Oh Snap!

Hello family(and everyone else that reads this),

That subject makes this email seem more interesting than it will be. But that's the mood I'm in right now, so whatevs!

So this past week has pretty much been back to the same old routine. The biggest difference being that Elder Woodbury is gone and that Elder Martell has been my companion for the past week. It's good stuff. He is on board with speaking Spanish a lot with me which has been really nice. Our district is not really super huge on speaking a lot of Spanish and so that made it hard for Elder Woodbury which in turn also made it hard for me, but Elder Martell and I don't care and so we just speak as much gringo and slaughtered Spanish as we want. It's glorious. Speaking of Spanish, it continues to go well. Slowly but surely. Hermano De Leon will be back this week and he is super legit so I'm excited to see him again. Hermano Koller is actually no longer our teacher as of tomorrow. Since it is a new semester at BYU the teachers got their schedules changed and so we will have Hermana Bauserman for the last week here. Luckily we still have Hermano De Leon. Phew! No word on my visa yet. Everyone else in my district got their travel plans except for Elder Call and I(we are both still waiting for visas, but he's going to Barcelona) and so that was fun for them. They all leave on Monday and Tuesday next week except Elder Martell. He leaves on Wednesday. It'll be interesting to see what happens with me and Elder Call. I'm fine with both, a reassignment as well as a ticket to Spain. Oh, and the temple was open today again finally after 3 weeks. That's the longest break I've had from the temple in a long time! We did Initiatores today because they were short on people. So many amazing blessings!

So this past week, New Year, eh? Super party in the MTC as I'm sure you all know. Fantastic bed time of 10:30 and totally forgot that it was New Years day the next day hahaha the only difference holidays seem to make here is we don't get mail, and we usually get apostles :) but not for
New Years day apparently. Crazy!? I wish I could have gone to Driggs with the family. That sounds like it was a lot of fun, and a lot of new snow! So jealous. We just get wussy snow down here. Lame! Oh, something I did this past week was I blessed the sacrament on Sunday. In Spanish. That's the only cool thing I have that was out of the norm haha. But hey! Natalie's big surgery is/was today! I'd love to hear about that of course. I'm sorry you got sick this week Melissa. That's no good! and it sounds like it made quite a crazy schedule. Lame timing, but I hope all is well!

So, it sounds like church was an adventure for you this last week mom. Great! I love 4-year old stories from Primary. It's crazy how much preparing Primary lessons has actually helped me prepare my lessons as a missionary. Who'da thunk it.

Last Tuesday we had Elder Lowell M. Snow come and teach us about Faith and Repentance in missionary work. It was great just as Tuesdays nights usually are, and on Sunday we had President Gerald R. Williams. He was the President of the Bordeaux France mission, so I was wondering if that was Tim's president? Anyways, he did a great job. He talked about the seed of Faith in Alma 32 and how we need to work on our testimony throughout our whole life or else it will dwindle in unbelief and die. So true that is! It is amazing to me how much the Book of Mormon especially helps that grow. I think I talk about this every time, but I love reading the Book of Mormon! I actually have been reading it in Spanish and translating the words I don't know into English. It takes a long time! But I think it's worth it. It really makes me read and understand every word I'm reading. It's crazy how much more I get out of it when I go that slow and examine that much.

This week they have asked me and my companion to participate in a little activity that we do with the newb missionaries. On the first night we are here they take us around from room to room for a couple of hours and have you watch some veterean MTCers begin to teach a lesson to an "investigator" and then after about 10 mintues the newbs are let loose and try to ask questions and what not. Well, being so good looking and them seeing that I have a whopping 8 weeks in the MTC they wanted me and Elder Martell to do it. So that's tomorrow night. That will be fun. I'm back to healthy too, almost. So mom, stop worrying!

So for anybody that has the courage to write me a letter this week, remember you can give me challenges. Because I don't have very much to say at this point and it'll make these interesting haha. Yup....Dad, I hope all goes well with the ward and lacrosse!

Welp, that's all I really have for today. Thank you everybody for all your prayers, mail, support, thoughts, and everything else. I'm super blessed to have you all in my life and I'm excited to be able to preach this gospel to Spain/somewhere in the US soon! :)

Love, Elder Jeppson