Week 70 - September 27, 2021

 Hello, everyone! 

Welcome to the first week of Sister Copeland's last transfer as a missionary.  WHAT?  HOW?  I literally feel like I've been here for 2 months, not almost 18.  Time flies when you're doin the Lord's work, I guess. 

Happy Missionary

Anyway, this transfer is shaping up to be a wild one.  First off, I am TRAINING!  In missionary terms, that means I am a mother haha.  Sister Bailey, from Washington D.C.  Funny story... We actually were friends as babies.  Crazy right! When my parents were living in Seattle, they met Sister Bailey's parents, and I attended Sister Bailey's baby shower... lol!  Crazy how small the world really is!  The last time I saw Sister Bailey was when we visited D.C. one summer.  We spent the fourth of July together, and while we were there, we both said no missions for us!  And now look at us--comps in the Swahili area of the Idaho Pocatello Mission.  CRAZY!  Her Swahili is coming along, and when I leave, she and Sister John are gonna be amazing!

We had a really awesome lesson with Fausta where we read the first vision account in Joseph Smith History.  It was so cool for her to relate so much to what Joseph Smith was experiencing at the time!  She said she really felt the Spirit, and I think it was a really awesome chance for her to learn and remember the times the Spirit has confirmed the truth to her.  It was great and we really hope that she uses those feelings to drive her forward in the gospel.

Another crazy lesson we had was this Arabic speaking family.  Speaking of, because we teach a lot of Arabic speakers now, we got Arabic tagssss.  Pretty sick. 

The coolest missionary tag I own

Anyway, this lesson was insane.  We had to teach through Google translate, because we just don't speak Arabic.  Anyway, we ended up figuring out that her sister in Egypt had passed away.  So, we were searching through her Arabic Book of Mormon to find a chapter she could read.  I don't know if you've ever seen an Arabic Book of Mormon, but first off, it's backwards, second off, it's just a bunch of squiggly lines to me.  Anyway, as a miracle from God, we found the chapter! It was a crazy time.  Also, the daughter gave us large glasses of juice.  As we were leaving, she saw that I didn't drink mine (I was busy reading squiggly lines in a backwards Book of Mormon), and ran up to me with the glass, and yelled "DRINK."  I was so scared of her at this moment, that I chugged down the juice as fast as I could.  I think the mom was impressed.  The little girl then stared into my soul, said "Good girl," and walked away.  She also wrote "good" on a piece of paper, spelling it "gbob", and gave it to me when I walked out the door.  CRAZY kid lol, but a sweetie pie. 

We've been going crazy hard this week.  From preparing for Sister Bailey, to receiving Sister Bailey, to teaching Swahili to Sister Bailey, all on top of teaching refugees the gospel, it was wild, and I'm exhausted.

But, I received one of the best comments I've ever received in my life this week. This lady, who was a professional teacher, and had been teaching for a really long time, looked at me and said, "You are an amazing teacher."  I was like, "Aww, thanks," and she said, "No.  I never think anyone is an amazing teacher.  You are amazing."  Honestly, it was so sweet!  I really love teaching, and I'm glad that I'm at least doing it well haha.

We cleaned another refugee house this week, and luckily this one started out pretty clean.  It was so much fun.  We worked on it with some other people, and it was the best!

I, also, just wanna say, God is a God of miracles.  Now this may not sound crazy to you, but it was a miracle to us.  We had to stop for lunch one day, because we had no time to cook, but our amount of money to spend was very low.  We had a few coupons so we went into the restaurant, hoping that we would have enough.  When we got up to pay, someone kindly paid for our meal.  We said lots of prayers of thankfulness that day:)

Our free food

For my spiritual thought this week, I wanted to tell you all about something that I discovered in my personal study this week.  I opened the Book of Mormon randomly this week, and happened to open up to Mosiah 15.  This was Abinadi teaching about the nature of Christ.  The beginning of the chapter says, 

