What's up, everyone! It's been a wild last two weeks! We had a mission tour here and had the opportunity to have a member from the Brazil Area Presidency come to our mission! Because of this, p-day was all different and so I decided to wait and add everything into the same email!
We started last week with one of the coolest experiences. We had the baptism of such an amazing family: Altair, Daiana, and Luiza. We have been working with this family for the longest time and the process in helping them has been anything but easy. However, in the process we have seen such an amazing change in their lives. They started from ground zero and have grown their testimonies so much. It was special to have multiple member families there to support at the baptism. We thought we were past all the problems until right before the baptism went down, we realized the water in the font had drained and left barely enough for it to work. However, the mom has an extreme fear of drowning and after the first attempt to baptize her, as soon as she entered the water, she took a huge gulp of water and basically had a panic attack. Altair the dad also had problems with fully entering the water, so after multiple attempts we had to baptize them sitting down and it all worked out in freezing cold water. Hearing their testimonies after and how the church has changed their lives was special to hear.
This week in the mission tour I had the opportunity to participate in the leadership council with Elder Koch who is the Area President of Brazil. The words he shared with us were super powerful and changed my perspective a lot on missionary work. He said that as missionários when we accept the call to serve, what we are doing is accepting to suffer a little bit in the way that Christ did so that we can bring people unto Him. The mission is not easy; however, you learn certain things that couldn't be learned anywhere else. As missionaries, we represent Jesus Christ and do the will of the Lord. We leave our families at home, friends, work, and school to help other people. It's a once in a lifetime experience and I love it.
I want to share one more miracle that happened this week. Maybe the craziest one yet. Sunday morning, we woke up and the first thing my comp said to me was that he had a dream we were going to baptize this kid who until yesterday I hadn't known. The kid's name is Fernando and is 14 years old. He was taught about five months ago by the missionaries along with his two sisters and mom; however, he was the only one that decided not to be baptized. We tried to connect with him a few times this transfer but never had any luck talking with him. At first I didn't think much of it and we both forgot until after church as we were saying goodbye, the mom of Fernando came up to us and explained how her son now wants to get baptized. I didn't believe it at first and the only thing my comp said was, "I told you" lol. We went over to his house later that day and invited him to be baptized. Because he had already been to church multiple times, late on Sunday our friend Fernando was baptized.
Such a crazy experience and proof that miracles happen. The Lord is constantly watching over us and knows exactly what we need. I'm very grateful to be here in Brazil doing the Lord's work.
Also, we had transfers this week and I will be staying here in the area and receiving a new companion who is awesome! Love you all.
Elder Copeland
