hello!! 🎄💌✨️🎅
this is probably overly ambitious of me, but I did some math (that's a sentence I've never said) to see where the transfers line up and it looks like I'm exactly 1 year out today. this might not be accurate, but that's ok.
overview
-batismo do tonny!!
-Thanksgiving
I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. my mission is...special so we weren't allowed to call home, but we had lunch with a young couple, and they made a little Thanksgiving for us even though it's not a holiday here. Before lunch I was even thinking, how nice would it be if they made us a Thanksgiving, then they did. 🥹 it was so sweet, and they had a 3-week-old baby. they were also loaded and spoke English. 10/10
Honestly, I'm excited for December to be over because
a- December is 95 million degrees here
b- Christmas makes being away harder
Also, we are unfortunately too close to one of the best beaches in the world (Florianópolis) so NO one will be home during the holidays. So, teaching people will be scarce.
Saturday night we wanted to grab dinner, so we stopped at a little food truck. it was caldo de cana, pastéis, live music, and futebol. if you know Brasil, you know that's as Brasil as it gets. I was in heaven. 🧃⚽️🍋🟩 especially because 90% of the time it doesn't feel like Brasil here. hoping other areas have more culture 🤞
The baptism of Tonny was literally a miracle in itself. he is the flakiest person of all time and the most typical 14-year-old boy ever. it felt like I was back in 9th grade trying to hold a conversation with Sam. but his friend Richard would help us in lessons and he had the most solid testimony. It was so cool to watch him and Tonny have conversations in our lessons. his friend also has really good English, enough to ask Sister Bird and I if we have boyfriends back in America.
Português: Português is coming! I feel like I'm on this teeter point where I could talk a lot, but I know it's wrong, to talk well I still need to think hard about it and talk a little slower. but in lessons I can teach doctrine but can't fully be as deep as I'd likeee but it'll come. I can pass as fluent with small talk in Ubers but after that it's questionable haha.
I watched a video about Christ's birth in Português and was so worried because I was understanding 0 of it. I was quickly relieved when I realized it was Arabic. but I loved the video. Jesus Christ has become my best friend on my mission. I remember growing up having the missionaries in our home and they'd share with us "Light the World" videos. Light the World is something the church does every Christmas year, it's a service and acts of kindness oriented Christmas message. I always felt the Spirit when the missionaries were in my home. it's special to be a missionary at Christmas time.
random
-I killed a cockroach wasp thing in our house with a bat. talk about aim
-Sister Bird hit 10 months! so I made her coconut French toast 🥥👩🏻🍳🍞
-our bishop sent a message out asking to borrow someone's Netflix account because he wanted to watch Stranger Things haha
-we were clapping doors, and I spoke with a woman through her window but then she just closed the blinds on our face mid-sentence. happens probably 15 times a day
-a guy showed us a photo of his wound on his leg of a cut from the beach that then got infected and had flesh eating bacteria to the point bone was showing. Sister Bird then passed out, and we had to leave.
-everyone here is watching 1 of 2 things. Stranger Things or futebol. when walking around, we see every single TV through the windows with one of those two.
reading my emails back I'm like wow I had a good week! but like everything in life, these are just the highlights.
the mission is still hard, still unsuccessful at times, still sad, but still the best decision. all missionaries say it, but you can't really be prepared or understand what the mission is like until you're actually on one. I thought everyone was a little dramatic lol. a new American Sister asked me what the hardest part is. she was on day 5. I just smiled and said, "Just pray a lot."
she also has a trainer who doesn't speak English. which is just a thing in its own. but I told her it's such a refining time. I was never closer to my Savior than that and this time in my life.
everyone says a mission shapes you to who Heavenly Father needs you to be, but I get now it's because of the trials on the mission. He uses the trials to refine us. That's what makes it so good for us.
Any missionaries past or present have good tips or advice for the mission, I'd love to hear it.
Moroni 7:45-46 🫶
45 And charity suffereth long, and is kind, and envieth not, and is not puffed up, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, and rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
46 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, if ye have not charity, ye are nothing, for charity never faileth. Wherefore, cleave unto charity, which is the greatest of all, for all things must fail
I love the part to "cling." It's not always easy to be charitable, but we need to cling to it. without it we are nothing. charity never faileth.
Everything is a choice so, choose! choose charity, choose peacemaking even though at times it may be the harder choice. my coach always said everything we do has a consequence, whether good or bad. the results of our choices and actions come through the fruits of it. choose good, receive good. doesn't mean life will be perfect but it will be good.
we'll never regret having being kind and choosing charity.
I love you all, I hope all is well at home 🎅🎄
💌Sister Copeland
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