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