"2 And because he dwelleth in flesh he shall be called the Son of God, and having subjected the flesh to the will of the Father, being the Father and the Son—

3 The Father, because he was conceived by the power of God; and the Son, because of the flesh; thus becoming the Father and Son—

4 And they are one God, yea, the very Eternal Father of heaven and of earth."

I've always been confused when I read the Book of Mormon and it says they are "one god," because we know Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father are separate beings.  But, as I read these verses again, it made a lot more sense to me, almost like the Spirit threw some new knowledge into my head. I discovered that what they are describing here is that Jesus Christ is both God and human.  It is describing that he is LIKE the Father, because he has a divine Godship, and he is the Son, because he is also human, and "dwelt in the flesh."  They then describe Christ as "one God," because he exemplifies both sides.  He is God AND human.  He is like the Father, because he allows the Father's will to overrule his own will.  He is our connection between Heaven and Earth, us to the Father, and our own will to His.  He is the only one who could have been our Savior because he had both God-like and human qualities.  So, we say He is one God, because he is both God and human in ONE perfect God.  Isn't that so cool?

Anyway, life is good.  I love my mission, I love the gospel, and I love the Lord. 

You all are amazing,

Sister Copeland

Pics of the Week:

My delicious acai bowl

Ndagala (little fish)

My sleeping son

A dog chased Betina and the only place that she would sit after that was my lap.

Week 69 - September 20, 2021

 This week was awesome!  We got to do so many cool things!

This week we took some of our branch members to the Pocatello Temple Open House!  It was amazing!  We got Fausta, Shamilah, Faith, Muhindo, and Claudine all to pack in a suburban with me, Sister John, and then Brother and Sister Bingham, to drive two hours to Pocatello to walk inside this beautiful temple.  They surprisingly were so down with the idea.  We packed nine people in a car.  We were packed tighttttt, driving in the middle of nowhere, to be able to see this temple.  And let me tell you!  It was so worth it.  We walked through this beautiful four-story temple, and got to explain each room in Swahili for them!  They were so amazed. 

 Bus ride to the temple with my girls.

Beautiful Pocatello, Idaho, Temple

They all especially loved the baptismal font!  The Spirit was strong. They're so sweet.  After the tour, we walked outside, and it happened to be raining!  So, some of our pics are in the rain, and then after that it suddenly got sunny again.  haha Idaho is weird.  Anyway, we then all got ice cream together and it was super fun:)

We, also, got to help clean another refugee house!  We basically had the whole Zone helping out with this one.  The most notable moment of the whole thing was one Elder who would gag probably every five minutes because of something else.  Honestly, I was just laughing the whole time because you are cleaning and you just hear gagging from the other room and then a, "I'm ok!"  hahaha.  Another notable moment was that there was a small fish head stuck to the window lol. We love Africans and African food!

Well.... here's some surprise news.... I AM TRAINING!  This means that I get to work with a brand new missionary and train her!  She actually is an old friend!  Our parents were good friends when we were babies haha, so now we get to be reunited!  It's so cool to now look at all the work I've done, train someone new, and then hand off my precious little Swahili branch to the next generation of sisters.  It will be so cool to have this overlap transfer before I go home in six weeks.  I am so excited!  We prepared our little tiny apartment for a trio this week, and it'll be a tight squeeze, but I am so excited!  Next week you'll get to hear all about our newest Swahili sister!

