Tengo un gato en mi camisa!

Hola!

What a week. This past week has felt like it has been two weeks since last p-day, but I'm pretty sure that that is because of how much happened over the past week. Let's get crackin, eh?

First off I'll answer some questions people have asked me. I sleep great here. The beds are nothing too amazing, but I have always been able to sleep pretty much anywhere and I find myself grateful for that once again here in the MTC. I found my other SD card, so I have three now. Of course. I knew I would find it. That's what I get for being impatient I suppose. I got everybody's packages I believe. Thank you all so much for all of the food/candy/stuff. I especially love the no bakes (as does my teacher, Hermano Koller). Everybody seemed to think that I had like a super bad cold, which I would like to clear up, and let you all know that it was merely my average cold that I get at this time of the year. I haven't even had a cough really! Although it has been making a comeback for the last couple of days as I feel my nose begin to be stuffy again. Oh well... I got the audio tape of everybody at the Christmas party. It was great to hear everybody's voices again. Thank you for all the love and support expressed in that. This week is the big surgery for Natalie! I will be sure to keep her in my prayers as well as the whole family. I hope everything goes well. I especially hope that Sophie and Dylan can behave for Grandpa Larson. But at the same time I kind of hope he doesn't get away with too easy of a week taking care of them.... I got the Christmas card from Holly/family. Dad, if you could tell them thanks or they see this then...Thanks! My P-day in Spain (once I'm in the field at least, not sure about the CCM (If I even get there)) will be Wednesday I believe. Greg buzzed his head. 'Nuff said. Thank you everybody for the Max updates. It's nice to get his blog updates mom. It truly is a miracle that he is progressing as fast as he is. I loved hearing his sarcasm back to the nurse. "I'm Max, your patient" hahah that's so Max... Happy birthday this week Colby! I love you bro. And when does USU start back up again? It sounds like everybody needs that to happen to stop having such a good time back home! Thank you Aunt Kim for your package. That's some major points in the "favorite aunt" battle! ;)

Now, onto the biggest news of the week. There is a hockey game on New Years day. The Bridgestone Classic or something. Anyways, it's the annual outdoors game of the year. Well, it's the Penguins vs. the Capitals this year. OK, so this is like the Jazz playing the Bulls in the finals was for Tim. So anybody that gets me some straight up amazing stats of that game will be my hero forever. If multiple people do, well then we can figure that out later. But I would really appreciate it if somebody lets me know about that. Phew. The rest of this e-mail should be a breeze now.

So apparently last week was Christmas or something, right? Well it was pretty fantastic here in the MTC. I did feel a little homesick in the morning, but that's to be expected as my first Christmas away from home. But anyways the Christmas stuff here really began on Christmas eve. We had a 2 hour fireside with the counselors of the MTC presidency here. They talked to us about the gifts of the Spirit and how they are gifts from God that are GIVEN to us. They also talked about why they are important and how we can ask for them and work for them, but they are still gifts we must remember to be grateful for. About halfway through, on the gift of music, we got to sing a 12 days of Christmas MTC style. It was pretty funny. Stuff like 1 rock solid testimony, 3 new companions, 4 glasses of chocolate milk, 5 hours of gym, 6:30 wakeup, 8 hours of sleep, lukewarm showers and just random stuff like that. It was funny and fun. That was all we had on Christmas eve. Then Christmas day was pretty chill. We had a big ol' talent show at 9:30 in the morning. Tryouts were last Tuesday and as I was walking by there was a group of missionaries going to Sweden that needed one more person to perform a traditional swedish folk dance, and since I had so much experience in the art of swedish folk dancing with Greg's wedding I stepped right in and performed in front of everybody! Ok, that's a lie. But how awesome would that have been, hahahaha, I still can't believe we did that at Greg's wedding. Anyways, the talent show was amazing. There was a ton of talent there. Mormons are good at stuff! A lot of people sang and played stuff and changed lyrics. One that I really liked was a cover of Jimmy Eat World that was about "It just take some time, have a little faith to choose the right, everything everything will be alright" and had missionary lyrics haha another great act was the like 8 or 9 Russian missionaries here. They are the only ones here from Russia and they got up and, to the tune of Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" did a "You missionary now" song and dance. They didn't use music. Just their voices, and terrible dancing. It was terrible, and that made it so amazing. Everybody is quoting it here. They're like rockstars now. Later, we had a devotional with Elder Russell M. Nelson and his wife. It was fantastic. The only Christmas I've ever got to spend with an Apostle anyways. He talked about the Hebrew origin of names and stuff relating to the Christmas story and pretty much blew our minds with intellect. No big deal. His wife spoke on the "signs" that we have along the road of life and how following signs can help us to be safe and happy and that sometimes signs are more obvious to us with the gospel and that it is our job to help clear up the ones that are "confusing" to investigators. AKA commandments. That night we had another fireside that was two volunteer people (not missionaries) that acted out the Christmas carol thing with Ebenezer Scrooge. Then Elder Nelson got up (he was still here) and said a few things to us. Also, President Smith said a bit too. It was really great. Also, in the morning we had a gift exchange amongst our district which I thought was pretty cool. On Sunday we were delighted to find out that Elder Nelson had returned again to teach all the MTC in Priesthood meeting and Sister Nelson taught the Relief Society. He talked about the Abrahamic covenant and the responsibility we have to do missionary work and all that good stuff. That was really spiritual and once again, the only time I've ever had an apostle direct my Sunday Priesthood meeting haha. Later on Sunday we had our weekly fireside of course. It was Stephen Allen again. I don't know if I told you but he came like 5 weeks ago too. He is the managing director of the Missionary Department or something. He always has good talks to give us and it was different than his last talk so that was good.

