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
5. They had us model shawls for them lol
No comments:
Post a Comment