons that I've learned in the mission.  I love these people and their faith.

This week we, as well, visited one of our investigators, Jakeline.  We knew that the biggest problem that she has had is that no one else in her family are members so she felt like she needed a lot more help.  So we did a family night with her and a member that was in the same situation about five years ago.  It was perfect!  We were able to get the support that she needed, and she came to church as well.  She, also, accepted a new baptismal date.  The Lord has blessed us a lot this week, and we have been able to see the blessings that we have needed!

Love you all, have a great week!  Love, Elder Copeland

Fotos

More pigs

Week 76 - January 7, 2019

Hello, Fam,

Well, another week here.  We were able to see some miracles here in the mission.  Also, we were able to see President and Hermana Murphy in Mission Council.  I love being able to see them.  They always get me excited to go back to my sector and work even harder.  We were able to learn a lot about setting goals and unity--two super important lessons that will bless me here in the mission also after the mission.  But, honestly, not the craziest week, but everything is good here.

New Year's 2019

This week we had a miracle.  One of our investigators with a date disappeared out of no where, and we were super sad about it.  But this week we found him, and it turns out that he has been reading the Book of Mormon a ton.  In one week he read until 1 Nephi 11... He told us how he felt about his reading and he says that he knows that the Book of Mormon is true!!  So amazing!  If you just read it you will know.  After, we taught him some of the commandments, hoping that he would not have a problem with any of them, and it turns out that one of his friends had already taught him all of the commandments, so he already knew everything and he was already living the commandments for a couple weeks!  I don't know how he is so prepared, but he is excited for his baptism in a couple weeks!!!

We are teaching this little kid that wants to get baptized, as well.  His name is Indy.  He is honestly just a cool little guy. His mom passed away two months ago, and he is still sad about it, but it has been a lot harder for his dad.  This week, we taught Lesson Two with them, and it was soo amazing to see the joy they had when we reminded them that their mom is waiting for them and that she loves them so much. Honestly, it was a good testimony builder for me to know that the Plan of Salvation is truly a plan of happiness.

As well, we had a family home evening with a young couple that we are teaching, Ruben and Veronica!  It was honestly super good.  We were able to go with some members that are awesome and help a lot in the mission work.  We were able to share about obedience and how it can bless us.  The family night helped us a lot with Ruben and Veronica.  Later on, they were able to go to church.  We are hoping that it will be a blessing to help them get married in the future and later baptized.

This week I was reading the Old Testament in Deuteronomy, and it says in Chapter 11:26-28, "Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse; a blessing, if ye obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you this day: and a curse, if ye will not obey the commandments of the Lord your God..."  I think that it is interesting that Moses says here that we can either look at the commandments as a blessing or a curse.  It just depends what we do with them.  I'm so thankful for the commandments that the Lord has given so that we can be blessed.

Love you all so much.  Thanks for all of your prayers. 

Love, Elder Copeland

Fotos

 The Waiki life (Indigenous shoes)

A pic with our group

Week 75 - December 31, 2018

Happy New YEAR!!  2019! 

Super crazy!  I can't believe that this year has already finished.  It was awesome being able to talk to you guys this week, especially Otto.  He's so dang cute...

Honestly, not much has happened this week.  It was kind of a rough week for us to find our investigators, also, to find new ones for all of the holidays that are going on.  There have been so many people here in Otavalo for the holidays, it's insane.  Otavalo has a giant market of clothes and honestly there are thousands of people here buying clothes every day and night.  It's so awesome.

But the highlight this week is that we went to Quito to go and do divisions with the Assistants.  I was with Elder Harris the whole day and honestly, it was super fun.  It was fun to talk about the MTC together and to see how much that we have changed since the MTC.  We were able to have some really good lessons with some investigators of theirs.  But overall, just a good day.

This week I was able to finish the Book of Mormon as well. Honestly, I love the Book of Mormon so much.  It makes me so happy!  I learn so much from it.  Its teachings are for us. Read it and you'll know that it is true.

Well, that's honestly everything that happened this week.  I was able to talk to you guys this week as well, so that's kind of why this E-mail is a little shorter.  But I hope that you have a good New Year.  2019, I can't believe it's already here... Enjoy the Holidays. 

Also, I found some pictures from about a year ago that I thought got deleted, but it turns out that they're all good.  So I'll send those!  Love, Elder Copeland

Week 74 - December 24, 2018

Merry Christmas!! 

Wow!  Super weird that Christmas is already here.  Hope you guys enjoyed Mexico.  I'm almost positive that Otavalo is more beautiful.

Christmas in the mission is honestly a time super special.  To me, it doesn't even feel like Christmas at all.  It just feels like another day.  But the difference here is that I feel so much closer to my Saviour.  It's such an amazing feeling, I love it.  I hope you guys could do something to Light the World this year.

