Hiya fam :)
It was good to hear from you. I can't believe you are all in the nice warm weather of Maui, while I am looking outside and seeing nothing but gray skies and rain.. One day I'll see the sun again! I hope one of you understands the title of this email. "Look up to God, open your mouth, and drink it!" It's from Elder Yoon Choi, or as Mannie said, his Uncle's talk, haha 😂 . This week was pretty good! I don't have a ton of time, and I will try to put everything in I remember best, but a lot happened!!!
Tuesday: We had our district meeting down in Portadown! The senior couple in our district, the Angels (Ironic because they are angels) fed us a massive breakfast, it was well good!
(Breakfast with the Angels.)
(Random pics of us waiting for our train after Conference.)
(Can you see the H & W Samson And Goliath? Look it up ;) Samson and Goliath are the twin shipbuilding gantry cranes situated at Queen's Island, Belfast, Northern Ireland.)
Elder McCappin and I ( He is my Gpa!-Elder Elsmore's Father) Absolute Legend!! (The Elder's keep track of who trained who in their heritage.)
(Elder Copeland stated, "Finally got to see Michael!")
After DM, we went on exchanges. I went with Elder Gunderson from Cali. He is a bit older, but loves golf and is a chill dude. We had some good criac! We GQ'd the entire day, trying to speak to Brazilians, but most of them don't even speak English. We set up a few lessons for them though and we had fun working hard. Later on in the evening, we went back to Lisburn, and Dad's friends picked us up and took us over to Boston Grill. WOW! That whole experience was incredible. Great people, great food, and a lot of laughs. Thank you for all that you do, Dad. They made me realize even more how many lives you help. I love you! Such a good day! (Maybe you could send some pictures from that, I didn't see any!)
Wednesday: We had a great lesson with Kirstie. She had been getting anti'd even more. Her friend's mom bought her a book that is 350 pages long about a lady who worked at BYU, left the church, and started her own church. It is actually ridiculous how some people react when they leave the church, Alma 24:30!! Church is true! We talked to her about having that faith in God and trusting in him to help her along her journey! As we were teaching her in this cafe, another lady named Kayla sitting near us started to ask us some questions. She was from Wisconsin but married a lad over here. We ended up moving over and teaching her the entire Plan Of Salvation! She is a Born Again Christian, so she has a lot of questions, but it was good! She told us she would bring her husband along this coming week and meet up with us again. After those great lessons, just some finding!
Thursday: We had a full day of finding! Found some solid potentials we should be seeing this week. Finding is still a bit slow lately, but as long as we stay positive and have faith, we will find prepared people! We had Book of Mormon Class in the evening. Elder Nelson taught about Moroni, what a righteous dude! Great example for all of us to look up to and strive to have as much faith and obedience as he did and his people!
Friday: We were suppose to have a lesson with Candice today, but she had to cancel. Her daughter had to go to the doctors. She is leaving for a vacation with her fam as well for the next two weeks, so that bites, a lot. Hopefully if I am still here, we can get her into the waters of baptism! She will get there one day though. It's all about timing with her! Elder McCappin and Elder Selander were passing through Lisburn on their way back to Dublin, long story, but we talked to them for a wee bit. It was good! Got some pics. Other then that, just finding alllll dayyy.
Saturday: We had a great day! We got to go over to a less active member's home and do some service for a few hours! They are re-doing their home, so we scraped wallpaper off of the ceiling. It felt weird wearing normal clothes, and they took us to lunch afterwards, and no one was looking at me funny! Until I started talking with my American Accent haha, Different looks though! We later on had a lesson with a man named Tiko from Figi. He is normally in England but has been meeting with missionaries for awhile. He is a Methodist and had some crazy stories! He was in the army for 24 years and was in Afghanistan on patrol one day and got sniped in his arm. He lifted his sleeve and had a MASSIVE SCAR. The bullet broke his bone and pieces of the bullet sprayed into his lung. He said as he was laying there coughing up blood, he heard God tell him it was going to be okay. He had been fasting for a few days with no food only water before that, trying to strengthen his relationship with God. He was really in tune with the Spirit and a great guy. He had some questions about the church's past I helped answer, and then I bore my testimony to him about the power of the Book Of Mormon and challenged him to read Alma 32 and pray about the book and read it all the way through! He said he would do it, and that if he was ever in Lisburn again, he would meet up. After Tiko, we ran over to the church with Mannie. We ordered some pizzas, and we three watched the Saturday Morning Session of Conference on the computer, it was amazing!! I took a bunch of notes from each speaker of Conference, and I was thinking I could just take some pictures of that, because there is no way I can go through all of the talks and what were my favorites and all of that.
Sunday: We headed over to Holywood Road Ward's Building to watch the Priesthood session, Saturday evening session, and Sunday Morning session live! I took a million notes and I honestly don't have the time to write all about it right now. But some of my favorite speakers were: Elder Uchtdorf's Sons of Thunder talk, my trainee and I will be called that ;), Elder Holland's Crazy Musical themed, all of us have a part to play, talk, it was deep mate, I gotta study that one. Elder Gary B. Sabin's talk about letting the world go, and hanging onto eternity, using that comparison of an inflatable punching bag getting back up! Elder Neil Anderson's talk about how the happiness of our spouse is more important than our own pleasure--kind of a future one that will be important haha. Elder Yoon Choi's talk about his family conversion and about being a mission president in a rainy mission! Love that quote. I titled this as, we gotta do that on the Scotland/Ireland Mission! Dallin H. Oaks' talk, and of course President Monson's short but sweet testimony on the Book of Mormon. That man has served God his entire life, bless him. I love the leaders of our church, and their stories and experiences help me out through the tough times! That was just a few notes I have. I will take a pic of more of them, but man, it was good. I still have Sunday Evening session as well to listen, too, sweet! What a great Conference! Thankful to be out here on the mission, and am going to apply what they taught into my service! I was talking to Kirstie having a good conversation on Faith and she sent us this text saying she wants to be baptized on the 8th, even if she has to go against her parents. WOW, so much respect for her and her decision. That means this week we have a lot of planning to do if all goes according to plan. I pray that God will help us make this all work out and that their hearts will be softened and that he will bless her!
So that was my week in a wee email! Too many stories and experiences to ever tell in an email, but that's why I can just tell you the rest when I get home :) I am thankful for all of you and your continued love and support to me. I will talk to you all soon. Enjoy Spring Break for me, I got work to do 😉😇
Elder Copeland
Elder Copeland
Monday - Elder Copeland wrote: "We hiked up to Belfast Castle today as well. It was fun! :)
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