Here is some more big news from this week. Elder Woodbury got his visa yesterday! That was sweet. He applied at the end of September and I applied in the middle of September and Elder Call (going to Barcelona) applied at the start of September so pretty much it means that visa could happen at any time now. Elder Woodbury applied last and got his first. Crazy, but not completely weird. There really is that possibility with all visas. But so he got his visa yesterday, and he leaves at 8:00 tomorrow morning! I am not sure if I want to get my visa or not. I will just let the Lord decide. I really do think it would be awesome to get reassigned somewhere for a little bit though. Get to experience even more places! But I will be honest I am very excited to get to Spain. But since Elder Woodbury got his visa and I am his companion we had to go down to the Consolate and since he was going I got to go too and sign the paper saying that I receive my visa from the Spain Government and not the Church haha. Anyways that meant I got to leave the MTC campus though! It was so crazy seeing people driving around and like society is still out there. Mind blowing. It was fun driving past all the places on BYU campus that I have memories at though. Well, I'm the district leader still so I will be rearranging the trio companionship and stealing somebody to be my new companion for the next two weeks. It's not completely for sure yet, but I am pretty sure I will be putting Elder Martell as my new companion. So that's some pretty cool stuff too.

Thank you everybody for all your support, prayers, love, packages and everything else. I really am blessed to have you all in my life!

Love, Elder Jeppson

Feliz Navidad!

Hola! Como estan?

Elder Jeppson just checkin' in from good ol' Provo Utah! Today is of course P-Day. The temple is closed so I have had loads of free time, got lots of letters written and even got to take a pretty solid nap! What in the world, right? Naps do still exist. Crazy! So not a lot has happened this last week, so I will just wing it and see what we come up with here. First of all thank you everyone for all the letters, cards, mail, packages, support, etc. I really liked the mini package you sent with my SD card and such mom. Thank you for having those pictures printed. I could not watch the videos on the SD card because none of the computers here will read cards and my camera (nor anybody else in my districts) can not play that format, so someday I hope to find a computer I can watch them on. Thank you. As far as mail goes this week I will receive dear elders until Thursday and real mail until friday, with both being closed on Saturday of course. So if you want me to get a dear elder before Christmas make sure it is written and submitted before noon on Thursday. Thanks! I forgot to tell you last week (or two ago, not sure which) every Saturday we have "Super Saturday" with Hermano Koller which is like a big Spanish vocab game until the final round which the top 3 from the class play a game of Horse (or some other 5-letter spanish word) with Hermano Koller. I won it a couple weeks ago and the prize is anything for 5 dollars we want so I had him bring me In-N-Out, Boom baby! I also won the week after that too but I have yet to decide what prize I want. Maybe I'll win a couple more and have him combine them all into a whopping 10 or 15 dollar prize. Oh snap!

So last Tuesday we had Elder Peiper of the 70. He was pretty legit. He gave a talk about agency and how it is the only thing that is truly ours. He then went on to explain that there are three things we need to use our agency to do: 1- Choose. We need to CHOOSE to have a good attitude and to make the best of whatever happens in life. 2- We need to use our agency to react to things in life in a way that our Heavenly Father would want us to and 3- We need to ACT in a manner that He would want us to as well. We are creatures that have been created to ACT as well as react. So that was good. Wednesday was not super significant I don't believe, just another MTC day of learning. Thursday is our service day, which just means we have an hour and fifteen minutes of service in the morning and the past couple weeks we have been in charge of cleaning showers. wakala! All sorts of vermicular things can be found in those gross places. But hey, somebody has to clean them. We always make sure we do ours first now after not getting around to ours the first week we did it hahaha. Also on Thursday my whole district received dear elders from Kylie. They loved it. Except Elder Jones, but I don't even know if I have really mentioned him in my emails. He transferred in a little bit late so I might have forgotten to. oops! Friday is the day we have the TRC, which was a complete fail last week haha it was finals at BYU or something so apparently nobody wanted to volunteer to be "investigators" for us so we ended up just teaching our teacher. It was alright though, still learned a lot from it. Teaching in Spanish is coming along nicely. I'm sure I'll get to Spain and not understand a word anybody is saying, but for now I am content with the progress. It's kind of funny, actually, because as I am learning Spanish I am forgetting a lot of English words and so for the most part I'm pretty terrible at speaking both, but I think that's a good sign that Spanish is starting to take over. Yup. Saturday was a pretty grand day as well, just like usual. Sometimes it is a really long day, but I did not think that it was too bad this week. Sunday was good. I had some meetings in the morning with the Branch Council as the new district leader that made it go by faster, so that was nice. Then the afternoon was kind of slow. It rained all day so our temple walk was a little bit cold and miserable. But we survived! It rained like all day Sunday and all day Monday. How lame is rain in December? I think it's rather lame. But this morning we woke up and had like 6-8 inches of snow. What in the world? Snow? So foreign down here in Provo...hahaha and other than the rain Monday was a regular day as well. Oh, and on Sunday Ted Gibbons came and gave us a monologue of Willard Richards talking about the martyrdom of Joseph Smith and the events that led up to it. Those mobs were super jerks. It was different than our usual firesides, but still good stuff.

Alright well that's all I have now, so now I will turn over to the list of stuff I have compiled from peoples mail over the past week. Yay. Thank you everyone who has given me updates on Max. It is really nice to hear about him and please keep him in your prayers. It sounds like everybody is done with school and finals now, which is of course a relief for all, so good job everybody! Even the high schools should be out pretty soon for Christmas break probably right? Abby, don't get into too much trouble over the break ;) Thank you Leslie Reeder for getting me Branson and Connors addresses. I appreciate that. Also, tell Colin hello for me! I got a letter/mini poster from Bishop Burton/our ward that was really cool. It's really nice to get things full of support and uplifting stuff. Made me smile, that's for sure. Melissa, thank you for all of your letters, especially the Jack Hardy sayings and stuff. I love it! I will make sure to keep Natalie in my prayers, as well as everyone in the family as the big day approaches! Sophie, I had a hoagie sandwhich and chocolate milk for lunch today, I have not seen Santa yet unfortunately, (but he comes the 25th, right?), and I do read my scriptures quite a bit here. I hope you get your fruit snacks and purple clock that you want for Christmas :)