This week though, honestly, was nothing special... We didn't have that much success.  We were outside of our sector for a majority of the time.  We were able to visit the Tocagon family, and they basically told us that they don't want to change their religion... Kind of a bummer, but what can you do?!   But we were able to pass by and visit Alex, our investigator with a date, and he is so awesome.  He is progressing a ton.  We taught him the Plan of Salvation, and he is super excited for his baptism.

As well, this week we were able to go to the mission house for a special Zone Conference.  It was awesome!  It was centered on the true reason of Christmas.  Sister Murphy talked about how Christ is the Light of the World, and I never really understood what it actually meant.  But, it is so true and so amazing all the things that Christ can light in our lives. But something that I love is that when we accept Christ as our Saviour, we as well, can be a light.  Like it says in 3 Nephi 15, "And ye are a light unto this people..." Light the World this week!

This week to Light the World, we went to two really crowded places here in Otavalo and sang Christmas carols as a ward. Honestly, it was so amazing.  We were passing out Books of Mormon and Liahonas that we wrapped up and highlighted our favorite verse.  We got a big crowed to watch us and started handing them out.  It was so amazing to see the joy the people had on their face but even more amazing to be looking around at the people that we gifted Books of Mormon to and they were reading their book!  Later on, they came by and asked us to come and visit them.  Such an amazing way to invite the Spirit.

This week, we had divisions with the Elders from Cotacachi.  I was able to go over to their sector and teach some of their investigators that have a baptismal date, and wow they are super cool.  They are a Venezuelan family and have a lot of faith.  We were able to teach them about Obedience and how constantly keeping the commandments is what brings us the blessings.  I hope that they can continue in their path to baptism.

On Saturday, we had to help out our stake and the future missionaries of our stake.  We had a mini-MTC with all of the future missionaries, and it was actually pretty fun.  We brought them to our sectors and had them contact people and help us teach lessons.  Honestly, pretty cool to be able to see how excited they were to be teaching people!

Final thought.  I was reading in Mormon this week and honestly, it's such an amazing part of the Book of Mormon. There are some key parts here.  I think one of my favorite parts is after the destruction of the Nephites, we hear that Moroni is the last Nephite that is alive.  He says in Mormon 8:5 "... and ore I have none, for I am alone.  My father hath been slain in battle, and all my kinsfolk, and I have not friends nor whither to go; and how long the Lord will suffer that I may live I know not."  How hard would that be?  Moroni basically lived his entire life in war and running away alone. He basically didn't have anybody.  I love his example.  I want to be more like him.  If you ever have a bad day, read the last two chapters of Mormon, 8 and 9.  Have the best Christmas ever.  See you tomorrow!:)

Elder Copeland.

Elder Copeland got to call his family on Christmas Day.

He was so excited to meet his new little nephew, Otto.

Week 73 - December 17, 2018

Wow!   

I don't even know where to start this week... Without doubt one of the craziest weeks in the mission so far.  This week we have been able to see some miracles here in our sector, but wow, it was a hard week!  But, we started off the new change with some great experiences.

Let's start with probably the craziest stories of the missions so far... The Adversary was attacking us super hard this week in every aspect.  First off, we weren't able to visit some of our investigators with baptismal dates. Second, our SIM card in our phone burned out and didn't allow us to do calls. As well, we didn't have hot water for the baptism.  Back to the story.  

The baptism we had this Saturday was the baptism of Jose Maigua.  Keep in mind--he is 75 years old and doesn't speak a lot of Spanish.  We had the baptism scheduled for 4 pm, but we were unable to make any calls with any of the leaders because our phone didn't work.  Luckily, a member lent his phone to us for a little bit so that we could do some calls so that we could have hot water in the font as well to get people to come.  So, we figured that out and went and filled up the font, but the water was so gross.  It honestly looked like pee. But there was nothing that we could to do change that.  So, we just left it there haha.  

As it finally got to 4 pm, we were just sitting there in the chapel waiting for Jose Maigua to get there and we were there for about 40 minutes.  We just couldn't find him... Another problem that we had is that we didn't know where he lived, so we couldn't just stop by and pick him up.  So we went and asked one of his friends where he lived and he said he didn't know exactly, but he knew that he lived in a place called Rey Loma (King Hill).   

So Elder Fernandez and I decided that we were just going to go and look for him in a place that we had never been.  I don't know if you guys know what it's like running at 10,000 feet, but man it's hard.  But, we went running up one of the steepest hills that you'd ever seen and finally made it to Rey Loma, basically gasping for air.  When we got there, we just went asking literally everybody if they knew Jose and not a single person knew.  We told ourselves that it was just a hopeless cause and that we'd never find him, but we thought that we'd ask one more person.  We went and asked a woman and she said that she knew Jose and that he lived even higher up on the hill.  We went running up the hill hoping that maybe we would be able to find his house or something like that.  I don't know how, but honestly I felt like I could have run forever despite the fact that we were above 10,000 feet!   

