For P day today, we went up to Apple Park to go to the visit center! They don't let any guests go on the actual campus (which makes sense) but there's a visitor center adjacent to it where you can see the latest Apple Products and buy some shirts exclusive to Apple campus! It definitely made me excited to get my iPhone back in a couple of weeks 
; say what you want to say about Apple, but their ability to design and create good looking products that function properly is unmatched! While leaving, we were able to see a bit of the outside of the campus! It's pretty hidden in the valley but it's a pretty amazing building! I was also able to buy me and my family some shirts! (Probably not worth $40 each but I had to get them for the experience/the memories) After, we went to lunch with the District and then played some mini golf and Golf land with the District! I played terribly but it was fun! After, we went shopping and then headed to the church to play some Basketball, talk with our family's, and use the computers! I was able to have my brother in law explain to me some career routes I could take in computer science/computer engineering! He's super smart and I'm going to have him help me when I get off my mission! To begin the day, we headed over to Cesar to talk with him and catch up with him! He's still been super busy with work but he's been reading, studying and praying! We went over the baptismal interview questions with him and he's ready to get baptized! He just has to come to church a couple more times beforehand so he's currently on date to be baptized July 13th! Please pray he's able to get there! We're going to stay on top of him until then! After, we had dinner and then we taught our friend David about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the Atonement! He's only been taught a couple times so me and Elder Fuller are going to be able to teach him a lot! He was super cool and he had the desire to understand what we were teaching him! He loved the idea about making covenants with God and eternal families! He has a little grandson who was a little rascal haha; he was super cute but he kept taking the Book of Mormon out of our hands while trying to read . Also while leaving, some guy yelled at me asking me if I was a BYU or UTAH fan! I told him I was actually going to BYU in a couple weeks and he thought that was cool! Apparently he had lived in Utah before and knew about the "Holy War" pretty well! He knew all about our church! Overall a pretty funny experience!
On Thursday, we worked out and then had to do another service project! We were not planning on doing a service project today but we got informed last minute! I love doing service projects so I was fine with it! We had to help one of the English member's friends move her furniture/stuff to a container near her apartment! I guess she was moving to St Louis and she needed some pretty serious help! We had to move a bunch of book shelves, mattress frames, desks, clothes, etc. She lived on the second floor of a pretty wonky apartment so it was quite the workout. The apartment itself was pretty nasty; it was hoarded pretty badly and it didn't help that she had four nasty cats living inside with her! It took a while for the smell to go away afterwards ; random but one thing I've learned on the mission is understanding the principle of "being sufficient for your needs"! You really don't need that many clothes, shoes, and stuff in general! I've always been the type of person to care more about the QUALITY of something over the QUANTITY of something! The mission has taught me a lot of life lessons haha! It's also taught me the importance of being organized and clean! After the service project, we had to come back and shower! After, we weekly planned and we planned out our area and cleaned our PMG! (It was already pretty clean to begin with). After, we tried visiting a couple people but none of them were home; we were able to find a couple "mas o menos" people who could potentially be interested! To end the night, we taught Pascual the second half of the Plan of Salvation (Spirit World, Resurrection/Judgement, and the Kingdoms of Glory)! We explained that the Atonement of Jesus Christ and his doctrine makes Heavenly Fathers plan of salvation possible! We focused a lot on covenants and how we must make covenants to live in the Celestial Kingdom! He told us he wants to do what he can to go there! He's SO close to being put on date to be baptized! He's been reading, praying and studying on his own time! We are going to meet with him a couple more times and then find a date for him! He's so PREPARED! Afterwards, we helped finish by teaching English Class and helping the students understand verbs! Hermano Packer gave us a pretty funny paper that explains what missionaries should do if they encounter catholics! (I took a screenshot of it).
