Hey, everyone! I forgot to email again last week. I hit my six-month mark which was pretty cool. Besides that, nothing too crazy happened anyways; just the usual. In all honesty, it's been a pretty discouraging transfer. I still don't have Spanish down, I haven't had much success, and haven't had a single baptism yet. I don't feel like I'm a good teacher, I'm homesick, and overall feel like I could be doing more with my life. I'm doing fine though; I don't want this to turn into a pity me type of scenario haha. I guess I'm just getting my feelings out 🤣. I truly am blessed and have been given so much in my life. I'm constantly trying to find and look for things in my life that I've been given or have blessed with. Serving others helps as well! The mission has already taught me so much: Too much for me to write in an email. While every day is extremely difficult, I keep pushing forward through Faith, Prayer, Diligence, etc.
WEDNESDAY (3/20/24): We went to the Henry Calvil Redwoods and saw some pretty amazing trees. We took this path on top of one of the railroad tracks and saw some pretty amazing views. The trees are absolutely ginormous; I'm excited to come back one day and take my family with me. We ended the day by going FHC and filling out March Madness brackets and playing basketball with the Zone.
THURSDAY (3/21/24): We taught our friend Norah and her daughter about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and went into depth on each point. They told us they had been baptized into another church and enjoyed the chapter in the Book of Mormon that we had left them with. We told them we'd explain to them the Restoration and Priesthood the next time we meet. Right before we were going to leave, her daughter had questions about the Book of Mormon, so we gave her a quick rundown on it. Surprisingly, Christopher asked to meet with us at the church, so we went and did that. We talked about some of the concerns he had and explained each one. It was a pretty long lesson. Essentially, we told him we could try and disprove and prove each point he could bring up but that at the end of the day, he'd have to read the Book of Mormon and gain a testimony of it for himself. There's only so much we can do with him at this point. We left him two chapters in the Book of Mormon, so hopefully he reads them.
FRIDAY (3/22/24): We had a really good lesson with Isiah. Isiah is a convert to the church and enjoys meeting with missionaries. He hasn't been to church in years, however. Right as we began our lesson, he brought up wanting to start dating again. He had questions about the YSA Ward, so we gave him the YSA Ward's information. Also, I helped him download Mutual, which my companion found pretty funny. After, we taught him about the covenant path and explained to him how he could further progress. We talked out some of the problems he was going through. We really testified of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. The Atonement of Jesus Christ really is amazing when you truly sit down and think about it. Isiah is such a good guy. We're definitely going to help him progress!
After, we talked to Lucio and his family for a bit. Lucio, a recent convert, lives in our area but the other Elders had been teaching him and his family since our area had been on bikes for so long: Too far away to bike to. We got passed along on his information, so we're gonna try and help the rest of his family progress. After, we were finally able to meet with Salvador again. We had a causal conversation with him for a bit and then had a solid lesson. He told us that he had finally submitted his papers to court to hopefully get some legal fees dropped. He told us when they do (hopefully 🤞), he plans on getting married and then baptized. Salvador will get there eventually! It's just a waiting game at this point. We also talked about the Atonement with him.
SATURDAY (3/23/24): We had a huge service project that took up most of the day. Another set of members in our ward were moving and they needed help moving; it was quite the project. We had to haul kayaks up a hill to their storage container, we had help throw away old buckets/wood/junk into a dumpster, we dug a trench on their hill, and helped re-pipe their irrigation system, and we collected old metal to be recycled. It was also raining for a good part of the day. Overall, it was a good time. Our clothes were extremely muddy, so we had to wash them afterwards. We ended the night by attending a baptism for two of the Duran kids that were being baptized.
SUNDAY (3/24/24): We had Ward Conference today, so the Ward and the Spanish Group got together for Sacrament. It was weird to see such a large congregation. Bishop Duran and President Hackwell both gave great talks. We did some contacting and then had dinner with President Duran and the Hastings. Elder Pepper rode their zip line and almost broke the thing haha. We went to Night Church to see if anyone was coming, but no one showed up. We ended the night by finally having a lesson with a friend Mario who had referred himself. We taught him the first half of The Plan of Salvation. We taught him using pictures and analogies which helped him to understand it better. We taught and explained to him the Atonement of Jesus Christ and how it ties into the Plan of Salvation and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He has a pretty negative/receptive view of God which is something we need to help him on.
MONDAY (3/25/24): We had District Council which was good. We also ate with the Welches which is always a good time. I could listen to him talk about church related doctrine, theology, etc. for hours. He has incredibly smart insights. For the rest of the day, literally nothing happened. We tried contacting people, but no one answered. It also didn't help that we had a lesson canceled on us. It was one of the most dead days of my mission. Some days are just like that.
TUESDAY (3/26/24): We met with Nora again today and she was going through a hard time. She told us her daughter may potentially have cancer; she's only 20 as well. She kept asking us to keep her and her family in our prayers, which we're definitely going to do. We explained to her the Plan of Salvation and the Priesthood. We explained to her the Priesthood and how we are able to perform blessings. We offered to give her daughter a blessing and she told us she'd let us know. She seemed receptive to the idea. The problem was that she hadn't told her daughter. We're hoping she doesn't have cancer, but we'll have to wait and see. We're going to try helping and visiting with them a lot! We talked with Felipe for a second and shared a scripture from the Book of Mormon with him. He's always been pretty receptive to our message but today he wasnt haha. He read a random scripture from Psalms with us and tried to explain to us how the Book of Mormon wasn't scripture. We taught him how the Bible and the Book of Mormon are different yet teach similar themes. We also showed him how both books are formatted the same. We'll see where we go with him.
Right as we were about to contact someone, we got a text from Orlando asking us come over. We went over to his house and had a great lesson. We talked about his plans for the upcoming month, fishing, his work, etc. After we began to talk a little about why life can be so difficult and some of the ways we can overcome it. We all shared our thoughts with one another. While talking, I randomly shared the analogy of how diamonds are formed under pressure and how that relates back to our lives. I also shared 1 Nephi 3:7 and how we are able to accomplish anything that comes our way through God and the Lord. Right after, he showed me a text he sent to one of his friends of him explaining the diamond analogy and sharing the same exact scripture verse that I had just barely shared with him. Coincidence or not, I thought that was pretty cool! Orlando is such a good guy! We're going to watch conference with him as well! Elder Copeland
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