I hope everything was dandy with the Phippen Christmas bash. I know that I was missed dearly but everyone survived without me it sounds like so I'm glad to hear that ;) I got your christmas package mom/dad. Thank you. Am I allowed to open it before Christmas? Or is it a wait until the 25th deal? I can go with either, just let me know. Thanks again. Our teacher Hermano De Leon (the amazing one that speaks tons of languages) left for 2 weeks today. I don't know what I'm going to do without him! I'm sure I will survive, but he seriously helps me so much. He is going back to Guatemala where he is from for Christmas. Oh well. Thank you Abby and Tonya for the Taylor Swift Lyrics. Gosh I miss music! But it's ok now, cause at least I have the lyrics. Also, if anybody knows any awesome lyrics from He is We's new cd (coughkyliecough) then I wouldn't mind hearing some good ones. Sounds like you are getting lots of ski time in up at Targhee Brad, so way to make me jealous! geez. Make sure you have plenty of fun for me too while you're up there. Thank you mom for the calling cards and stamps. Those calling cards will last me the rest of my life I am pretty sure. Elder Woodbury has a first name of Jesse, and is indeed a visa waiter as well. I kind of hope we get reassigned for a little bit though. I think that would be sweet to serve somewhere else too. Krista, it was nice to hear how the family is doing and the fun adventures that have occurred. I hope nobody got into too much trouble in Vegas, that blasted gambling is evil! Speaking of which, Happy Birthday Doug! Number 26 right? haha you wish. But seriously, happy birthday this week. Same day as Joseph Smith. Of course I would say that. Stacy and Kathy, I got your letters. Thank you. It's nice to hear from you both. You are welcome to keep up the competition and see who can write me more. That's how you become the best aunt, right? Dad, I'm glad everything has gone well with the ward and lax and everything and that you'll have a little break after work calms down. I want you to send me some pictures of you and I together if you could. Also, if you could copy the last couple parts of Vai's Views "missions and footballs" into a dear elder I would love to read those. I think I read the first 6 parts already. Welp, my time is dwindling now. Thank you for all the support and for all the help everybody has been to me. I really can not express enough thanks for all that you all have done for me. It might seem like little things but they always go a long way for me. I love you all.

This week I have been reading in Mosiah at the very start when King Benjamin gives his talk from the tower. I mentioned this in some of your letters, but I wanted to bring it up here too. I really like verse 27 of Chapter 4. It really has helped me here in the MTC to realize that God knows that we all have limits and it is more important that we are diligent within our means. We can't do everything in one day, but day by day we can make sure we do everything we can, no matter how hard life is or what challenges we have thrown at us. I am excited to have Christmas this week although I do miss my beloved family. It's ok though. Christmas is about Christ and this is the first Christmas that I will be able to serve him full-time! What a blessing. Plus, I bet we get to see an apostle or two this week. Thank you for all your prayers, support, mail, and love. I love you all! :)

Love,
Elder Jeppson

Coming to you live from the MTC...

Hello all,

First and foremost let's hit the big news: Yesterday was Taylor Swift's birthday I believe and I am known in my district for being a Taylor Swift fan so I thought I ought to prove my true colors. Yup. Moving on..

So the MTC is a pretty rollercoaster of a place. I'm sure that the whole mission will be like this but I'll have great days and I'll have some kind of downer days. That is what the MTC is like. Sometimes studying in a room for that long is hard! But it's alright I'm learning a lot, especially when it comes to Spanish. I'm mostly just trying to learn most of the grammar while I'm here and I have somebody legit to teach me the proper stuff. I'm a little worried that learning from Elders in the field might make me sound like a gringo haha, because apparently a lot of them down there learn the rules the entirely correct way a lot. So that's what I work on a lot. Vocab will come with time of course. Somebody asked me if I see a lot of people leave and the answer is yes. A lot of missionaries come and go pretty quick. It's grand. And whenever somebody leaves the whole floor gathers together the night before and sings: "Para siempre dios este con vos" or God be with you til we meet again. It's loud. I will not be calling home from the MTC on Christmas. Too many missionaries and not enough phones. So I thought you might want to know not to expect that. Also, if you did send me a phone card mom that would be great for the airport. I've never really used one of those old school gadgets (pay-phone) but I'm sure that I can figure it out about as fast as I figured out that tape recorder gadget :) I'm glad to hear that you are getting the Murano sold. Such a grand car. I honestly must say I will not miss it a ton, although it was a great car to drive for the last month and a halfish of my time in the amazing Cache Valley (Pretty sure Elder Woodbury thinks it's Cash Valley). Speaking of which, I miss snow! I can't believe Beaver opened on the 3rd, that's gotta be like a record of some type for them. There is no snow down here. It melted like a week and a half ago. It's sad.

So last Tuesday we had W. Craig Zwick of the Seventy come and talk to us. It was great. He came and talked to the Institute about 2 months ago and I heard him there and his talk was very similar, but it was still very good. It was about if we "Know Jesus," or in other words how is our personal relationship with Him? It's of course something we can work on at all times and being here in the MTC of course makes me want to work on that. It of course must be done through prayer and the Holy Ghost though, so it will always be an ongoing relationship builder I hope. For our Sunday devotional they had the BYU men's choir come and sing to us for an hour. It was great, except it really was rather boring haha I ended up distracting myself with other things like reading the scriptures and stuff.

My ankle is doing fantastic. I gimped around last Monday and Tuesday and was back playing volleyball on Wednesday. Now I know some of you think I'm a fool now, but that's ok. I still don't have my visa so I'm stuck here for what I'm expecting to be the rest of the time now. I am very interested to see if I get reassigned somewhere in the U.S. for a little bit. Maybe they'll send me out to North Carolina for a bit and I will get to be fed by the Larson family. That would be crazy! Speaking of which I hope that Natalie's still on track for the Jan. 4th (I believe) date. Keep me updated on all of that. I am not sure if you can send videos in email. I think you can, but if I am at the MTC I will not be able to open it. If you put it on a SD card and sent it to me I could play it on my camera though. That is always an idea. Mom, I could not find my other SD card (my camera thing doesn't even have any pockets haha) so I will probably just go buy one from the bookstore, but it is not a big deal at all everything there is super cheap for missionaries.

I am sad to hear about Max! Please keep me up to date on him and include him in your prayers. It must have been a pretty bad crash, he's a tough lacrosse player!