I got a really cool opportunity to talk to a member about my experience with mental health this week.  I mentioned the topic in a spiritual thought we were giving at dinner, and she kept asking more and more questions, so she could help two of her grandchildren who are dealing with the same things.  I got to explain my experience and what I feel helped me through it.  It was a very tender moment and she said she really needed to hear a lot of those things, which was awesome.  The most important thing I emphasized was that depression and anxiety are not the things that come when you lose your testimony.  I had a great testimony as I started to struggle with those things.  I still did all the things that I was supposed to.  But what does sometimes happen, and this is not every case, is that you stop having motivation to do the little things, or you struggle to recognize the Spirit as often. And these things lead to a need to work harder for the things you know to be true.  I am grateful for my experiences with mental health because that means that I got to truly work for and appreciate my testimony.  Again, this doesn't mean that if you struggle with mental health you don't have as strong a testimony, or you will lose your testimony.  This just means that you get to take this trial and work even harder for it, making it stronger in the end.  Some people with mental health issues never struggle with their testimony, this was just my thoughts on her specific question.  Anyway.

We have started to teach members how to speak Swahili, and we are filming the classes so that anyone who wants to learn has access to free Swahili classes!  So, if you're looking to learn Swahili, maybe in a few weeks I'll drop the link to our Youtube channel lol.

This past Sunday, I got to witness a very sweet moment with our branch council.  They were talking about the impact of missionaries on the branch.  Our branch president at one point said, "We would not have the branch that we have today without Sister Copeland or Elder Pitcher.  We just wouldn't.", and then another member said, "I believe those two specific missionaries were sent here by divine intervention to bless this area.  They were given power from God to do what they did, and none of us would be the same without them."  Needless to say, I shed a tear or two.  They were so sweet.  Sometimes, as a missionary, you start to wonder if the work you are doing matters.  It gets hard.  But, this little meeting was an answer to my prayers, telling me in the most plain words possible, that the things I have done here MATTERED.  I will be forever grateful for this branch.

The people we are teaching are doing well.  Muhindo is seriously contemplating baptism and what he needs to do to get there.  We are so excited for him, so please pray that he recognizes his answer from the Spirit!

Honestly, the weeks are going by so fast, so that's about all I remember.  Here's a few out of context moments from the week:

1. Mchukiwa ran through her apartment complex to our car, in heels, yelling, "I need cookies!"

2. A little girl was mad that a missionary tag didn't have her name on it

3. A refugee family bought a 70-inch TV instead of couches for their home

4. A group of Elders came to our service project, took our snacks, and left lol

5. Musa and his family described an animal in Swahili, trying to know what it was in English.  These were the clues they used: has night vision, is a bird, lives in a cave.  The answer was bat.

6. Musa has absolutely no idea how to pronounce his own child's name HAHA

7. We had a district council on a target for the base jumpers. as they were jumping

8. I played basketball against a baby and totally beat him

Here is my spiritual thought for the week:

I really loved this quote:  "We are not human beings having a spiritual experience.  We are spiritual beings having a human experience."

We truly are spiritual beings, sons and daughters of God, that are experiencing our lives here as just a part of the grand plan for eternity.  Because of this, we can know that every trial that comes about, can be solved with a spiritual answer because that's who we are and why we are here.  We don't need to look to the world for answers because those aren't the answers that will solve our deepest problems.  We are spiritual beings.  Look to your spirit because that's who you really are.

Well!  There's my crazy week!  I hope you all had just as wild of a week as I did!

I love you all and see you in 44 days.  Not that I'm counting.  I just really wanna hug my parents haha.

-Sister Copeland

Pictures of the Week:

1.  I get to live in a truly beautiful place.  Imma miss it.

2.  The district

3.   Baby baby

4.   Cutest girls and our pickup basketball game

5.  They had us model shawls for them lol

Week 68 - September 13, 2021

 Hello, friends and family! 

Welcome to another week from the mission of Sister Copeland!  Life is crazy, life is good, life is crazy good.

What a week!  Let me tell y'all about it.

We did some insane service this week!  On Tuesday evening, we started cleaning this house for the refugee center.  The walls and bathroom were supposed to be white, and at this point in time, they just weren't.  The floors were supposed to be brown.  They were black.  So yeah.  A big project.  Anyway, we started Tuesday night and cleaned for about 4 hours straight, until we literally ran out of cleaning supplies.  We called it for the night and then decided to come back the next morning!  So we did!  We came back at around 8 am the next day and started cleaning once again.  My job was to shampoo the carpets.  It was gross, but I had a good time lol.  I think there was more hair in that apartment than I had ever seen in my life.  But it was so satisfying to watch it be cleaned!  