; random but one thing I've learned on the mission is understanding the principle of "being sufficient for your needs"! You really don't need that many clothes, shoes, and stuff in general! I've always been the type of person to care more about the QUALITY of something over the QUANTITY of something! The mission has taught me a lot of life lessons haha! It's also taught me the importance of being organized and clean! After the service project, we had to come back and shower! After, we weekly planned and we planned out our area and cleaned our PMG! (It was already pretty clean to begin with). After, we tried visiting a couple people but none of them were home; we were able to find a couple "mas o menos" people who could potentially be interested! To end the night, we taught Pascual the second half of the Plan of Salvation (Spirit World, Resurrection/Judgement, and the Kingdoms of Glory)! We explained that the Atonement of Jesus Christ and his doctrine makes Heavenly Fathers plan of salvation possible! We focused a lot on covenants and how we must make covenants to live in the Celestial Kingdom! He told us he wants to do what he can to go there! He's SO close to being put on date to be baptized! He's been reading, praying and studying on his own time! We are going to meet with him a couple more times and then find a date for him! He's so PREPARED! Afterwards, we helped finish by teaching English Class and helping the students understand verbs! Hermano Packer gave us a pretty funny paper that explains what missionaries should do if they encounter catholics! (I took a screenshot of it).Friday was a weird day; Elder Fuller had a District Leader call with the rest of MLC so I kinda just hanged back and studied! It took up the whole morning! After getting out and going, all of our lessons we had fell through; so we didn't really have much to do today except find! We found 9 people, which was good! We were able to help Engracia download the Gospel Library app so that she could listen to the scriptures! She had no idea what she was doing but luckily we were able to help her figure it out! We had to reset her iPhone and help her choose a new password as well! She is in her 80s so she did not grow up using technology like alot of us have. I'm glad I was able to help her out! And now she has access to the Gospel library app 
! We were lucky enough to meet some cool people today! We talked to some pastor from one of the church's down here in Los Altos; he was actually a super nice guy and was pretty genuine with us! We kinda just explained to him how we view the doctrine/Gospel of Christ to others! I also sat on a curb to try and teach this one day haha; I explained to him the Atonement using Mormon 9 but he kept hitting me with the "I'm catholic" card haha! We'll see what friends of ours that we found today progress! The one I have the most faith in is a lady named Blanca! She had talked with missionaries before in the past and had even attended a service before! She told us how she preferred our community over the catholics (even though she was claiming to be a catholic still). She works with those who have special needs so she really loved the idea of service and helping! We shared with her Mosiah 2:17 and explained to her how we can also serve God as well! She was super happy we came back and accepted the Book of Mormon! She told us that she was glad we helped her remember the church and where it was at! We'll see where she goes from here!
! We were lucky enough to meet some cool people today! We talked to some pastor from one of the church's down here in Los Altos; he was actually a super nice guy and was pretty genuine with us! We kinda just explained to him how we view the doctrine/Gospel of Christ to others! I also sat on a curb to try and teach this one day haha; I explained to him the Atonement using Mormon 9 but he kept hitting me with the "I'm catholic" card haha! We'll see what friends of ours that we found today progress! The one I have the most faith in is a lady named Blanca! She had talked with missionaries before in the past and had even attended a service before! She told us how she preferred our community over the catholics (even though she was claiming to be a catholic still). She works with those who have special needs so she really loved the idea of service and helping! We shared with her Mosiah 2:17 and explained to her how we