Smokin´ two packs a day!

Hello Everyone! I do not have a ton of time to write today, but I will surely see what I can do. First things first, I´m in Toledo! It´s super awesome. Google it. Maps and Images. You´ll think to yourself ¨Wow, Tanton (Elder Jeppson) is lucky to be in Toledo¨ And it´s very true!

So last week went well. I had some firsts. For example, some sister member called Elder Driggs on Saturday and asked if they could go give her mom a blessing, but they were in a different area doing exchanges, so Elder Gardner and I got to go do it. Elder Gardner did the anointing and I did the sealing. It was great. Especially since neither of us are super awesome at spanish and her name is like a mile long. Pretty sure we both said at least one of her 4 names wrong. And then it was really cool to give her a blessing after that though. She gave a sigh of relief before I had even murdered anything in spanish, so that made me feel good. That was interesting. Good thing Hermano Koller taught us what was up with spanish blessings, eh? So we have been starting anew without any investigators (Elder Gardner and I), I think I told you that last week. But so we have a baptism date already! His name is Jacobo and he is from Ecuador. He is set for March 5th. Lame thing is that transfers will be on the 20 or 21ish of this month so I don´t get to be here for it! It´s ok though. As long as he gets baptised I´m happy. So what happens right now is that about half of the time I am with Elder Driggs and the other half I am with Elder Gardner. You can imagine how us two greenies are out in the world of Spain together! The good news is that we actually found Jacobo and taught him 2 lessons with the just the two of us hahaha Jacobo is obviously very patient :) We also have Abdiel, he works a lot, but we are finding times to teach him at night. He has a lot of questions! We left him the Restoration pamphlet and the next time we visited him he was like ¨Who is God?¨ Who is Joseph Smith¨ ¨What is the Book of Mormon?¨ and we were like these are questions we have answers to! We teach him his first real legit lesson tonight, so we will see how that goes. We taught him once, but it was at his work and he was like nervous and it was sketchy. I was disappointed that not a single person helped me out this last week with quick snack and/or meal ideas! Poor little Elder Jeppson is starving in Spain... That´s a lie. I actually eat a ton. Lots of sandwhiches and I have fallen in love with Nutella. It´s amazing! I eat it on everything! I basically live off of Nutella and banana sandwhiches, Lunch meat sandwhiches, cereal, and milk(that can sit on the shelf for 3 months). Occasionally I make some breakfast burritos. hahahah Mom, if you would like some ideas of stuff to send me, cupcakes from hostess (or any hostess stuff really) is always great. They don´t really have any of that here. I did find Pepperidge farm stuff in a store though. That surprised me. Everything here is way expensive though it seems. Euros are ridiculous! And everybody smokes. I swear I smoke two packs a day just by walking around the streets and contacting people while they´re smoking hahaha I´m gonna get transferred somewhere else and suffer withdrawals from this smoky madrid air! So Elder Reist, he is in my piso as well as my district leader, had his birthday yesterday and we went out to eat at KFC after district meeting haha It was expensive, but worth it. I don´t really plan on eating there again for two years though. It was like 7 euros(or 10 dollars) for anything! Stupid european prices. This past week has gone by really fast, but I can´t really think of anything else to tell everyone! I need to start keeping track of things on a little list to tell ya´ll or something eh? Spanish is improving still. That's good. I can tell more what people are saying now. My ear is becoming a little more tuned into the quick spanish. Now it almost sounds like words instead of one giant sentence that they´re saying to me. wahoo! I got some mail this week. Thank you! I got a letter right to the piso from Kylie even! Guess she was better at looking up zip codes than you were mom ;) and then I got some at the office too. It doesn´t really matter which one you send them to, but the office is definitely less sketchy, and if they show up at the piso after I get moved out then I won´t get them forever! But it´s not something that really matters. There is a new mission blog that Hermana Watkins is running. It´s spainmadridmission.blogspot.com I think. If that´s not it then I´m a liar and I´m sorry. Fernando got baptized on Saturday. That was cool. He is the one that set the date with me on my first lesson ever. He was super ready. I have pictures of all this great stuff, but I don´t know when I´ll get around to sending it all home or attaching it to email. We have hit the magical month of February. So that is cool. Yup. I´m out of stuff to say! Thank you everybody that emailed me and sent letters and all that. I didn´t get any letter writing time last week and this week I don´t think I´ll have tons, but I do appreciate all the support! Even if it takes me a while to write back. Sounds like things went well with Abby in Boise, great job Abs! Love you all. Melissa, I am not sure if the video worked or not. I didn´t have time to try really. There aren´t speakers on this computer either. Will you send it again in another email so I don´t forget next week? Thanks! I´m super excited to see Nat!

This church is true. The BoM has principles for everyday life. Read it. Apply it to your life. It´ll change your life. Love you all!

Elder Tanton Sil Jeppson