Shampooing that carpet

 Scary bathroom cleaning

After a whopping six hours on Wednesday, we finally got it to the point where we decided it was livable!  Crazy for sure.  I was exhausted by the end, but it was super awesome to help out!

We, also, went to help the refugee center collect donations from this lady who was moving out of her house and getting rid of a bunch of stuff!  She lived in Buhl (a 30-minute drive from Twin), but it was wild haha.  It wasn't a normal donation collection, because this lady just had piles and piles of mostly unused stuff that she was giving away for free!  So we dug through these piles, taking what the refugee center could use (and also some fun stuff for ourselves lol), and putting it in the truck!  We came back with soooooo much stuff.  But it was good!  Me and Sister John got some nice cork boards for our house, a couple fun board games for p-day, and literally a mini-fridge.  Amazing.

We, also, had some refugee arrivals this week!  Both from Sudan.  The first one is this super cute family who is actually living with some members!  They came to our English class, and the little girl kept giving me M & Ms.  What a sweetheart. They even went to church this week!  Very sweet and cute little family.  The second arrival was a single man who now lives in the house we cleaned!  He knows a little bit of English, which is good because we don't know Arabic haha.  He is super cool, and we hope to visit him soon!  We picked him up from the airport, and he just seems like the sweetest.

So, as many of y'all probably have heard, the Pocatello temple has its open house starting at the end of this week!  We got some tickets for this Saturday, and we are hoping to take some youth down there.  But also, we are planning a trip for October for our whole branch to come with us to visit the open house!  We are renting a bus or two, which is super exciting. They will all drive down with us, and get to hear the tour in Swahili, and we are hoping some returned Swahili missionaries can come back and do the tour with us, too!  It's gonna be an amazing last weekend in the mission.

We were able to visit Fausta some more this week!  She told us that she believes the Book of Mormon is true, and when she reads it, there is just a cloud of peace around her.  She is so sweet!  It's so cool to watch her grow.  The rest of her family isn't progressing as fast as her, but we are still excited to watch her personal progress in the gospel.  We are hoping to take her to the Pocatello Temple this weekend! 

Okay..... so here's the story about my finger.  We were getting out of the car to go to an appointment, and I slammed the car door right on the joint of my right middle finger.  The door was completely shut, and my finger was STUCK.  So, I opened the door, got back in the car, and did some heavy breathing lol.  I only shed a singular tear though, cause big girls don't cry haha.  Well, it was bleeding, and hurting pretty badly, so we drove to the nearest missionary apartment, which was thankfully across the street, and got some ice.  

I just iced my swollen finger for a good while, but then we had a dinner appointment.  The whole time while eating, because it was the finger on my right hand, I had to hold the fork, not using my middle finger.  I had to be very particular about it though, so I wasn't just pointing my middle finger at this sweet old couple all of dinner.  Anyway, after all that, it was still pretty swollen, so we had some members check it, and thankfully it was just really badly bruised and not broken, so that's good haha.  A fun experience to say the least!

We have started teaching Swahili classes to some members, and they have loved it.  Members of the community have also started hearing about it, which is crazy, and they have asked us to film the classes and put them on YouTube or something so other people can start learning the language!  Crazy crazy.

We have so much to do before I go home.  We are currently translating and recording materials for Swahili missionaries to use all over the United States because they just don't have translation for a lot of the videos currently that people like to watch!  We are also doing the Book of Mormon experiment with hundreds of people around the mission, so that's crazy, all while teaching Swahili to other people, and oh yeah, being a missionary with a lot of appointments in a day.  Whew.  I'm tired just typing it all out!  But what's a mission without being crazy busy!