can also serve God as well! She was super happy we came back and accepted the Book of Mormon! She told us that she was glad we helped her remember the church and where it was at! We'll see where she goes from here!On Saturday, we started the day by playing pickleball with the Zone again! I don't enjoy playing pickleball at all but I don't wanna be a party pooper haha. After playing pickleball, we came back to the apartment to begin the day! We had to contact a bunch of people from all over South America! I guess missionaries over there are getting flooded with referrals so we've been helping them out over here! After, we studied, ate lunch and began the day by visiting Alfredo! Alfredo has been taught by the Elders for a while but he has a hard time committing to baptism and kinda refuses to give up smoking and drinking. He's told missionaries for a while that he has the desire to change yet doesn't do anything about it. When we got there, all he did was complain about his neck pain and all the pain he was going through! He kind of just complained to us about his pain and how the doctors/insurance arent doing anything about it. While we were talking to him, we explained to him the Atonement of Jesus Christ and how Jesus Christ understands every pain, affliction, sin, etc. that we go through! We also explained to him that there will be times in our lives where we can't heal physically but through Jesus Christ, we can always be healed spiritually! We also talked about the Resurrection and how we can overcome physical death/turmoil through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. We explained to him the covenant of baptism again and bore our testimonies on the blessings he'd recieve by entering into a covenant relationship with God but he kept telling us he wasn't ready and that he wouldn't want to fall back into temptation if he were to be baptized because the "punishment" would be far worse! We really got to help him understand the importance of faith! It makes me so sad to see someone fall as low as he has and yet, doesn't do anything about it. There's only so much we can do as missionaries and as friends! We are going to keep doing our best to do our part but he has to do his part as well! After, we went and found a couple people and invited everyone we had on PMG to church! I was sending texts out all day! It definitely took a strain on my eyes! After, we went down to 7/11 and found some more people! We've been trying to find new people since we've cleaned out our area book! We had some guy tell us he'd call us in 2-3 months after finishing reading the B.O.M ; he was a pretty hardcore catholic but he got intrigued after sharing 1 Nephi 11 where it talks about Mary and the Savior haha. We also had some guy try and bash on what God's name was and how we don't need anything more than the Bible. We explained to him the B.O.M and how we agreed that the Savior was the God of the old testament and he was a little more open to our message after explaining to him the Gospel Principles! He still didn't accept the B.O.M but he was nicer to us afterwards! During Dinner, the ZLs brought Elder Fuller some food and we chatted it up with them for a while! Even though it wasn't missionary related, we were definitely looking alot into the United States bombing Iran! The world is definitely a crazy place right now and alot of people need the peace and comfort the Gospel provides to all of us! After dinner, we met a really cool guy named Alfredo from Oaxaca! We explained to him the nature of God and how he is our Heavenly father and that Jesus Christ (his son) is our Savior and Redeemer! We bore our testimonies on the Atonement and we read 3 Nephi 11:8-11 with him! After explaining to him the Atonement and what Jesus Christ did for us, we helped him understand the B.O.M and how it helps us to understand the Plan of Salvation and the role the Savior plays in all of our lives! He was a really cool guy and we're planning on going back and visiting him on Thursday! We also met a nice guy named Diego (who was the son in law of David) and we explained to him our purpose as missionaries! His little kid was causing a ruckus again (the same kid that tried stealing our books when we were teaching David) but we were able to get our message across ! Overall it was a good day! We are finding a lot right now so hopefully we can find some cool people to teach!
