WOW!
I have no clue
where to start this email. It's been chaos for me, but I am going to try my very
best to get everything in that's happened this week! I
hope you guys all have a great week with school and work!
Anyways onto my
week. We left the MTC and headed to the Mission home in Scotland. It was
hard to say goodbye to all my friends I had made there, but they're all going to
be incredible missionaries and I know I'll see them again!
Once we got to the
mission home, we hopped back onto the bus we came in and headed out with the Mission President (who is awesome) to Pratts Hill, where Parley
P Pratt dedicated this land to the missionaries. It was a great
view and we all got to pray and devote ourselves for these next 2 years to
serve here, and I got a couple pics.
After that, we went back to the
mission home and were there for about 6 hours where we learned what's
going to happen on the missions, where our first area will be, and who our companion is, all that good stuff. I was assigned to serve with Elder Elsmore,
in the Scotland, Aberdeen City area.
We immediately had to get on a bus,
drive to the train station, and hop on a train to be able to get to our
flat for the night. There is so much to explain about everything haha. I'll try
my best to get it all in, in the short amount of time I have.
Elder Elsmore is
19 years old (Just barely, his b day was Saturday) from Mona, Utah. He went to a
3A high school, plays golf, and is the District Leader here and an incredible
missionary! He has been out for 11 months and It's crazy cause I am only
two weeks older than him but he seems so much older. He is the youngest
missionary to ever come out on this mission. He got here a month after he
turned 18, so crazy. I could go on about all the fun we have already had,
but he is a great guy. We do really well together and are pretty similar and he
can cook well so that helps, too. I can talk more about him over the next weeks
since I will be with him for awhile haha.
But now onto Aberdeen! Our flat is
right next to the Aberdeen sports village and lets just say this city is
verrrryyyyy gray. Like every single thing in this city is gray, except the cars
because everyone drives posh ones here which is nice. I know it's the granite
city, but due to the lack of sun you
think they would maybe color up their buildings to help out?
I love the city
and didn't have a chance to take many pics of it, but I can throughout the
weeks. We also live next to a golf course. We're gonna go hit some balls after
emailing, and we're right next to the beach! I hope this is all making sense. There is so much to explain haha.
Anyways, the people here are pretty nice,
everyone is atheist and always tell us we're wasting our time, but when you do
find the people who want to listen, it makes it all the better. I
haven't knocked on any doors yet. All we do is GQ (Golden question, as in just
on the streets asking people to have a lesson with us) and teach planned
lessons. Luckily, Elder Elsmore and I can be pretty entertaining. I'll try and briefly go through my days here since I don't have a ton of time.
Thursday- First day
out on the streets of Aberdeen, Elder Elsmore set up some member lesson
appointments to help me get familiar with teaching. It was fun. We then went
and GQ'd for a few hours and had pretty good success setting up some lesson
times for the coming days. I got to meet two new members to the church named
David and Becky. David is the most Scottish man I have ever seen, and even
after a week I can barely understand him. English is NOT English here. The
accents can be very mild or extremely crazy--tough to understand, so I am trying
my best but I feel bad when I have to ask them to repeat what they told me 5
times and Elsmore just laughs. Becky is a really nice girl who just got baptized, too. She has a walking disability but is so sweet and helped me not be
so nervous to teach. It was a good day to get adjusted into the crazy schedule
and try to learn how to cook on our own.. yikes haha.
Friday- We had some
more lessons planned. We met with a guy named Jim. JIM IS CRAZY first off. He has some sort of mental disability and claims that musicians like Johnny
Cash are the true Prophets on earth. He has been an investigator for 20 years
and claims he'll be baptized at some point, just doesn't want to right now
cause he loves to drink after a 'long day' of painting weird art hah. We also
went and had a great lesson with another recent convert guy named Mac
Donnel. He is from Nigeria here for college (It's called "University" here) and I
forgot to mention that there are a lot of Nigerians and other ethnicities
because of the University Of Aberdeen that is here--actually a lot of
university age kids in general who will usually talk to us, so that is nice. Anyways had a few more lessons, it is hard to remember because the days blend so
quickly here, and then GQ'd. I don't have time, but there are so many miracles
I see here every day as we GQ and teach. God's presence is so close when you are
on a mission and the Spirit flows through me stronger then I have ever felt!
Saturday- Was Elder
Elsmore's birthday. He said that you don't celebrate them on your mission, you
just keep working and that kind of bummed me out since mine is in two months. But we
had a ward BBQ and it was nice to meet the members in our ward. Not a lot of
them, but they are the true saints of the church because they work so hard with
little support to make the church run effectively, I love them a lot already. After the BBQ, some more lessons and GQ'ing, not enough time for details sorry
;/ But I will say this, every Saturday there is a big football
(soccer) game at the Aberdeen stadium which is right by our flat. We were
walking home just as the game finished and so there were hundreds of people
looking at us like we were aliens. A lot of people came up yelling in our face
how we were wasting our time, (some other choice words haha) how God isn't
real, and how dumb we are for doing this. I really was down, and was verrryyy
angry to say the least haha pushing my way through the crowds. I wanted to walk
over to these people and tell them how we sacrifice two years of our life for
this gospel, and how it could change there lives, but I knew they wouldn't
listen. They thought it was funny. So I walked very angrily and Elder Elsmore
just smiled and said, "Elder, how do you think Jesus felt when people mocked him
in the streets?" It softened my heart and made me realize, we gotta feel a
little of what the Savior has been through to grow. ;)
Sunday- Church! It
feels just like home at church and made me happy to be able to bless the sacrament (Which we'll do a lot I'm guessing) and have some great lessons with
some investigators and the sister missionaries in our ward who are really nice
and fun to be with! After Church we had some more lessons and GQ'd a lot. After
that we went in to our flat, cleaned it all up (Even though it is very small it
gets messy fast when are always in a hurry) and called all the missionaries in
the district. Since Elder Elsmore is DL, I get to see everything he does and
learn how to do it myself so if I do become the DL when he leaves this area, I'll be ready. I truly am grateful for him as my companion. I love him a lot
already and same with the other missionaries, members, and investigators. I
have never loved people more then I have here. And I really have an increased
love for everyone back at home :)
I hope this email
made a little bit of sense. It was a lot of changes, and a lot has
happened in such a little amount of time. But when you are serving on the Lord's time, it speeds up very quickly and gives us a little insight to how
time works for him. I miss everyone a lot and even if I can't send super big
emails to you guys, I read every one of them and they make my day and my week
1000 times better! I am loving my mission and am working as hard as I can
from 6:30 a.m.-10:30 p.m., 7 days a week. I will speak to you guys soon and hopefully I
can make it all a little more clearer when the chaos dies down, or maybe that
is just how the mission is haha. I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH! Have an amazing week,
keep choosing the right and you will be blessed for It no matter how hard it
may be! I'll send some pictures to you guys and I can't wait to hear from you
all soon. CHEERS! :)
Elder Copeland
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