So a few people have asked me about DearElders, so I will explain them. We get mail twice a day, once at lunch (12:30) and once at dinner (5:30) the lunch time is the real mail, that ancient stuff that comes in envelopes, and the dinner time mail is dearelders. If a dearelder is typed and sent by I believe it's noon, I will get it the same day. If it is typed and sent after noon, I will receive it the next day. For the most part we always get them on time. Occasionally they will miss one and we will get it a day late, but that is usually only if it doesn't have a box number on it or a wrong name (They had to look up Elder Tanton Eclipse once. No last name. No box number. No exit date. Luckily I have the most unique first name here. If it was Elder Jake Eclipse, I would never have gotten that one probably.) So it's usually quite reliable. We do not receive them on Saturdays or Sundays though. We do get real mail on Saturdays though. That's always nice if it comes. Everybody in my district has the same box number and then the district leader (who, as of today, is me by the way) then disperses it amongst the missionaries. So if anybody wants to write somebody else from my district (Elder Martell says he's open to mail from anybody, especially Kylie hahaha) then you would just put their name in the same address as my address, but without a mission code. It will get to them. Nobody has gotten me Connor or Branson's addresses yet, and if somebody could get Joseph Quillen to write me a letter I could stop being bitter towards him, haha just kidding. Oh, and a couple last things on DearElders. You can do it when I'm in Spain as well, but it will cost the 98 cents that regular mail costs, so they just print it out here and mail it to Spain Mission office from here. So I don't know if you would rather do that or just handwrite it/type it at our house and mail it from there. Might be just as easy (and more personal too) :) Aunt Stacy, your DearElder did work. Thank you. So I am pretty much out of stuff to say and I still have 9 minutes left, so in the future if you would like to give me challenges (such as supply a crazy word(with a definition) I will try to put it into this letter at some point or stuff like that) I will do what I can to accomplish them.

Welp, I have a few more minutes so I'll give everybody a weekly update on something I learned in the scriptures/teaching lesson 3 this week. I read the end of 2 Nephi (that area) this week and it really hit me hard (I think it's chapter 31) how important baptism is. It is the doorway that leads to the straight and narrow path of enduring to the end. I see this as 3 steps. 1-Baptism, 2-Gift of the Holy Ghost, and 3-Enduring to the end. They are all of equal importance and if you lose any of those 3 then it is essentially incomplete. I think the Enduring to the End part is the hardest, but it really helped me to understand they importance of the work that I am doing. I think it was Elder Oaks that said that it is important that we don't just bring people close to the door (just teach them and let them feel the spirit/happiness of the church and then hope somebody actually baptizes them later) but that it is very important that we actually help them through the door. As holders of the restored priesthood we are the only church that can do this work, whereas other churches can help bring people just closer to it. I liked hearing that. I also hope that I will be able to do a good job as the new District Leader. I hope I can be a good example to the others and help them feel of the love that our Heavenly Father has for each and ever one of us. Pray for me!

Thank you everybody for your prayers, inspiration, letters, DearElders, jokes, stories, requests, and especially support and prayers. I really do appreciate it all and I love every one of you!

Love,
Elder Jeppson

Ups and Downs Love it!

Hello all.  It is beloved Tuesday and you all know what that means, a glorious E-mail from Elder Jeppson. Here goes:

 

This past week has gone by really fast, but at the same time not a lot has happened.  I will try and give you a pretty chill little rundown though.  So last Tuesday our speaker was Sister Julie Beck.  The relief society president.  She was pretty good.  She pretty much just told a lot of missionary stories.  Then Wednesday Elder Woodbury and I did a TE (Teacher Evaluation or something) which is when you teach a random teacher a lesson and they act like an investigator.  This teacher was Hmo. Silva and he speaks Spanish, English, Portuguese and Mandarin.  He's almost as crazy as my teacher Hmo. De Leon!  Anyways, we did an alright job of it.  There is a lot of room for improvement but it's great that Elder Woodbury and I have a lot of teaching chemistry, aka we can switch back and forth with each other well and neither of us just dominates the lesson the whole time.  There is a trio in our district (Elders Martell, Andersen and Jones (oh, Jones transferred in from a beginner class like, 1 week in, forgot to tell you all about him)) and I hear that it is really hard to teach in on of those, so I'm grateful I have Elder Woodbury.  Thursday was nothing too amazing.  We had a LGM (Large Group meeting) which is just like a couple of zones (or branches) get together for a meeting thing.  We learned about how important it is for our investigator's to assist (or attend haha) sacrament meeting before they are baptized.  Of course, they HAVE to go a couple times to be baptized, but we focused on how the Spirit teaches them there and how it will benefit them and whatnot.  Friday we had another TRC outing.   We taught lesson 2 in Espanol.  It was fun because finally we didn't teach other missionaries.  Some girls came in and volunteered to be "investigators."  It went well other than we forgot to teach them about the Spirit World (Lesson 2 is the Plan of Salvation) but let's be honest, the Celestial kingdom is all we're really worried about right?  Saturdays are always very long.  Sunday is always a nice break.  The temple walk is always grand and it's nice to have different activities. Last Sunday was my first fast sunday here.  It was not too bad.  They don't offer meals for Breakfast and Lunch (mind blowing,isn't it?) and then Dinner is the same as always.  Sundays are great because they have the ice cream bar, I might have mentioned that before though.  Wednesdays and Sundays have it.  Anyways, on Fast Sundays we have Mission Conference.  This merely means that instead of going to Priesthood meeting we all gather in the gym and have the MTC presidency talk to us.  It was not too bad. Monday went by fast but my body got owned (more on that in a minute).  And now it's Tuesday again, crazy how that happens eh?  My P-day schedule is this: wake up at 6:15 as always, head straight to the laundry room to beat the rush.  Pick up a sack breakfast and eat it while the laundry goes.  Also write a couple of letters.  Then switch my laundry load to the dryer: write letters while I wait.  Then we take our laundry back and fold it, shower and get ready for the temple.  We try to leave for the temple between 9:15 and 9:30.  We go to the 9:50ish session.  Then we come back and eat Lunch at 12-12:30ish.  then we write letters from then until right now, which is when I write my e-mail home (crazy stuff so far right?)  Then we have a couple of hours that we do our study time during.  Personal and Companion study.  Then we eat dinner at 5:30 and go wait in a blasted line for the General Authority/Hot Shots of the church Devotional.  Which starts at 7.  Which means yes, we have more time to write letters during that wait-in-line-time.  Then we are spiritually fed the word of God, and have a district meeting for an hour after talking about what we learned etc.  Then we have about an hour to "unwind, not unravel" in our residence halls.  Sound like fun? It always goes by so fast!

