¡Hola! ¿Comó estáis? I´m livin´ the Spanish life. It´s a pity that we aren´t allowed to use the vosotros form with investigators though. It´s a form of Spanish that is only used in Spain and the scriptures really. I absolutely love how it sounds, but it is used for more formal relations and ustedes has more respect. In case anybody wanted a little glimpse into my opinion of the vosotros. Hermana Meikle better read this eventually.
Anyways... Another week down. Wow. They go so fast. Days are weeks and weeks are days. Greg was right. First things first: I am not serving in Toledo. In fact, the city isn´t even an open area. We just went there for the one P-day in fact. But that would be great if it opened in my 2 year adventure here. We shall see I suppose. I´m still in Barrio 2. I will be moving to a new area this weekend though. Monday, in fact. The transfers are this weekend. We find out on Saturday where we go, have Sunday as our last day, and then Monday it´s off to a new wonderland of stubborn Spaniards. I will have a real companion! I have had 3 companions pretty much now. Elder Gardner and I are together half the time as greenies, and then I spent 2 weeks with Elder Driggs and now 2 weeks with Elder Ketchum. What a crazy first transfer. It´ll be nice to have one solid companion. I hope he´s a native. I love the native-speaking missionaries. Whenever we have missionary get togethers, like at the mission house or at zone conference, I always just talk to them and try and speak Spanish. It´s great. My Spanish would improve sooo much if I got a native companion. I´m very happy with my Spanish though. I can follow pretty much most of conversations now and speaking is coming along sure as ever. Occasionally I´ll come across people with crazy accents and it´s game over for me, but I´m sure I´ll continue to get better.
So as for things that have happened the last week, I´m not really sure. They have all just blended into one big week for me at this point. So I´ll just give a recap on this ward/area since I will be leaving it this week. This ward, Barrio 2, is part of the Madrid East stake. There are only two stakes in my mission, Madrid East and Madrid West. The rest of the mission, including the Canary Islands, are divided into 3 or 4 districts. The East stake is more legit than the West, leadership and organization wise (from what I have heard). Barrio 2 is one of like 8 barrios (wards) that are in Main Madrid, then there are some wards in areas on the outskirts of Madrid. I personally believe I will be staying in Madrid area again after I leave Barrio 2. We shall see. There are about 100 members that attend church every week. The bishop is from Columbia. He is legit, but is not super pumped up on missionary work. It´s alright. Our Ward Mission Leader is Gino. He´s from Peru. He is super legit. Over half of our ward are South Americans. I would dare say 75% even. But that might be false. I don´t really know what else to tell you. I have done pretty much all my contacting on Calle Alcalá. Those of you who love GoogleMaps stalking me, between the Plaza de Toros and where Alcalá meets up with a highway in the West. I have walked that street for a lot of hours in the past 4 or 5 weeks. The only other thing I can really think to talk about in the last week is Zone Conference we had yesterday. The 3 zones of our mission that are located in Madrid area all got together and had a Zone Conference at the stake center. It was fantastic. President Watkins spoke to us, then the Assistants, which are my companions, so that made it cooler, and then Hermana Watkins. Then we split up into zones and Elder Jackson and Elder Middleton, our zone leaders, gave us some training on how to be great missionaries. It was really good. Then we ate (for free, wahoo) in the temple cafeteria, and had like a little social (and watched a movie (like 20 minutes long)! How strange...) for missionaries in the Stake center for like an hour. It was really uplifting and helped me learn some things I need to improve and work on in the coming weeks. Other than that we just contacted and taught lessons. Although, one lesson with Fausto (one of the assistants investigators) was really cool. He has been looking for an answer and even fasted with us a couple weeks ago. Towards the end of a lesson we all knelt down and each of us prayed for Fausto. It was really spiritual. Yup.
Oh, Happy Valentine´s day. In Spain it´s called ¨The day of Love and Friendship¨ hahaha. I thought that was funny. I got my package. Thank you so much! I think that bag should be fine. I will let you know if it isn´t. I think it should though. Thank you for all the great things! Pocket-Dictionary: perfect. Food: Perfect. CD´s: Haven´t listened to yet, but seem to be perfect. Muchas Gracias. Sounds like everything is going great back home. I´m glad everything went well with Tim, minus Boston farts and maybe Lily was trying to get revenge on Tim for the dastardly deed of October 9th? I am a little jealous that I wasn´t able to Tepanyaki´s it up with ya´ll, but I´d honestly rather be here, so.... I like getting your blogs Krista, Trey and Krew are gonna be rocking missionaries after FHE´s like Ammon´s? That´s all I really have. Thank you for all the mail this week, even 2 letters from Kylie. Woot. Could someone tell her thank you in advance for the package too? Thanks. Oh, and P.S. on this section. Today we went and visited an Egyptian temple earlier that was moved stone for stone from Egypt to Madrid. Templo de Debot. That was pretty cool. and Free! wahoo...
This church is true. I can feel that truth multiple times throughout the week. What a blessing it is that we have this gospel in our lives! Don´t forget to share it with everyone. Our responsibility is to invite others, not how they will react. Love you all! Thank you for all your support, prayers, and help.
Love,
Elder Jeppson
Mom-If you could send me my balance of my debit card from back home occasionally, that would be super nice. I don´t use it really ever, but it would be nice to know. Also, if you could get me Riley Hazeldine´s address, thanks! Love you!
Dad-If you could get me that 4-generation chart and line of authority like we talked about on the phone, I would appreciate it. It´s not like of the utmost importance, but I would like to be able to share it with people when it´s appropriate. Thanks!
Krista-Thank you for the recipe´s. I shall be sure to put them to use and enjoy in the deliciousness thereof.
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