Week 50 - July 17, 2017

WOW! what an amazing week, probably one of the busiest of my mission as well. 

So much happened and we don't have a ton of time to email, but I will go through a wee bit of each day. 

Tuesday:  We woke up at 5 and all of the missionaries going to train headed to Edinburgh.  I had to say bye to Elder Wang.  I love that guy and am thankful for the time I had with him. He taught he so much and really humbled me and allowed me to see how blessed I have been to have the gospel in my life.  We had about a 6-hour training from the Assistants, STLTs, and President Donaldson.  They helped us to know how we can be great examples to our trainees and help them to learn and apply the Atonement into their lives so that they can then teach others from their own experience.  They taught a bunch of stuff, and I took about 15 pages of notes to study up on haha.  Afterwards, we got to go out and just GQ around Edinburgh.  I went out with Elder Hinckley because both of our trainees are already in our areas.  He served here, so he showed me a bunch of cool places, and we got loads of pics.

We were on the Uni and asked this girl from Taiwan to take our picture, and we started talking to her.  Her name is Jenny.  We had an on the spot lesson with her and she loved it! It was actually really cool.  We got her info and told her we would meet up again.  In the evening, Margaret from Glasgow came down to be with her friend Allison.  They decided to make me Hot Pot one last time before I left, and I got to have Elder Keim, Whang, and Carter go with me!  All the boys from the MTC.   It was good to catch up with them all.  I've barely seen them on my mish! 

Wednesday:  All the missionaries who were called to be DLs had new leadership training all day with the Assistants, STLT's, and President Donaldson.  They taught us how to teach through example, and love our missionaries in our district.  In the evening, I went with two Chinese elders in Edinburgh to teach Jenny again and pass her over to them.  There are loads of new missionaries out now, pretty much as big as my group at this same time last year.

Thursday:  We spent the entireeee day traveling.  We had our first bus at 6 from Edinburgh to Glasgow, the next bus from Glasgow to the ferry, then the ferry to Belfast, then a bus from Belfast to Dublin, then another bus from Dublin to Cork.  It was cool passing through some of my old areas, and brought back a lot of good memories of them.  Cork is incredible, everything everyone told me about it is true.  It's hot, sunny, full of students (BRAZILIANS, LETS GO) an amazing branch, a sweet flat, and unreal missionaries.  The Dream!  Elder Bradley is a legend already as well.  He is your most stereotypical Canadian, Nicest guy you'll ever meet, says sorry for everything and throws an 'Eh' after each sentence.  Love him.

 ("Our flat!  It needs to be cleaned up a little!)

CORK!

Friday:  My first full day in Cork.  We cleaned up the flat a wee bit in the morning, then went out and did loads of finding.  I was able to do my first baptismal interview for a 12 year old girl named Rose that Elder Elsmore and Jones are teaching.  She passed, all was well.  We also have volleyball every Friday evening at the church, so we went along with our investigator named Cait!  More about her in a second.  This branch has some really good members, and the branch president is a great guy.  So Elder Bradley has two investigators here for us:  Cait, who is from here is scheduled to be baptised next week!  She is soo flippen cool.  We also have Fiona from Nigeria, who is scheduled for baptism this week! 

Saturday:  We had a lot of lessons planed, but they fell through, but that just meant more finding!  We went to Rose's baptism in the afternoon.  Elder Elsmore was baptizing her, but they made the water wayy too hot, and Rose doesn't know how to swim, so she was very scared.  Elder Elsmore said the prayer and as he put her under, her hair flew up.  She needed to be re baptised, but wouldn't do it again.. It was really tough.  We sat there trying to talk to her and help her out, but she just wouldn't do it again, and none of us wanted her to have a bad experience, so we decided to let her try again another time... DANG IT SATAN..  Elder Elsmore even dunked himself sitting down to show her how she could do it, but nothing.  It was sad.  We had more finding afterwards though and in the evening went over to dinner with a guy named Dubac from India, who we call Tupac.  He served a mission and was a legend, and ah man he made the best curry ever.  Elder Bradley decided to eat an Indian green pepper and was dead, it was good criac. 

Sunday:  We were able to have Cait and Fiona come to church with us, and it was good! After church I interviewed Fiona for her baptism, and she passed as well!  I'm so excited and blessed to be able to be a part of these people's experience just getting into Cork.  We did planning the rest of the day for our week ahead and the district and zone goals.

Today we were able to head over to the Cliffs of Moher.  They were Unreal.  I got a few pics. 

This week should be a really good one.  Things got a lot busier now though, kind of stressed out, all is well though.  I am getting burnt again; hopefully I'll get a tan out of it haha.  

There is nowhere I would rather be then on a mission right now. 

I love you all and hope you have a great week! 

Elder Copeland