My spiritual thought for the week is about CHARITY.  Charity has often been described as the "pure love of Christ."  It is something that is exactly that, pure.  It isn't forced or brought upon by anything else, other than love. 

The motivation for Christ to suffer for every single one of us individually, was this love.  Alma 7:12-13 says that, 

11 And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people.

12 And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.

None of what he did for us was for himself.  He didn't sin; therefore, he didn't need to suffer or die.  Yet He did. Because He loves us.  Every single hard thing He went through in His life was just to help us be happier and to be able to have someone to help us when we struggle.  He had pure love.  And, when we strive to fill ourselves with the same love, we are becoming more Christlike.  There are so many attributes of Christ that we can try to obtain in this life, but all of the other ones are so much easier when we have Charity.  It's a pure motivation to become more like Him.  So, I've set more goals for myself to develop my personal charity!  I'll let you know how it goes lol.

Well, that is about it for me this week!  Hope everything is going well wherever you may be reading this from!

Love you all!

-Sister Copeland

Also, forgot to add this very important piece of information.

26-17.

Go, Cougs!

Pictures of the Week

1. First, do the glasses work for me, second, this kid is so funny

2.  I ate with a family that grew up with my aunt!  Small world.

3.  This baby literally attacked me our whole lesson

Week 67 - September 6, 2021

"I feel so many angels in here"

Can y'all believe you are reading my 67th email as a missionary?  That's crazy.  It's even crazier to think that you'll only ever read 8 more after this one.  How has time gone that fast???  It's actually insane. 

Well, this week was awesome!  Let me tell y'all about  it.

Okay, I know it's honestly been a few months since I've talked about Fausta's family, but y'all are in for a ride.  So, as y'all know if you've been with me since the beginning, Fausta and her family are some of my favorite people that I honestly know I was meant to meet here in Twin Falls.  I have taught them for over a year now, and I truly have a special place in my heart for them.  They were supposed to get baptized in January, but never ended up doing it, and then ended up being really antagonistic for a few months.  But, of course, because I love these people so much, we stayed friends and just continued to serve and love them.  They ended up moving houses a few weeks ago, and we helped them with the move.  A member of the branch dedicated their home, and that was where everything changed.  Fausta and her siblings kind of flipped a switch after that.  They've been listening to our lessons again and even coming to church!  This week, we invited Fausta to come look at the temple with us!  We walked the grounds, and she took pictures of all the flowers, and really loved it.  We then got permission to take them into the waiting room.  We walked in and Fausta changed.  She looked back at us and said, "I feel so many angels here."  My heart burst.  Even though she only knew so much about the gospel and the temple, she knew that it was a special place where angels dwell.  She left this experience different.  

We then invited her to church on Sunday, but she couldn't make it.  But, to our surprise, she ended up texting and asking if she could come to another service!  So, we brought her to the Spanish branch, because that was the only one left of the day!  We sat in that meeting, where everyone, over and over again, bore their testimony of Joseph Smith and the Restoration.  After the meeting, Fausta told us that she really loved it.  She said, "If the first room feels that good, I can't imagine what the rest of the building feels like," talking about the temple again.  We then said, "Well, let's get you baptized and you can go in.  And she said, "Yes!"  We went over the baptismal interview questions, and she passed them all.  So the next step is to get her an actual interview and talk to the rest of her family about it.  So please please pray that this time around it goes well! We are so excited for her, and honestly it has really taught me the importance of GOD'S TIMING.  Eight months ago was not her time, but maybe it is now.  Ah, I'm just so happy.

We, also, were able to take Sofia to the temple, and all she keeps saying is, "It's so good that place."  She's adorable in her broken English.  She then talked about how she is still scared to get baptized, but she is definitely thinking about it!  So please pray for her as well! 

