I am glad you were safe in Florida and that the storm didn't hit you. I hope you all had a great week.
This week was probably the hardest week of my mission, to be honest. Pretty much, every single one of our investigators dropped us, and we are starting back at square one. I don't even want to talk about it much, so this might be a shorter email, but let's just say I am glad that it is over and am looking forward to this next one.
Tuesday: We had our District meeting for the week, and I learned a
lot of good stuff about Faith/Works and what the differences are and the
importance of them. If you didn't know, a lot of other Christian
churches believe all you gotta do is say you love Jesus, and you're saved
and it's that easy. And it is true, Jesus Christ has suffered for all
mankind and has already saved us! But, you still gotta do a bit of works
if you want to inherit eternal glory. That was good. We then headed
over to the library, read the Book of Mormon with Vicky some more, and had lunch. After lunch, we taught a new investigator named Alice from Britain.
The lesson went really well! She agreed to read and meet with us again
this coming week, so we will see how it goes. After Alice, we had about three
hours of GQ'ing up and down the streets, then went over to the church
and had dinner with our Ward Mission leader named Leon and had Ward
Coordination. After that, we taught David how to pass the Sacrament so
that he can start passing on Sundays!
Wednesday: We went on exchanges with the other Aberdeen Elders. I
got to go with Elder Ritchie. We didn't have a single lesson planned for
the day, so we literally just GQ'd from sun up until sun down in their
area. Not a single person stopped and talked to us and agreed to have a
lesson, that was tough. But we were able to have some good talks and
tried our best to make it as enjoyable as possible. I did get some cool
pics of some street art, too.
Thursday: I was back with Elder Elsmore. We only had one lesson
with a guy named Adam, who is Bahai or however you spell it?! Some crazy
religion that accepts every religion as being right. I don't even know.
The lesson sucked, he was nice and all, but he is not getting baptized
any time soon haha. After that, we GQ'd the entire day, which was hard,
not a lot of success, then we went over to a dinner appointment we had.
Those two American Girls named Lauren and Lo that I talked about before made
us a really good meal, and we had fun talking to them. We tried to talk
to them more about our church, and they said they love Mormons since
they live in Cali and have a ton of friends, but they are not giving up
Alcohol/Tea/Coffee. So we taught them the Word of Wisdom, and they said
they'll still have us over for dinner once in a while, and are really
friendly, but not getting baptized any time soon either.
Friday: We had our studies, then headed over to the Stake Centre
for Zone leader Conference. It went well, it was just for the ZL's and
DL's all over our area, but I learned a lot from it. I got my Halloween
package you guys sent me, too! THANK YOU so much!! It was the highlight
of my week! I love getting them from you guys and thank you so much once
again, I can't tell you how many times how thankful I am. It really
boosts my spirits haha and helps me remember I have people back home who
still love me and are cheering me on, gets me through the hard days.
Other then that, we taught our less active John Howard which is always a
good time, then GQ'd for the entire day trying to find some new people
to teach!
Saturday: Today was the HARDEST day of my mission. Not a single
lesson, we GQ'd the entire day with pretty much no success. I really was
beating myself up all day, too. It's hard not to when you feel like the
past seven weeks have been for nothing and all you do the entire day is
think about it. We did have a dinner appointment though with the guy Elder Corcoran and I found last week named Matt. He is doing super solid, I
really hope he gets baptized. But, he is in the ZL's area and so they
now get to teach him. It's all about building the kingdom of God though,
not who gets them in the water. I gotta remember that haha. In summary,
a tough day.
Sunday: We started off with Ward Coordination, where we told
everyone that we want to serve the ward more, because that is something I
felt like we were lacking on. So this week, we should have some service
which will be good. Church was pretty good. We were suppose to have four
investigators come to church, and none showed up haha. A little
frustrating to say the least, especially when people can't progress
without coming to church, but hopefully next week someone will come.
After church, there was a little "Munch and Mingle" which was good to get
to know the ward better and offer more service. After church, we GQ'd
for a few hours, and had a lesson! We taught two new people named Kim
and Kat (That's pretty funny isn't it) who were from America, knew a
little bit about Mormons, and were interested in hearing more. We had a
good lesson with them. They told us they will meet again next week. The
only problem is they had a lot of concern about the church and our stand
on gay people. So we had to talk to them and discuss that a bit. It was
good though. After their lesson, we GQ'd for the rest of the night and
called it.
So that was my week as best as I can remember. It was hard. I
seriously doubted myself a lot and questioned why I am here, because I
feel like I have accomplished nothing haha. But I know if I keep being
obedient and work as hard as I can, I will be able to see the miracles. I
miss you all a lot, thank you for the emails and pictures, they help. I
hope that we can have a better week, remember to thank God for
everything he has given you. We truly are so blessed. People here have
nothing at all to make them happy but beer and cigarettes, and are so
messed up, it really has humbled me. I love you guys, talk to you soon.
-Elder Copeland
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