Another Week down! It's crazy how fast time is going; the further and further I get into the mission, the quicker time goes by I feel like. We've had a really good couple of past two weeks; we had 8 people at church on last Sunday and this past Sunday we had 12 people! This area is super strong, and we have a lot of really cool progressing friends! We've experienced a lot of really cool miracles! We're still working with a lot of the friends we already have but we've also been able to find some really cool new people!
One of the coolest experiences I've had while serving a mission occurred these past couple of weeks. One day while planning our day, we got a referred friend from English Elders named Gabino. Right after getting his information, we were able to set up a lesson with him at our church the day after! At the chapel, we were able to instantly teach him everything and he loved it! Hermano Norlan joined in as well and was able to share his testimony with him! He even went to Noche de Hogar as well! Throughout the past couple of weeks, we've constantly met with him and taught him! We were even able to watch the First Presidency Christmas devotional with him! He's the most prepared person I've ever met on my mission! He comes to every lesson, every activity, and has been coming to church! He's going to be baptized on the 22nd of December which is super exciting; he's so awesome!
Another one of our friends who is doing really well is Lucas! We've been able to meet with him a bunch as well and continue to teach him! He's our friend who was a missionary for his church a while ago; with this, he's super knowledgeable and loves the lessons we've been teaching him (especially in the Book of Mormon). We've been able to help him get to Night Church, morning church, and all the ward activities as well! He's super prepared as well! We were also able to put him on date for the 22nd of December! He'll definitely be ready by then!
Another really great experience happened while going through grey dots with Elder Perschon! One day after a couple of our lessons had fallen through, we were looking at grey dots that we could visit in the area surrounding us. We saw that a man named "Joel" had attended church before, so we felt inspired to go knock on his door and see if he was home by chance. While pulling up to his house, we noticed a man sitting in his car; we go up to talk to him and while talking to him we realize that he was the guy we had been looking for! He told us that the missionaries stopped coming by a while ago but that he was happy to see us! We were able to teach him and get in contact with him again! We've been able to help him attend church and other activities in the ward! We've had really good lessons throughout the weeks as well! He has a super strong testimony already and is eager to learn more! He shared us his story of crossing the border and the violence/terrible things the cartel has done to him and to those at border (this is why we need #47 iyky). He shared with us some pretty vulnerable experiences and has really opened to up us. He is such a cool guy and I'm excited to have the opportunity to continue working with him! He's always showing me pictures from his job sites haha (he does flooring).
We are still continuing to work with our friend Jose Gonzales! He's been the friend that has been with missionaries for over eight months now; he loves coming to church, meeting with missionaries, and coming to activities, but he has a hard time keeping commitments/progressing towards baptism. He feels like he isn't ready/worthy to be baptized quite yet. We've been going over faith with him a lot and the importance of acting upon your faith; we're helping him set up a study plan in the Book of Mormon and we're helping him to be able to pray and receive a confirmation through the Holy Ghost; he has so much potential and we're going to continue working with him as much as possible.
During the past couple of weeks as well, we received a really cool referral named Adan and Livier! While driving around, we get a referral from them saying they'd like to meet up with the missionaries! The following day, we were able to pass by their house and introduce ourselves to them! They had a really funny car haha; on top of the hood they had put a horse on it for some reason 🤣: I took a picture of it and sent it out to SLADE! After, we were able to teach them and introduce them to the gospel and the church! They've been able to come to church the past couple of weeks as well and have really been enjoying it!
Sadly, we had to drop our friend Cesar. After one of our previous lessons, we had not been able to get in contact with him at all; he was completely ignoring our texts, calls, messages, etc. One day while trying to visit him outside of his house, we tried calling and knocking a bunch, but he would not respond. The worst part is while trying to call him, we could hear his phone ringing from the other side of the door 🤣. Eventually he came out and basically told us he doesn't like the church anymore and that's he pretty much over it; we tried our best to help him think otherwise but he wasn't having it. It was super sad, but we basically had to tell him we couldn't visit him anymore and he understood. Hopefully, in the future he can be ready to receive the restored Gospel 🙏.
Another kinda low point is with our friend Rodolfo; we've been able to go over and teach him, but he REFUSES to go to church; he loves reading the scriptures, loves what we do and teach as missionaries (he agrees and believes in what we are saying), loves the commandments [except keeping the Sabath Day, etc. etc. We had a pretty firm lesson with him. We told him if he wasn't willing to progress, we'd have to drop him so that our time could spent elsewhere; we invited him to read the Book of Mormon and to pray to find out for himself if the Book of Mormon is true; I really don't want to drop him, but we'll see.
We've also been able to continue to teach Jose A.G! He was actually able to go to the temple and walk around and see the Christmas lights: he's awesome! He's always coming to our ward's activities and always, and I mean always comes to church haha; he's been to church over 28 times now but struggles with the idea of being baptized; we had a really good lesson with him where we talked about it for a while. We'll help him get there for sure.We also had a pretty funny lesson with our other friend Jose (the boss of Lorena Rico who owns the amazing Latino grocery store: This store has different types of food from over 20 countries). He's a super logical (exactly how I am) so we had a back and forth discussion on Christianity, the difference between luck and blessings, how we overcome spiritual and physical death through the Atonement, pre-mortal life, etc. It was a long but good discussion.Overall things are going really well. We're still continuing to work with our friends such as a Roy (a cool man from Perú who we've only taught a couple of times but enjoys learning; he's also been to the English class a bunch), a cool man from Nicaragua from Edmond (a referral that we just recently received and taught), Rodolfo Santamaria, etc. Overall, the area is doing really well, and we have a lot of really cool progressing friends! If everything goes according to plan, we should have two baptisms on the 22nd! My companion is heading to Soledad/Greenfield (which is my favorite area) while I'm receiving a new missionary to train which should be fun! I'm going to be accountable to myself and make sure I send emails out weekly now!*Also, I guess some random things that happened throughout the week were having Thanksgiving with the APs 🤮, playing mini golf, calling Slade and my family every p-day, getting yelled at by some random dude in the Walmart parking lot saying we are cult (also got chased in the Walmart), and getting absolutely soaked when it's raining haha. Elder Copeland
