Merry late Christmas! I hope everyone had a great Christmas! I'm starting to really enjoy biking for the most part! The dream scenario would be if we could have a car and bikes! Regardless, biking is pretty fun when it isn't raining or pitch-black outside. I love Watsonville so much! Living right on main street is so fun! There are barbershops, stores, thrift shops, etc. that we live right next door too. Elder Empey, my companion, is awesome! We got along really well, and both enjoy learning from one another. The only downside to Watsonville is that there aren't nearly as many Latinos down here, so I'm not able to speak as much Spanish. I still get an hour of practice in though every day!
P Day was spent cleaning up our apartment! Our apartment was filthy from the missionaries who lived in our apartment beforehand, so we spent a lot of our p-day cleaning it up. There was a disgusting amount of dirt and dust on the windows, floor, cabinets and molding. After, we went to the church and played basketball with the zone. We also got dinner with Daniel again! He's such an amazing convert! He has really changed his life around through the gospel! He's one of the most positive people I've ever met.On Thursday, after our daily morning routine, me and my companion felt inspired to do some service. For some reason, we both felt inspired to make sugar cookies and hand them out to our friends/members in the ward. We went to the store really quick to grab groceries with Elder Marx and Elder Jensen! We ran out of time, however, because our dinner/lesson with our friend Cole came up earlier than expected. We get along with Cole very well; he's such a fun guy! Cole lives with his aunt and uncle, who are members of the church, while he is out here working on roofing. Cole loves learning about our church's doctrine/history and comes to church every week; he just isn't fully committed to the idea of being baptized. It doesn't help either that his mother is pretty "anti-mormon" and doesn't want him being baptized while living in California. He, also, told us he finds it incredibly weird how everyone in our church gets married so young, which we laughed about. While in our lesson, he told us that he had seen videos of our temple ceremonies on social media. We explained to him as much as we could about why we wear and do the things in the temple without breaking our covenants. We read parts of Exodus with him and explained to him how our temples are very similar to the tabernacle of the Old Testament. In addition to this, we clarified any questions he had about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. For some reason, Cole definitely seems more interested in learning from the Bible than the Book of Mormon, which is cool with us.
Friday was a slower day. One of our main focuses this transfer is cleaning up the Area Book (PMG app) and helping inactive members return to church. So many members have moved out of California that we don't even know about. Today alone, there were about four houses that our app told us were addresses of inactive members' houses; however, when we went to their houses, the people living there told us they didn't know who we were looking for. We're definitely working on figuring out who has actually moved or not so we know who to visit. The only semi-successful contact we had today was saying a prayer with a man. We met him while knocking on what was supposed to be a member's house. He told us that whoever we were looking for didn't live there anymore. We offered a quick prayer with him to which he accepted. He seemed to really appreciate our prayer as he gave us bananas, apples, and water afterward. He rejected the Book of Mormon so quickly though when we tried to give him one. We ended the night by making some cookies and handing them out to David, Orlando, and other friends and members of the ward.
For Saturday, we had an extra Zone Conference for Christmas. At the Zone Conference, we decorated gingerbread houses, listened to devotionals and music, ate food, had a talent show, and had a testimony meeting. President and Sister Larsen also taught us how to sing Silent Night using sign language. They're completely fluent in sign language as all three of their kids are deaf. After our Zone Conference, we went Christmas caroling with Brother and Sister Meyer. Brother Meyer is a 25-year-old who served his mission here in Watsonville. He met his wife while serving down here. He is one of the funniest people I've ever met. We were constantly laughing at whatever he said or did. We went Christmas caroling to some inactive members in our ward while also leaving them with cookies. They were all super appreciative of us and enjoyed our company. One couple in particular was especially happy to see us. I didn't catch their names, but they were telling us how they had had a difficult year. The wife had to relearn how to walk again due to having four strokes. In addition to this, everything in their house was destroyed due to the floods that hit Watsonville around a year ago. Thankfully, they received the help and donations of many around them in which they were so incredibly grateful for. It was a really cool experience to see them open up to us and give thanks to not only to those who have helped them, but to Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ as well!
Sunday was my first Christmas Eve on the mission! We started off by going to church. Both the English ward and Spanish branch combined for Sacrament meeting since it was Christmas Eve; there were actually a lot of people in Sacrament today! Sadly, David didn't show up (again) which we were pretty bummed about. We still had a good number of friends come though! After, we went with Elder Butikofer and Elder Pepper to help teach one or their friends named Gloria. We listened to Christmas music, watched the Christ Child, and read through Mathew 2 with her. The Zone Leaders are teaching her, and she seems to be progressing really well! In addition to this, we helped her with service she was doing for the community by helping give food and toys to families in need. After dinner with a member in our ward, we had a Christmas Devotional with the whole Mission over Zoom! We all listed different names given to Jesus throughout the scriptures and set goals that we wanted to complete by next Christmas!
On Monday, we woke up and drove over to Bishop's house. Bishop Welch invited us over to spend Christmas day at their house which was so fun! We opened our presents and stockings Sister Welch made for us, ate breakfast, had a nerf gun war, shot their crossbow, and played games! They also fed us dinner. It was seriously so nice of them, and I'm so thankful for them making our Christmas enjoyable while we are away from home!
For Tueday, Elder Empey had been throwing up the night before and was pretty sick, so we stayed home the whole day. Luckily, I felt great. I tried to stay productive today by studying, working out, cleaning up, doing my laundry, and talking with the Zone Leaders.
While being a missionary and working with inactive members, it made me realize how extremely easy it should be for members to attend Church every week and partake of the Sacrament. I get pretty frustrated when members who have been baptized stop coming to church. With everything that we have been given, the bare minimum God asks of us each week is to attend church for an hour or two and yet some people don't. It makes me frustrated, too, since that's how I used to be time to time when I was high school. Partaking of the Sacrament every week is so incredibly important! It's how we renew our covenants with God. I'm so incredibly grateful for my family and friends! Also, shout out to my sister, Jenna, who announced her pregnancy!
-Elder Copeland
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