We went and made it to the higher part of the hill, but the problem was is that is like a farm town so there weren't a lot of people to ask.  After like 10 minutes, we found a person and she directed us to the house of Jose.  We knocked on the door and found Jose!!  It was such a miracle!  We took a taxi down to the chapel and had the baptism!  Wow!  It was so amazing!  I truly understood the words of Alma when he said, "Now when our hearts were depressed, and we were about to turn back, the Lord comforted us, and said:  Go amongst thy brethern, the Lamanites (or REY LOMA) and bear with patience thine afflictions, and I will give unto you success," (Alma 26:27) or when Nephi says,  "And I was led by the Spirit, not knowing beforehand the things which I should do."  Such a testimony builder!   We truly were guided by the Spirit this day, and were able to see God work miracles.

As well, this week we were able to put on some more baptismal dates on some investigators that we have.  One of them is named Alex.  He is 20 years old and is a reference that we received from some Elders in the mission.  Wow, is he is prepared!  He is super excited to come to church and everything.  He is progressing a ton and we were able to put a baptismal date on him for January.

Every week as a Zone, we have had the goal to do service in a new sector.  This week we went over to Punyaro and did service in the famous cemetery.  We just went to clean everything up, and there were so many people.  We got to meet a lot of cool people.  As well, we were meeting this guy that was digging up this grave and we asked him what he was doing.  He told us that he was digging up a hole for someone that just died and wanted to be buried in that spot.  I guess they don't use caskets here to bury the dead because he was just digging up old people's clothes and dead bones haha.  It was so gross.  He said he was going to throw the clothes away and just put the bones back in the hole with the new body that was going to come in.  
 
This week, I was reading in the Book of Helaman.  It's honestly a super interesting book.  I think without doubt that Helaman 5 is one of the best chapters in the Book of Mormon.  We learn about Nephi and Lehi teaching the Lamanites in the fire.  A part interesting to me is that while there is is cloud of darkness, they heard the Spirit three times.  It took until the 3rd time that they could actually understand what the Spirit was telling them.  I wonder how many times had they actually heard that voice tell them they should repent.  It's so important in our lives to learn how we can understand the Spirit the first time.  Also, to understand that the Spirit doesn't only teach the righteous like the Nephites, but as well, the wicked, like the Lamanites.  And like Nephi and Lehi, they helped them understand the voice that speaks to them.  It's also important to be able to help others recognize the voice of the Spirit.  Like the Lamanites, help them become true Disciples of God.
 
Crazy week, love you all.  Elder Copeland

Week 72 - December 10, 2018

Dear Family,

Well, another transfer under the belt.  Super weird how that change already went by.  We got changes and found out that Elder Fernandez is going to be staying with me!  I'm honestly super excited for him.  He's honestly a great missionary and a great friend, so we are super excited for this next coming change that we have.  We feel like we can do great things.

This week was honestly a great learning week for me.  We had many miracles happen in our sector as well, we had some heartbreakers.  We'll start with all of the good that we saw. On Tuesday, we had Mission Council.  Wow!  It was awesome!  It got me super excited for the work and that we have so much potential here in our Zone.  As well, it taught me about the importance of our calling and of prayer.  Also, Christmas here in the mission--it's a super unique Christmas that instead of giving presents to the kids, we just give them happiness.  I love being a missionary.

This Wednesday, I was with Elder Plata.  He is also from Bolivia.  Honestly, he's a great guy.  We had an excellent day. We just went out with so much faith and it was a great testimony builder.  We went and just contacted, and the people were accepting us.  We went contacting in the mountains and we were able to find a really cool family. They were cleaning up their farm of corn, and we asked if we could help them. They said that we could, so we just started cleaning everything up in their farm hahah.  After, we were able to teach them a message from the Book of Mormon.  It was a super good way to find people.  Just by offering to help people out.  As well, we were able to meet an eternal investigator.  But we had a great lesson with her.  I believe that it will help us a lot with her so that she can be baptized.

As well, we were able to do some service this week, which was a great time.  We went to a sector called Carabuela.  I'm pretty sure that there are more pigs than people there haha. It's such an interesting sector.  But we were able to clean about a super dirty street..

This Friday, I went on divisions with Elder Stallings.  He is a new missionary from Herriman, Utah.  He is super cool.  We were able to visit some old investigators that we have.  As well, this week our investigator Jose Maygua passed his interview to be baptized.  He is 75 years old and doesn't really speak Spanish... But he is going to be getting baptized this week.  We are hoping that he doesn't die or anything like that haha.  But it was such a miracle that he could get to this point.  So, I believe that at this point, the Lord will continue to bless him.

Our investigators are progressing super well and we were able to receive some super good references.  We are going to have a lot of good future lessons this week and see what we can do to help them.  Overall, great week.  Can't believe that Christmas is right around the corner.  So crazy.  Love you all!

Elder Copeland