Onto random stuff now.  First of all, how my body got owned.  I have been sick like the whole time I've been here.  Sore throats, cough, runny/stuffy nose, etc.  And that was pretty bad Sunday night/Monday morning.  Then, I went to gym and jacked my ankle up (whenever Kylie reads this I bet she goes "I warned him" with a big ol grin).  It really isn't too bad, I just rolled it in the deporte del diablo: Volleyball.  So I was hobbling around like a gimp all day yesterday.  The good news is that it happened like 7 minutes into gym time.  I just toughed it out and played on it the rest of the time though.  Good stuff.  Then, it hurt the rest of the day hahaha.  Last thing that happened is a wart on my hand got like half ripped off at some point, so I just finished the job.  It was...gory, haha and now I'm having a great re-charge day of a P-day.  My ankle feels lots better today and hopefully I won't even miss a day of playing, although I will probably take it a little easier for a couple of days.  Yup.  I'm human still.  Spanish has been going well.  I feel like since it's such a constant thing I'm working on that I am not really learning it but when I look back at what I knew how to say when I got here and how hard it was to follow what the teachers were saying I realize how far I have come.  I still don't have my visa of course, although I am not sure how it will work when I do get it.  I will get my travel plans for Spain, but I am not sure if I will get to call you or whatnot.  I know I get to call from the airport though.  Mom, stop praying for it to be after Christmas.  If I am at the MTC for Christmas I might not get to call home for Christmas...jussayin'.  Speaking of Christmas, if you have packages or gifts or whatever you want to send me I think it would be a great idea to hold off until I am in Spain (If I'm still here for Christmas) because I'm already way overweight on my bags and that is no bueno.  I think I will just have to load a ton of crap into my carry on bag to get the weight down in my luggage.  I guess we will see eh? I am glad to hear Elder El-Bakri's adventures!  I'm so jealous.  It sounds like he is having a great time already and it most definitely was an adventure getting to Madagascar.  Crazy stuff.  Thank you Kylie and Mom for the pictures I got last week.  They are incredible and my district loved looking through them all.  Also, I love looking through them.  Win-win!  Mom, I definitely don't care that I am at the MTC, I am still taking Brad's side of the temperature war in the house.  The fireplace and heater should not take the house to 75-80 degrees! That is just ridiculous.  If anybody could tell me when Beaver is open (if it isn't already) that would be cool.  Mom, you don't have to cut out all the hockey scores but if you tossed them into a DearElder that would be sweet.  Brad keeps me up on some of it, but I'm greedy. Dad-That sounds like a great plan with my money.  I trust that plan.  You have my go.  I saw Jake Thomas, he is just as tall as ever.  he is in a beginner Spanish class and I don't see them all that often, but I have seen him a few times.  Speaking of which, I also don't see Jackson Everton all that much.  Sad, I know.  But I did see them both at my temple walk on Sunday and so I made sure to snap pictures with them both.  I am going to try and get my SD card sent home today, so mom you can start the hallelujah chorus.  I hope you all got to watch the First Presidency Christmas Devotional dealio.  It was fantastic.  We watched it for our Sunday night devotional. I really noticed a common subject of remembering Christ during this time and to not let the stress of the season own us.  Mom, I thought of you on the 5th.  Yes, I did remember.  I thought you would like to know that :). Christmas is in the air here too.   They have lights all over the MTC campus that is pretty sweet.  I took some pictures with them so be happy to see those.  The number on my address is no longer 1130 (since I obviously didn't leave November 30) and now it is 0111.  It isn't really that big of a deal.  A lot of people have asked so I must have forgotten to mention that Elder Woodbury is also going to the Madrid mission.  Cute, right?  I have gained 10 pounds since I have been here. Psych. I weigh the exact same even though I eat a ton and sit for hours.  Yay for metabolism.  I love this gospel.  I can't wait to get out and actually teach it to people! It will be so nice to see non-members.  I know this church is true and I know that the Book of Mormon is evidence of it and everything that it entails! I love you all and appreciate all of your support and everything that you all do for me. You're all the best!  Good luck with everything this week.  Abby, stop being sick so you can go to school (I know you sluffed it) :)

 

Love,

Elder Jeppson

I have no idea why Tanton's e-mail came all highlighted today.  I changed the color of font so that you could read it better.  Hopefully it won't happen again. What an awesome Elder!  I love receiving his e-mails and letters.  They absolutely make my week!!

Adventures from Spain...or Provo....whatever

Howdy, 

I hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving.  I know I did! I've already told a lot of you but Elder Holland came and talked to us!  It was amazing.  He brought his entire family.  Kids, grandkids.  The grankids all got up and sang for us and it was super cute.   One of the younger ones was like belting it out right into the mic at the start and it was hilarious.  The rest of them got him to calm down though and it was a very glorious thing to watch/hear.  He talked to us about how the Savior was alone during the Atonement but that us serving missions is helping him to not be alone on his mission anymore.  We are serving alongside of him.  It was very spiritual.  It was such a great feeling even just watching him walk into the room.  I did have to wait in line for like 1.5 hours to get into the actual room and not be in overflow though.  It was well worth it.  Also on Thanksgiving we did a big service project where we made backpacks for kids around the world.  We made over 30,000 so that was pretty cool.  That was the highlight of my week.  It sounded like you all had great Thanksgivings too.  It also sounded like Grandma V's birthday bash went over well.  I can't believe she is already 90!  That is incredible.  She really is incredibly strong.  Also, being in the MTC couldn't even stop us from hearing about the HUGE SNOW STORM OF 2010!!! Everyone braced themselves, the MTC presidency warned us (and told us not to throw snowballs) and the morning came and boom, we had a whopping 1/2 inch of snow.  It was pathetic.  These kids, or I mean elders, think they know what Utah is all about now. psh.  Elder Woodbury is pretty stoked on any snow we ever get though. "wouldn't it be great if it snowed again tomorrow?" I love him. He's great. I'm super jealous of all ya'll that got lots of snow up in Cache Valley though.  It sounded like it was actually a bit of a snow experience for you.  By the way, if you notice I say ya'll more now keep in mind that Elder Davis is from Texas and Elder Call is from Alabama. 

