Week 77 - May 1, 2025

 Hi, everyone,

It was a great week!  After P-Day, we cleaned the apartment, went shopping, and spent time at the Institute building with the Zone.  The Institute is a pretty cool library with a bunch of historical books, and they also have a gym where you can play basketball, ping pong, pool, and more.  It would definitely be fun to go there if I lived nearby!

After P-Day ended, we tried visiting some people, but no one was home.  On Thursday, we spent most of the day proselyting.  We taught Carlos and Raphael the first half of the Plan of Salvation, explaining the pre-mortal life, the Fall of Adam and Eve, and the importance of the Atonement.  We used a whiteboard to draw out the Plan of Salvation for them, which was a really good idea as it helped them visualize it.
After a couple more contacts, we had English Class.  Our referrals, Daniel and Aurora, came and were able to learn a little more English.  Daniel was a referral we received from the Elders who were serving in Hollister, and he was super cool to teach!  We also had a friend named Aurora come.  She was super nice but wasn't interested in learning more about the Gospel; apparently, she was already part of a church and wasn't willing to change. 

On Friday, we weekly planned and taught a couple more of our friends!  It was a bit of a slower day which was a bummer; we tried to teach and visit our friends but none of them were home and the ones that were home weren't interested in talking.  We did have a good lesson with Alexandra though! We continued to review the commandments with her and explained to her how to pray more often!  On Saturday, we had a really good day!  We taught a good amount of our friends, and we had a really good lesson with Edmon!  We talked about the Ten Commandments with him (read Mosiah 13) and talked about the importance of the two great commandments!  He already knew them, so it wasn't too hard to teach!  

After, we had to go set up for the Valentines Day party.  During the Valentines Day party, the sisters had the wedding of their friends Roxie and Christian!  The bishop was able to get them married and performed their ceremony for them!  It was super entertaining!  We had the ceremony, ate food, played games, danced, and celebrated their wedding!  After the wedding, I gave the baptismal interview for Christian, Roxy and their daughter Milagros!  They wanted to get baptized but couldn't since they weren't married; that's why we had the wedding combined with the party!  They all passed their interview pretty easily!  They were super solid and were all super excited to get baptized! 

On Sunday, we had a good Sabbath!  Our friend Luis, who was an English referral that we had received throughout the week, wasn't able to come to English Class but he was able to come to church!  He really enjoyed it!  He was also able to attend the baptism of Roxie, Christian, and Milagros!  We had a pretty good Sunday ourselves!  Edmon, Alaxandra and her kids, Jose and a couple other of our friends, all came to church!  After church, we had the baptism of Roxie, Milagros, and Christian!  It went super well!  Sister Higgins was able to come down and perform a musical number on the violin!  It was super cool to see a whole family be baptized and confirmed!  

After talking with the other missionaries and members of the ward, Elder Rushforth was throwing up (smh) so we had to stay home; on Monday, we had Zone Council and District Council!  For Zone Council, we talked about the importance of keeping and making covenants and for District Council, I taught the District the importance of prayer and how to pray with more intent!  After finishing daily contact, we went and visited some people!  We had a really good lesson with a referral that we had tried contacting in the past named Andy! He was from Columbia and had recently just moved from Columbia!  He lived in the back of a pretty nice house on the hillside!  We read from the Book of Mormon and explained to him the importance of the book and how it allows us to grow closer to Jesus Christ and understand the importance of the Atonement!  We left him a copy to read!  He was genuinely one of the nicest people I have ever met on my mission!  He was so excited to read more; it was definitely one of the coolest lessons of my whole mission! 

After, we headed back to the church to have another solid lesson with Alexandra!  We went over the five principles of the Doctrine of Jesus Christ and read Mosiah 18 with her to further prepare and progress her towards getting baptized!  She's super solid and is continuing to progress little by little every single day!  We had a lesson with Luis planned, but he never came 🤧; we ended the night by participating in Noche de Hogar with Daniel (the guy who come to English class and the Valentines Day party) where we talked about the Book of Mormon and the Restoration of the Priesthood!  

On Tuesday, we had to do our daily contacting and then had to help Hermano Esquivel with family history!  He's pretty funny!  We had to help him organize, print, and register his family names for the temple!  We also helped reorganize his account! Hermana Esquivel also explained to me the story of her conversion and how she had met the missionaries!  She said that a couple sets of missionaries had to go through her to eventually be converted!  She said the day that she read from Book of Mormon and prayed about it for the first time was the first time she had felt the Spirit!  She's an amazing member and has an extremely strong testimony of the Gospel; after helping Hermano Esquivel out with his names for the temple, we taught Edmon Alexandra a little more about the Book of Mormon and read 3 Nephi 11 with them!  I always love reading that chapter!  It's amazing to me how every time I read through that chapter, I'm able to learn something new!  We ended the night with missionary correlation meeting and Ward Council!  Elder Copeland