; he was a pretty hardcore catholic but he got intrigued after sharing 1 Nephi 11 where it talks about Mary and the Savior haha. We also had some guy try and bash on what God's name was and how we don't need anything more than the Bible. We explained to him the B.O.M and how we agreed that the Savior was the God of the old testament and he was a little more open to our message after explaining to him the Gospel Principles! He still didn't accept the B.O.M but he was nicer to us afterwards! During Dinner, the ZLs brought Elder Fuller some food and we chatted it up with them for a while! Even though it wasn't missionary related, we were definitely looking alot into the United States bombing Iran! The world is definitely a crazy place right now and alot of people need the peace and comfort the Gospel provides to all of us! After dinner, we met a really cool guy named Alfredo from Oaxaca! We explained to him the nature of God and how he is our Heavenly father and that Jesus Christ (his son) is our Savior and Redeemer! We bore our testimonies on the Atonement and we read 3 Nephi 11:8-11 with him! After explaining to him the Atonement and what Jesus Christ did for us, we helped him understand the B.O.M and how it helps us to understand the Plan of Salvation and the role the Savior plays in all of our lives! He was a really cool guy and we're planning on going back and visiting him on Thursday! We also met a nice guy named Diego (who was the son in law of David) and we explained to him our purpose as missionaries! His little kid was causing a ruckus again (the same kid that tried stealing our books when we were teaching David) but we were able to get our message across ! Overall it was a good day! We are finding a lot right now so hopefully we can find some cool people to teach!We had an ok Sunday! We began the day by having a Ward Correlation meeting! It was kind of silly since all we talked about was how we use WhatsApp as a ward but it is what is! We had three friends come; Pascual (who is an absolute dawg), Kevin (who was able to finally come to church for the first time) and Alfredo! It was super awesome to see Kevin finally come! After church, we had the LONGEST missionary correlation meeting I've had my whole mission! It took 2 HOURS and we talked about a whole lot of nothing . It really tested my patience because we were wasting so much time! Anyways, after church (I was able to talk to a cool RM who served here named Caleb) we headed back to the Apartment to make some lunch since we were starving! After eating lunch, we took a nap since we both had pretty bad headaches! After napping, we went and ministered to the members of the ward and then had another lesson with Jorge at the chapel! We went over the Plan of Salvation with him again and we better helped him understand the role Jesus Christ has as our Savior and Redeemer! I truly LOVE the Plan of Salvation and it's one of the biggest things I've come to better understand and learn during my time as a missionary! Jorge really needs the community and the peace and hope the Gospel provides to us! He has the desire to meet new people and find a "family" where he belongs! He is all alone here in the states and is looking for a community where he can meet new people who hold the values and ideas that he has! The problem is that he has severe social anxiety and he has a hard time acting upon certain things! Essentially he knows what he needs to do but doesn't feel prompted to do anything about it! I don't know if it's because of a mental issue he has or a mindset issue he experiences but it really affects him. He knows the church has a community where he can find new people yet he refuses to actually come inside the church and meet those people; we are going to keep working and praying for him because he'll be so blessed by the church and what it offers him! As soon as he ACTS upon his faith he'll progress so fast! I really care about this man and I want the best for him! I'm going to do everything I can for him but I hope and pray he does his part as well! We ended the night with Elder Fuller's DL call and ministering to the Sister Missionaries! We gave them blessings and helped them with some struggles they were going through!
. It really tested my patience because we were wasting so much time! Anyways, after church (I was able to talk to a cool RM who served here named Caleb) we headed back to the Apartment to make some lunch since we were starving! After eating lunch, we took a nap since we both had pretty bad headaches! After napping, we went and ministered to the members of the ward and then had another lesson with Jorge at the chapel! We went over the Plan of Salvation with him again and we better helped him understand the role Jesus Christ has as our Savior and Redeemer! I truly LOVE the Plan of Salvation and it's one of the biggest things I've come to better understand and learn during my time as a missionary! Jorge really needs the community and the peace and hope the Gospel provides to us! He has the desire to meet new people and find a "family" where he belongs! He is all alone here in the states and is looking for a community where he can meet new people who hold the values and ideas that he has! The problem is that he has severe social anxiety and he has a hard time acting upon certain things! Essentially he knows what he needs to do but doesn't feel prompted to do anything about it! I don't know if it's because of a mental issue he has or a mindset issue he experiences but it really affects him. He knows the church has a community where he can find new people yet he refuses to actually come inside the church and meet those people; we are going to keep working and