So I'll try and hit on some MTC experiences now.  Last tuesday we had our general authority meeting as always.  It was Per G. Malm of the 2nd quorum of the seventy.  I believe he spoke at a recent general conference.  Very thick Swedish accent.  He was funny.  He spoke about missionary work (of course) and how we are affecting the lives of so many people.  Then he had the missionary that converted his father stand up and talk to us for a bit.  It was a really cool experience.  It was cool to think that this seventy might not have the gospel in his life if it weren't for that one missionary, yet look at how many people's lives Elder Malm has changed.  It all came from that one missionary.  Wednesday was not anything too crazy or special that happened that I can remember.  Thursday is the same.  They all blend into one great big day between Tuesday to Sunday. Friday we taught at the TRC (Teaching Resource Center or something) where we teach somebody who acts like a real investigator.  They usually have members come in from stakes around here and act like it but they didn't because of Thanksgiving or something so we just ended up teaching some other missionaries.  Anyways, we taught for our first time in Spanish.  Usually you don't teach Spanish until week 5, but our district is apparently really confident and thought we could do it, so Elder Woodbury and I took the challenge as well.  We did a great job in my opinion.  We were able to say everything we wanted to and answer questions etc.  Of course we conjugated some verbs wrong and messed up occasionally.  But neither of us accidentally said a swear word, told them that WE translated the plates, or told them that Jesus Christ is our loving Heavenly Father (all of these situations have happened to people in our district hahahah) so I felt like we did a good job.  I always seem to be the one that accidentally says the inappropriate things in class though.  I don't know how or why, but it's always me.  For example, Calzones are not food in spanish.  Nope, not at all, so don't use that as an answer for good food if the situation ever arises.  Aaaannnnyways... Saturday is always a really long day because it is the last routine day in a row.  Sunday is usually a pretty good day though.  They do feed us mom.  In the morning we just have cereal, then lunch is always a great meat/mashed potatotes/gross vegetables deal and ice cream bar on sundays! When they open the ice cream bar (sundays and wednesdays) is always a fantastic experience.  But we have sacrament meeting from 8-9, study from 9-11, priesthood from 11:10-12, lunch from 12-12:45, district meeting for an hour after that, then we have study time from 1:45-5, but we get to take a temple walk during that time.  We just get to walk up to the temple and hang out on the gorunds with our district for a bit.  It might not sound like it's that amazing, but it's a nice break and a lot of fun AND we get to take pictures. P-day and Sunday are the only days we can take pictures hahaha one of the great MTC rules.  I did get a picture with Elder El-Bakri finally.  He left yesterday, so we got together on Sunday and did the whole point at your mission picture.  It was great.  He said he was gonna come say bye to me before he left on Monday, but that scoundrel didn't! Or at least I didn't see him. So we didn't get a super official bye, but it was still great to have him here for the first 3 weeks of my MTC experience.  Jake Thomas comes in tomorrow, so that will be fun.  Oh yeah, it's the 30th, so I'm supposed to be leaving for Spain today.  Unfortunately, I still don't have my visa.  I'm a visa waiter officially now.  Whenever it comes I will be off to Espana about 6 days after.  I just want to spend a week or two there.  I'm really fine with whatever, but I would like to get to go to that CCM for a little bit.  When you go out and practice contacts there, you really go out and contact people on the streets.  That would be way nice rather than speaking to other missionaries that Don't even know what the heck you're saying half the time.  I know the Lord will get me there when I need to be there though, so for now I will play volleyball.  Speaking of which, Thanksgiving really messed that up for me! I wasn't able to play volleyball on Wednesday OR Thursday last week because of that.  How lame, right? 

Welp, that's really all I have for this week.  I have also learned more about the importance of the Book of Mormon though.  Even in the MTC it really is a noticeable difference when you don't find enough time to read from it.  It is amazing to me how much of a difference consistent reading in the Book of Mormon makes in our lives.  It is impossible to read a book that testifies of Christ on every page and not find yourself closer to our Savior.  I know it's true.  I want to read from it more, and I challenge anybody who reads this to read more if they find themselves forgetting to at times.  I love you all!

"Never let your faith be difficult to detect" -J. Reuben Clark

Love, Elder Jeppson

P.S. Thanks for all the Harry Potter reviews.  Gavin won the prize though.  He was first.

Anybody out there-if you can get me an address for Branson "Motown" Smith or Connor Perkes, I will love you forever.

Mom-I got my shots yesterday.  I wasn't sure what to do with the billing/insurance deal so I chose the "bill home" option(of course).  Apparently you need to call (801) 422-8940 and pay with a card then request a "HCFA insurance form" which will get you a reimbursement or something.  I don't really know. But thanks and I love you!  Oh also do you still have Meikle's address? AND I bought some more stamps, they sell them here, so I'm set to go on those.  Thanks though :) You're the best.

Greg and Kristina - Thanks for all the letters and I'm glad your birthdays went so well. I hope you guys recuperated from the hard-core skating in time to have fun this past weekend too.  I also hope you didn't get FAT from all the thanksgiving dinners you had. 

Abby - Good luck (again) with the cheer/tumbling shenanigan.  That's cool that Thomas said you were good enoguh to need you on both teams.  love you! read every night ;)

Dad - I just wanted to say I love you.  I don't really have anything specific to tell you other than that.

Stepmom - I love you too

Brad - I love you too.   And yes, I saved the best for last!

Oh heeeeeyyyyyyyyy

Howdy ya'll!

 

First off, they only give me 30 minutes of computer time on p-day. So don't email me or else I have to use some of that time reading it.  If they're short that's fine of course, but I think DearElders are better cause then I get to write more. yay.

