¡Primer Día en el campo misional!

¡Hola!

I made it. I am here in the mission field with my handy dandy companion and everything. Since it was a pretty random time for us to get our visas we came in in the middle of a transfer, which means that everyone had companions. Hence, there were six of us and they put us together as companions haha. The good thing is that Elder Gardner (the nephew of Rulon) is with the Assistants, so basically I have Elder Driggs as my companion, one of the assistants. He´s awesome. Very happy and very go-get-em, so that´s good. I am in Barrio 2. I believe it is pretty much the East of Madrid in the middle. There are 8-ish areas in the Madrid area, and they all meet in the middle, so it kind of is like a spider web if you draw all the boundaries on a map of the city. Yup, sorry if that confused anybody, but we are in the area directly East out of those 8. It´s good stuff.

So nothing really happened on Monday, but Tuesday was a great day. We, the 8 visa-waiters in the CCM, went into Madrid! We just hopped on the metro after lunch and went on into Madrid. We visited a bunch of like Cathedral/Palace things. I don´t really know the name of any of them. Sorry. I will be sure to send the pictures eventually though. That´ll give you something to look forward to, eh? I also had my first contact that day! Woot! hahaha in the Plaza Mayor there was this lady (little crazy) that was wearing a wig and these little devil horns that came up to us and wanted to take a picture with us. We were like ¨nah, it´s ok. But thanks!¨ and she was like, ¨Well hey, who are you all?¨ So Hermana Sturgess and I busted out a quick little belief thing and told her what we believe and she talked about how she believes in God and Jesus Christ and Saint Maria and all the Saints that number as many as the sky and all that, so we were like awesome, have this pass along card and we will hook you up with a Libro de Mormón, and you will love it. It´s like the bible, but there´s more. So there´s the story of my first contact haha.

Soooo, I am glad to hear about the package I have coming my way. Unfortunately, I will not be able to get it until Monday, so we will have to see if the Mud Pie is still any good. But thank you for sending those other things! There are 6 of us in our apartment and I am pretty sure that might mean I will be sleeping on the couch hahaha who knew that all those times I crashed in front of the TV I was really just working on my mission prep. I have an hour and a half of computer time every Wednesday now. I think that this is because my companion is Assistant to the Pres. and has to have some extra time on the computer to do awesome stuff, but I am not sure. Maybe I will always have this long, maybe not. I will keep you updated. Oh, here´s my new address:

Elder Jeppson
Calle Miami 7, 3ºC
Madrid, 28027
Spain

This is for letters. It is better to send packages to the address I sent on Monday. But letters are great there. I am not sure what the zip code is, but I´m full of faith that it can be found on the internet! Holy smokes, I still ahve 45 minutse but I don´t have a ton to say because it has only been 2 days since I last wrote you. I have time to put contacts into my email account now, so if all family members want to send me their email address I can just send it right out to everybody. It isn´t really that big of a deal, but just let me know what is best. Natalie´s big ear turn on shebang should be going on this week right? I hope all goes well with that. I am finding out if I can watch videos or not. I hope that I can. I got a DearElder when I got here! It is from Jimmy Hales haha. It was sent from Provo on the 10th, although I don´t know when it got here. But I apparently get them within 9 days, so that´s good news eh? Hmmm, Oh, we contacted somebody on the way over here. My companion did all the talking for the most part and got him to stop walking and whatnot and then asked me to bear my testimony so I just bore my testimony right there on the way to this little internet cafe haha. And other than that I can´t really think of a lot more to say. Mom, would you please make sure that Chase (my bank) knows that I am in Spain so that if I use my card they won´t flip out that it is in use in Spain? Thanks. They gave me my mission card today, so I shouldn´t have to use it for a while anyways, but it would be nice to get that done before any problem actually happens. I do have a lot of time on the computer now, so everybody can feel free to email now. I will hopefully have more stories and stuff to tell you next week. Apparently we have 2 baptisms this Saturday, maybe 3, so we will see how that goes. Hopefully they all come through and work out nicely. I don´t know if I will even be involved in them at all, since we have 4 missionaries in our area. We will find out I suppose. Keep me updated on everything that is going on back home. Sounds like all is well.

Well, This is it. I do have a testimony that this is the only true church. Although we go through hard times Satan seems to fight us harder than usual, we must endure through these times with faith in Christ. I hope all goes well in the big and little trials as well as the many successes I am sure you are all experiencing back home. Thank you family for all that you have done for me. All the support, and don´t be afraid to still send real letters too. I need a hard copy of our family Dad/Stepmom! I only have ones that don´t have Colby, and he´s my favorite brother! (Just kidding Caden, Gavin) Keep on keeping on all. I love you all. I shall preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and bear testimony. If anybody wants to convert their testimony to Spanish and send them to me I can paste them in a Libro de Mormon we give out. I think that´d be especially guay (cool) if they are handwritten too. Food for thought!

Love,
Elder Jeppson