Morpho Butterfly

Hey family! So, in Suriname how it works is... the Chinese people basically run the show. All major grocery stores, auto and bike repair shops, multiple cybers and such are run and owned by Chinese people. Everything was closed on Monday for the Chinese New Year. So that's why I didn't email yesterday.
Please tell Joey I said congrats, that's awesome that he got baptized this weekend. I forgot that chapel was the chapel I was baptized in. I remember very little. Mostly how confused I was as a kid when everyone would bear their testimony and say how they knew that this is the only true church. For me, I understood that to mean that that church building was the only true church. Not completely knowing that they meant the organization as a whole and not the individual building. Haha good times. What I do remember though is how I felt on my baptism day. I know I have a journal that has a small page in very big letters that talks about how I felt.
This week was an awesome week! We had zone conference and it was amazing. President Egbert talked about the Atonement and narrowed it down into seven main points:
1. Forgiveness of sins
2. Ressurrected bodies
3. Justice satisfied
4. Resist Satan
5. Strength in trials
6. Power to change
7. Heals infirmities
All of these seem very simple and they are, but there are so many places in the scriptures that talk about what Christ has to go through in order to make these things possible, how we access it, all that fun stuff. He challenged us to find the scriptures we knew about  the Atonement and to put them into one of these seven categories.
A favorite example of mine that was shared in zone conference was the example of what is known as the Morpho butterfly. I wish I had a picture to show you about it, but basically it is an amazing example of God's creation. It is fairly large and is just this amazing bright blue. President Egbert used that example to symbolize the power the Atonement has to change us. We go from caterpillars to butterflies thanks to the Atonement it was a cool way of visualizing that for me.
I really loved a talk that a return missionary gave for district conference since that was also this past weekend. He talked about how the Book of Mormon gave him confidence as a missionary to answer people's questions and teaching. He talked about how he could go into a lesson and know that he would get to teach with Nephi or Moroni, or Lehi because he was using their words. Then, whenever the investigator had a question he couldn't directly answer he would jokingly think to  himself "Alright Nephi do you want to help me  out here? I think you've got this." Pretty funny plus I liked the visual.
I'm running out of time so I'll have to stop for right now. But I realized that of all the things I can say I've learned the most about on my mission, I have learned so much about the Atonement. I am so grateful  for that. I would not trade it for  anything. Obviously I still have a lot to learn about it and the rest of the gospel, but that realization came to me as I sat in zone conference this last Friday.
I love you all! Hope you have a great week!
Love,
Elder Cole Cooper