Etienne ended up not getting baptized this week, but luckily is still ready to learn and work on keeping his commitments.  We are hoping that he will still be baptized this month.  We just need to help him understand a little bit more!  We met with him and talked about the importance of the Holy Ghost, and then he was able to see his friend, Hassani, who also got baptized this week, get the Gift of the Holy Ghost on Sunday.  He really loved it.  We are praying hard to have him ready for baptism at the end of September.  So exciting!

Muhindo is doing super well, as well as Faith.  Having their dad in the home who has the priesthood is really helping them feel the Spirit and get answers.  We took Muhindo to the temple as well!  (Lots of temple tours this week haha).  He loved it and posted a lot of pics on Facebook haha.  He asked me, "Who is next to be baptized?" and I said, "You!" lol.  He laughed but little does he know, I'm not wrong haha.  Love that family so much.

We visited Sofia and Mwalibola this week, and as we were talking with Sofia, the sun slowly set, until honestly we were sitting in the living room in the dark.  Mwalibola then came downstairs and was like, "Why in the world are you sitting in the dark?" and turned on the lights, which were bright haha.  I said "nililala lakini, naAMKA sasa!" which means, "I was sleeping but I'm AWAKE now!" and she honestly thought it was the funniest thing I've ever said.  So catch being a Swahili comedian in my future. 

Honestly, things have been super good, and it's super cool to see that all the fruits of my labors over the last 15 months are really starting to be seen.  Even if they weren't, I'm so lucky for everything I've learned. I'm not ready to say goodbye.  Luckily, I've still got eight weeks.  Catch me working harder than I've ever worked. 

Janvier posing with his BoM page all highlighted like a champ

For my spiritual thought this week, I'd love to talk about revelation, and how the adversary will work on us before we receive revelation, during, and even after we've made the right choice.  In a BYU devotional titled, "Cast Not Away Therefore Your Confidence," Jeffery R. Holland says, 

"Like Moses in his vision, there may come after the fact some competing doubts and some confusion, but they will pale when you measure them against the real thing.  Remember the real thing.  Remember how urgently you have needed help in earlier times and that you got it.  The Red Sea will open to the honest seeker of revelation.  The adversary does have power to hedge up the way, to marshal Pharaoh’s forces and dog our escape right to the water’s edge, but he can’t produce the real thing.  He cannot conquer if we will it otherwise.  “Exerting all [our] powers to call upon God,” the light will again come, the darkness will again retreat, the safety will again be sure.  That is lesson number one about crossing the Red Sea, your Red Seas, by the spirit of revelation."

Oftentimes in our lives, we will make a decision, and it is then, that fear and the adversary kick in, trying to make us doubt the thing we already know to be true.  Moses felt it when coming up to the Red Sea.  He knew that what he was doing was right, but then, coming up to an uncrossable sea, fear and doubt crept into his heart.  He was stuck.  The decision he had once been so confident in was up in the air.  But, as in all right decisions, God will prepare a way.  He asked for help.  He asked for assurance, and he got a sea that opened so he could walk on dry ground.  As Jeffery R. Holland said, Satan "cannot conquer if we will it otherwise."  Satan is always going to try and get us to doubt the decisions we make, especially when they are right, but his forces do not give us the peace that the Spirit does.  Remember the feelings you had when you originally made the decision.  If it was correct then, it is correct now until God himself tells you it's not.  Call upon God, the light of understanding and revelation will come.  Trust in him, and trust in his process and timing.

I am so very grateful again for the many experiences I've had as a missionary.  I wouldn't change a single day for the world. And now I've only got 58 more.  But trust me, I'm taking these 58 days, and I'm putting everything I've got into it.  And whether I see the many fruits of my labor that I know are possible or not, It will have been worth it. 

I love you all.  Thanks for sticking by my side!

with love,

Dada Copeland

Pictures of the Week:

   1.  My son is really into giving hugs lately

2. Betina:)

3. Florence is the sweetest little baby