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!
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
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