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