Monday, March 27, 2017

Week 34 - March 27, 2017

What's up, fam!  

It's good to hear from you all today :)  Can you believe that it's been 8 months since I left?! Also, huge shoutout to my cuz, Kade, getting called to serve in Ecuador Quito North Mission with my best friend, Elder Johnson!  Get ready for some serious heat haha! 


This week was a long one, time is a crazy concept on a mission.  I'll go through my week now, though, the best I can remember.

Tuesday:  We slept over at the Zone Leaders, woke up at 4 am, and hopped on a bus with the rest of Belfast Zone to Dublin for All Ireland!  It was a shorter Conference, but we received some great instruction from President Donaldson about planning effectively with the new missionary schedule.  I wasn't able to get any photos of Dublin :(  But I did get to see some Elders I hadn't seen for a while, that was well good!  Afterwards we hopped on the bus back to our areas.  That was about the entire day.
 
 Elder Copeland explained, "The first one is a bit of cheek for you guys haha ;)"
 "Another church in Lisborn."
 "At a member's home, am I in the Brazil mission now?"

Wednesday:  We had a pretty interesting day aha, Started off with a great lesson with Kirstie.  She still is having issues with her parents supporting her, so we gotta keep praying for a miracle for her!  Afterwards, we went to go GQ on Bow street, all was going well, the same as usual.  Just trying to get people to stop and talk to us, and then this lad comes up and starts having a decent conversation with me.  He was a Born Again Christian, but had some good questions I was helping him understand.  All of a sudden this old man jumps into our conversation and begins to go absolutely psycho on me, and not only that, but the other lad gets hyped up with him as well and they both start going at me!  I have never felt such darkness and hatred in a man than I did from him.  There is no point in going through all that he said, but it wasn't very nice to say the least.  I just held my tongue and testified of the truth of the Book Of Mormon and Joseph Smith to them.  That didn't stop them though, and I just stood there taking it.  Nigel Jackson who is one of my favorite members in the world came up behind me and put his arm on my shoulder and told these guys to go away, and they ran so quickly it was hilarious!  But I was pretty shaken up.  I didn't know anyone could have so much hate against me.  I actually just stood there in tears after they walked away. The Jacksons took us to Burger King though which was really nice of them haha.  The rest of the day we went finding, I was struggling.  Questioning why I was here, what I was doing, realizing how much I missed you guys, just struggling.  I finally just got down on my knees and prayed out loud, and felt such a peace and love from my Heavenly Father that it was okay, and that he loved me.  Still a bit upset about that day.
 
(Elder Copeland's mother received this notification from the wife of Nigel Jackson, who Elder Copeland referred to as running off the two unpleasant men in the above incident.  It made the entire family so proud of how Elder Copeland handled this very unsettling situation.  Amazing that he still has such a huge smile on even though he was so shaken inside!)
 
Thursday:  Lots of finding, little success.  We had our interviews with President Donaldson. I talked to him for a little bit but he has so many missionaries he has to take care of and run around two countries, I really didn't want to give him any more of a burden aha, so we just talked about some good scriptures to study and what not.  We had Book Of Mormon class in the evening.  We taught Alma 48, and how great of an example Moroni is in our lives.  It motivated me to take that example as well with the hard week, to put my faith in God and truly humble myself.

Friday:  A full day of finding, not a single person was interested.  But hey, good weather here now at least! 

Saturday:  Another day of finding, nothing.  We had a great lesson with Mannie and another one with Andrew though.  Thankful for the people in this ward and their support.  Especially Mark, such a good guy.  It's hard because you can feel really alone on a mission, and having some friends in the ward makes all the difference, and you guys at home giving me that support each week, I wouldn't be able to continue every week if it wasn't for you.  Thank you.

Sunday:  Today was the UK's Mothers Day!  They had a special Mothers' Day service and gave flowers to all of the Mums.  Kirstie wasn't able to come, her parents wouldn't let her. Candice and her fam came to church!  She enjoyed it, but she said she isn't ready for next Friday to be baptized, bummer.  But we will see her this week and figure something out! Gotta have Faith.  I missed you a lot, Mum.  Can't wait to talk to you guys in a few weeks. 

So that was my week.  We were going to go to Shanes Castle today, but our alarm got messed up and we were exhausted, so just went grocery shopping and did e-mailing today. 

 Elder Copeland, "We also had dinner with the Smyths tonight!  They're legends!  Great start to the week! :)"

I am excited for Conference, I could really use that spiritual boost to keep working hard. Happy the week is over, ready for the next one!  I love you all and will talk to you soon :)
 
Elder Copeland
 
 (Another special happening this week was when Elder Copeland's mother congratulated Elder Copeland and Elder Nelson's recent convert, Man Kong Choi.  He replied to her congratulations with the following:  "Aw, thank you.  Your son is so awesome and you should be proud of him!  He is a legend!)





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