 

Life at the MTC is going just as grand as ever.  It seriously is like the same schedule over and over again I lose track of what day it even is.  But today is Tuesday. I know that!  The Spanish is coming along great.  It amazes me how much I have already learned since the start.  Sometimes it feels like I am going nowhere in the language and then I just look back to that first day and realize I'm learning like a ridiculous amount every day and it blows my mind.  The gift of tongues is real!  Thank you mom/dad for the package.  Lots of good stuff in that bad boy! The bag will be great, although I don't even use a bag here at the MTC.  We are just in the same classroom all day everyday so we get to leave our stuff there.  I will have to load tons of stuff into that bag to avoid going over my 50 pound limit with luggage though when I fly out, so that'll be nice.  Speaking of which, I'm supposed to leave here a week from today, but I have not got my visa yet so I will not be leaving on the 30th.  This is very much ok with me though because of a few reasons.  First of all, I love playing volleyball here, and I'm pretty sure it won't be the same in Spain with only 8 people rather than like 50 legit players like here.  Second, hermano De leon is like the most amazing teacher in the world and I do not have any problem staying in his class longer and trying to pick up on his amazing speaking abilities.  He is legit.  I don't really have a ton to tell you all about this past week.  Third reason...Well there isn't really a third reason. I think I'll be there for Christmas, and that's good enough for me.  Mostly it's the volleyball, hahaha. But I wouldn't mind being here until Christmas either, because apparently an apostle comes and speaks every Christmas.  So that would be cool to hear.  Speaking of which, we get a General Authority every Tuesday night devotional, and last week was Elder Pearson from the seventy.  He was legit.  He talked about being a disciple of Christ and how we need to commit.  As a missionary that hit me especially hard.  I am so glad that I have this opportunity to be called as a full time servant! It also applies to everyone else though too.  They really do give great talks here.  We got to watch an old one of Elder Bednar this week also.  We just did it in our class.  He spoke on: If how to tell if it is the spirit talking or if it is just us.  He said "Stop worrying about it.  If you're living righteously, and trying to follow Christ, he will direct you where he wants you to go" or something close to that.  He also talked about how it's more important to consistently live worthy of the temple than to focus on if something is a spiritual prompting or not.  He also hit on how we have to press forward and won't receive any help if we just sit around waiting.  It was crazy good.  It would be nice if everyone could get me their addresses and/or email addresses.  I bought a little address book and I'm doing my best to fill it out with what I have, if you have received a letter from me already then you're good already, but if not you might want to get me your address.  Hope everything went well with your party Greg/Kristina.  It sounded like it went well and everyone had a great time.  I'm glad to hear it.  And Kristina, happy birthday this week! boom. you owned 24 years already. Perfect.  I'm a little upset with the rest of everyone though.  Harry Potter came out at midnight on Thursday and it is now Tuesday and I have heard NOTHING about it.  Anybody that lets me know a great deal about that movie will win a prize.  Prizes are the best.  Thank you again for all that you guys send me already though.  I love it. Especially for uplifting thoughts and scriptures.

 

Today I got to go to the temple again, and I love it.  It's kind of weird not going to the Logan temple, but it's all the same work right?  I am extremely grateful that our Heavenly Father loves us enough to provide a way for those that have passed on to still receive the love and truthfulness of the gospel.  I watched a movie about Joseph Smith and all the persecution the early saints went through to organize this church and it made me very appreciative of all that they went through for us. I love this gospel and I am so grateful to have it in my life.  I'm amazingly grateful for all that you have all been to me as an example.  Don't forget to try and find time to get to the temple if you live near one, the Lord will always bless us for any time we put aside and any sacrifice we make to serve him and his children.  Yo se que la iglesia de jesucristo es la iglesia verdadera de dios y que podemos vivir con dios despues de la vida si seguimos las mandamientos queel libro de mormon contiene.  I will get you a more legit testimony in Spanish later.  I do love you all though! Don't forget it.  Don't forget that our Heavenly Father does as well and he is always there for us.  Pray. Serve. Love.

 

Love,

Elder Tanton Sil Jeppson

 

Mom, the letter I wrote for Grandma Vinson is pretty short.  It can either be given to her now and I'll write one for her birthday as well, or else I can write another one next week for her birthday bash.  Let me know what you want me to do between now and next Tuesday.  I am only writing letters on P-Day.  I feel like obedience is a beneficial thing when serving the Lord, but maybe I'm just crazy.  Also, tell momma El-Bakri thank you for the DearElder and the uplifting scripture/thought.  Also, I am fine without a beanie for now. Thanks though.

 

Abby, good luck on your cheer/tumbling stuff.  It's too bad taht you might have them both on the same day.  I'm sure you can figure out a way to be in two places at the same time though.  You've never let me down before, right?

 

Brad, thanks for the hockey updates.  I love when my Pens and Avs win! that's always a good day.  if you ever find yourself super bored, I wouldn't mind hearing about how the goalies are doing too.  Especially if Anderson is back in for the Av's or if he is still injured, how Budaj is doing if he still playing, If Fleury is still doing terrible this season and if Tim Thomas(from the Bruins) is still on an INCREDIBLY lucky hot streak.  You're the man.

 

Dad, I'm glad everything is going well with your ward.  Tell Austin good luck for me before he leaves. I gave you a whole month and 2 or 3 weeks to do it so don't mess that up.  Also, I wouldn't mind writing him a few times throughout the mish.  I think we could help each other out, so if you can snag his address for me or give him mine or something.  That would be great. 

 

Stepmom,  Thank you for making my Spain cake of fantabulousness.  I don't know if I ever rightly thanked you, so here it is in front of my whole family.  Thank you

 

Greg/Kristina(again),  get feeling better.  I am grateful for all your support and all your letters.  They're always nice to get. 

 

Well, that's all I really have for today.  I wrote some more letters today, so all ya'll can be looking forward to that.  I think I got everybody.  If you feel left out, let me know and I'll write you too haha.

 

 

It's been one week...almost

Hola!