praying for him because he'll be so blessed by the church and what it offers him! As soon as he ACTS upon his faith he'll progress so fast! I really care about this man and I want the best for him! I'm going to do everything I can for him but I hope and pray he does his part as well! We ended the night with Elder Fuller's DL call and ministering to the Sister Missionaries! We gave them blessings and helped them with some struggles they were going through!On Monday, we began the day with the Zone Council at the Fremont Chapel! Me and Elder Fuller gave training and knowing when to extend the baptismal invitation! We all wore ugly ties to counsel haha; pretty crazy to think I only have one more Zone Council! After the district council, we began the day by contacting our friends and then having a really good lesson with one of our friends named Johnny Fernando! He has only been taught once before (Elder Fuller and Elder Perschon had found him while door knocking, and he just invited them in!) He's a really cool man from Columbia who works on motorcycles; he's got a nice little family as well! We were able to teach him the restoration and our purpose as missionaries! We set expectations and we bore our testimonies on the B.O.M and the blessings we have received as members of the church! He's really cool and we're going to meet up with him again on Wednesday! After Dinner and a couple more contacts, we had a fire lesson with our bap. date Cesar at the chapel! We went over temples (specifically baptisms for the dead) and we explained to him the spirit world and what happens to our spirits after we die! We explained to him the sealing power the Priesthood gives us and how we can be sealed with our family's forever! He's super cool and he really has the desire to grow Closer to God! He's seeking more peace and comfort in his life right now (especially considering how crazy the world is right now) so a covenant with God would help him out alot! He's on a date for the 13th of July so please pray for Cesar! Afterwards, we taught Pascual about the restoration and the story of Joseph Smith! He's progressed super well and he's been studying the scriptures, praying and coming to Church constantly! We are going to invite him to be baptized soon! He's so golden! We ended the night by teaching English Class and giving a spiritual thought on the Doctrine of Christ; for some reason Brother Packer brought up the Israeli and Iranian conflict so we had to help assure our friends everything was going to be ok ; also, when brother Packer left he took our keys with him so we had to wait for him to come back to give us our keys back: we got home pretty late.
; also, when brother Packer left he took our keys with him so we had to wait for him to come back to give us our keys back: we got home pretty late.On Tuesday, we began the day by doing our studies, contacting our referrals, eating, and then visiting a friend Luis Gonzalez at the Library! Luis has been taught by missionaries for a while now but he hasn't been able to commit to baptism yet; he can speak pretty good English and Spanish since he's been in the states since he was 14! It had been awhile since he had been taught so we went over the Plan of Salvation and how the Atonement of Jesus Christ and his doctrine are part of this plan! He had never been taught the Resurrection and the Kingdoms of Glory before (for some reason) so we emphasized the importance of making and keeping covenants to gain exaltation and eternal life in the Celestial Kingdom! We were finally able to put him on a date for the 3rd of August (he wants the whole month of July to prepare) so hopefully during the time before now and then he's able to continue to read in the scriptures, pray, come to church and study on his own! He's really good at studying on his own and has the desire to grow Closer to God and better understand his purpose here on Earth! I'm super excited for him and we'll be working with him relentlessly! The Gospel would bless his life so much so we'll be praying for him! Afterwards, we visited our Friend Angelie! We found apparently that she was pregnant and that she was pretty sick so we prayed with her and offered her support! She's going to be ok! Afterwards, we went looking for a couple of hours! We found a bunch of people from the Philippines randomly so I called up Elder Bucag to help me out! He's an Elder serving in this mission who's from the Philippines (his family lives in Canada though) so he was able to talk to them for us in Tagalog! I was only able to pick out a couple words they were saying! We were able to find a super nice lady from Oaxaca though named Gris tho! She was super old so we sat down with her in a Laundromat and we explained to her faith in Jesus Christ and the B.O.M! Oaxacans are my absolute FAVORITE! I seriously got to make a trip down to Oaxaca! After dinner at the Ponces (a super nice family in the ward! They have a son serving in El Salvador and Sister Ponce actually served her mission here in San Jose), we went and found a couple new friends with Sister Watson! Our friend Blanca was busy taking care of her Grandson but we were able to introduce Sister Watson to her! We also found new friends with her and she was able to bear her testimony on eternal families! We ended the night by visiting an active member of the ward named Ana! It was a super spiritual contact! Her husband recently had to head back to El Salvador for a pretty serious surgery so we were able to help, comfort and strengthen and let her know that we are always here for her! Sister Watson gave her a hug and it was like the cutest thing ever!
-Elder Copeland
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