I have been here for 6 days now.  Tuesday is obviously my P-Day, and is it ever glorious! First of all thank you to everyone who has written me letters.  DearElder works like a champion and letters down here are like gold! Nay, better than even.  First off, my companion.  His name is Elder Woodbury.  He is from Phoenix Arizona.  He's great.  He's here for the right reasons and that means he is good to study with/work with etc...  I love that he is from Phoenix because whenever we go outside he is like "Wow it's cold!" or "Look there's snow on the mountains!" It's great.  I have already learned lots of things from him and that is great.  We have a great companionship.  My district is a good district too. At the start we had Elders Woodbury, Jeppson (me of course), Davis, Martell, Andersen, Call, Littlefield, and Hermanas Cook, Humphries, and Lawrence.  The three hermanas and Elder Littlefield all decided to try and test into the advanced class rather than the Intermediate though.  They made it.  So they're gone.  It almost made me want to try.  I am pretty sure that would make me die though. They don't talk about spanish at all, they just teach from Preach My Gospel in spanish all day long.  I would get so lost.  Elder Call is our district leader. I'll talk about them in a minute if I have time.

Onto spanish.  I walked into class and boom, my teachers just started rattling off in Spanish.  Talk about humbling.  Made me realize how much I have to learn in Espanol. It was a little bit hard to deal with at the start but I quickly got used to it and am working hard at it now! I'm glad I took so many Institute/Docrtine classes so I can focus mostly on the Spanish side and don't have to worry about learning about the doctrine as much. Preach My Gospel and Spanish are all we go over in class.  My teachers are Hermano De Leon and Hermano Koller.  Hermano De Leon speaks Spanish natively (from Guatemala) as well as English, French, Italian, some Mayan and some Portuguese.  He's legit. Obviously.  Hermano Koller is from Payson, Utah and just got home from his mission in Mexico in like June or something.  They both served in Mexico.  Both go to School in Provo. 

The food here is not bad at all.  They always have like 3 or 4 different options that you can choose from and they usually all taste pretty good.  Only like 1 meal so far have I been disappointed, and even then they ALWAYS have chocolate milk.  I have had it at every single meal, how fantastic is that? It's delicious! 

So my schedule each day is rather consistent.  Wakeup at 6:30, be to my classroom at 7.  From 7-7:45 I have MDT time (Missionary Determined Time) which is essentially just when I decide what I want to study or work on for that time.  No teacher.  7:45 is breakfast. 8:25 is gym.  9:15 is class until lunch at 12:30.  1:15 is class again until like 5:45 or something around there. Then I have dinner for 45 minutes and then class from 6:15 until 9.  9-9:30 is planning time for the next day and then 9:30 - 10:30 is "think about the day and grow in your companionship time".  It's pretty chill.  Lots of class time.  But it somehow goes by quickly.  It's weird to me that I have been here for a whole week already. 

I have seen lots of people I know.  Jon El-Bakri I see almost daily.  I love it.  I also see Elder Garrett Hinton, Colby Tracy, Brandon Johnson, Jackson Everton occasionally, Zayn Rhodes.  They are all doing well it seems and it's always nice to see them. 

Sunday was a little bit different than the others days.  We have MDT from 7:30 again, then breakfast, then Sacrament meeting from 8-9.  The way they do it is they have 2 missionaries speak in Spanish.  Everyone has a topic and prepares a talk on it, then they randomly call up two and they have to give their talk.  I did not get called thankfully, but I suppose they never call up los misoneros nuevos.  After that there are some leadership meetings from District Leaders and Zone leaders with the Branch Presidency.  The lesser beings, like myself, have MDT during that time.  We met our Branch Presidency on Thursday night.  President Craig is my president with Brothers Jurgens and Claybough for his counselors. Craig and Claybough are nice and uplifting and stuff and Jurgens definitely came from the military.  If your suit isn't buttoned or your hands are in your pockets or you say "guys" instead of "elders" (such sinners, I know) then he will definitely let you know.  

My address has changed.  It's the exact same except the 0112 on it is now 1130, which means my estimated departure date is Nov. 30.  That is if I get my visa on time.  Which is rare around here these days.  So pray for that! I hear there are only 8 missionaries at the Spain CCM right now.  So it would be super interesting to go there. That's for sure.

Quickly: my district.  Elder Martell is from Sandy Utah and he is hilarious. He's one of my favorite elders.  Elder Call is different.  Very businessman-like.  He is from Alabama though. Huntsville. Antoine Dodson is from there. He knows all about that stuff.  Elder Andersen is from rural Oregon, and Elder Davis is from San Antonio. That is pretty much all I have time for.

Greg- Happy birthday this week.  I hope it is full of all the glory that you always wanted it to be.  24 years old I believe? Glorious. 

Abby - Thanks for your letters.  They're great. You can use that iHome if you really want, but it's super ghetto, so best of luck with that.  Keep me updated with any great things you have going on in your life! (that goes for everybody)

Stepmom - Thank you for your DearElder.  It was great.  It was especially nice to hear such uplifting things from my Dad.  Tell that scoundrel to write to me.  And tell the siblings about DearElder. Those are great.

Mom - thanks for the letters.  Especially the hockey updates.  It was great to hear that Colorado and Pittsburgh both won 5-1 last weekend. 

I know this church is true! I love feeling the spirit down here as often as I do.  It's amazing.  Christ is our savior and through him we can live with our Heavenly Father.  I want you all to know I love you.  I am so appreciative of all that you have done for me to help me get to this point in my life.  I have no idea what I have in store for me, but I know that this is where I need to be and the Lord will bless me as well as all of you for all time spent in his service.  I love you all!

  

Love,

Elder Tanton Sil Jeppson

P.S. send pictures

Much Anticipated FIRST Letter Home

Nov. 10, 2010

Dear Family,
I made it. I survived day 1 of 730, it went fast.  My companion is Elder Woodbury from Phoenix, Arizona. He is cool, not a weirdo.  So that's good. I'll tell you more about him in email. Today we just met our district and had a few classes.  It was a long day. The MTC food was pretty good for lunch actually. No complaints there. My district has 10 missionaries in it, 7 elders & 3 sisters (2 3-somes).  I am glad I am not in a 3-some companionship.
Thank you for your letters.  I love you all and appreciate all your support.
I am grateful to be serving my Savior, this is His work.  He lives & loves us.  Never forget He is there for us!
Love,
Elder Jeppson