A finch wakes up to worms.

¡Buenos días!

How is my glorious family this great 27th of April?  First off, it seems like everybody had a great Easter, and second off I have slacked off on birthdays so happy birthday to Sophie, Taylor Peacock in the past weeks and to Tim and Stepmom this week!  Wahoo.  Life is so great when you get older ;)

My past week has been another slower week.  It was the Semana Santa.  This means like the whole week is Easter week basically.  All it really means though is Spring Break.  Everybody goes on vacation and family trips and stuff.  So there was basically nobody in the streets and most of our investigators had families in town and stuff like that so they couldn´t meet with us. It´s ok though, because even on hard days we´re still in paradise, right? :)  Greg got me my travel stats.  Here they are for those interested:

So I did the math on the distance you've traveled (in direct distance, not on roads):  

-From Vigo to Madrid: 289 miles

-From Madrid to Canary Islands: 1115 miles

-Back to Madrid: 1115 miles

-And back to CI: 1115 miles

For a grand total of 3634 miles!  To put that in perspective, that's the distance across the US, from Aberdeen, MD, to Anacortes, WA.  If you were to ride that distance by bicycle at an average pace of 3.3 mph (which is the average pace of an average bicycle rider on long rides), it would take you 66 days to make the trip.

Cool, right?  Thanks Greg.  So teaching English classes has been fun.  We showed them ¨The Restoration¨ in English so that they could ¨Practice listening¨ hahaha Aren´t we such sneeky missionaries?  Rosana is continuing to progress well.  She has come to church both Sundays since we invited her and the branch is really welcoming her well.  The only problem is that she wants to wait until like Septemer so her friends can be there or something still.  So we will talk to her about that in the next week or two hopefully.  Sunday, I found out before church that I had to give a talk (which I have never done in Spanish yet)  So I got to wing a talk in Sacrament Meeting.  I feel like it went well.  I talked about covenants and the importance of making them and why we have ordinances and stuff.  Yup.  Hmm. Carmen is an investigator that has been investigating for a long time. I´m not sure exactly, but I think it´s like a year or so.  She is so ready to be baptized, but is just postponing it.  We are trying to help her feel ready.  She says she doesn´t feel ready yet.  I think there might be something else there too, but we can´t help her if we don´t know it!  We´re doing our best though.  Hmmm, yesterday, my companion got stuck in his bathroom for an hour.  He went in and a few minutes later I got a yell ¨Elder Jeppson, come here I need some help¨.  So I was like, well this is never a good situation.  Lo and behold his lock broke haha.  So he couldn´t get out!  Eventually we ended up drilling a hole through the door with scissors and a screwdriver and then I handed him the screwdriver through the door so he could prise (pry)(ummm...) it open.  It was good fun.  Pictures included.  Luckily we didn´t have to cancel any appointments.  If he had been in there for like 20 more minutes we would have had to.  ¡Todo salió bien!  That´s about all I have to report.  Life´s been great/chill this past week.  I have P-Day tomorrow actually.  Because we´re going to have have it with the other missionaries on Tenerife.  We´re flying there (surprise surprise I´m flying again) for the Zone Conference that is on Friday.  Everything should go well with that I´m hoping.

Hey dad, could you send me a picture of our family?  Maybe better to ask Stepmom that desire, huh?  Hey Stepmom, could you send me a picture of our family? I don´t have one of all of us :(  And if anybody else wants to send pictures I would love to have hard copies of all the great things going on back in your lives.  Mom, could you put some general conference talks on disc in Spanish and send them to me? I would like to practice listening to Spanish and this is the only solution I can really come up with.  It doesn´t matter from what session or anything.  If you need help, maybe Greg can help you out? I dunno.  But I´m still bad at listening! Getting better though.  I would like to give a personal shoutout to Tim and Melissa for their recent missionary work with a lady at the hospital.  You rock!  The branch here feeds us better than any other area I have been in.  Every Tuesday, Thursday and every other Sunday we have people pretty much consistently, so don´t worry about that.  Unfortunately, I don´t have a crock pot in my new piso.  As far as Skype goes, I will be skyping on Mothers Day.  I hear it´s the 8th.  So that day.  I need to know what time will be best for everybody so I can do it when you are on Skype.  It´d be a shame to waste my time on Skype with no family there!  I can do it at any time of the day, and I´m 7 hours ahead.  So dad, mom, figure out how that´s gonna go. I don´t get that much time, I´m not sure if I´ll have to split it between families or how that will go, but let me know by next week what´s going on.  Hmmm.  I think that´s all I really have.  I love you all! Go to the temple if you can, if not, then just prepare for it by reading the Book of Mormon hahahahaha I loooovovveeeee the Book of Mormon!

Love,
Elder Jeppson

P.S. the attach a picture thing isn´t working.  Sorry!

April 20th.

Hello familia, amigos, y desconocidos.  ¿Cómo estáis este gran día?


Welp, I had a killer week.  I basically have nothing good to talk about this week.  I´m sorry.  I will run a recap anyways though, because I think that´s better than not sending a letter.  I am only sending this to you, Mom and Dad.  This computer is ghetto.  Please forward it like a boss.


Last Wednesday was P-day, and we teach English classes.  I taught the beginners.  It was fun.  They have terrible pronounciation, and I have terrible spelling now.  I´m getting worse at English and slowly (sloowowwllly) getting better at Spanish.  We´ll see where I´m at at the end of the mission eh? Maybe I´ll just be terrible at both.

Whatevs.  Thursday began the travels.  We left at 10 in the morning, but before that we taught Rosana.  Let me tell you a little bit about her.  She´s legit.  She came to the church looking for the missionaries.  She had been once in Barcelona and apparently has been investigating for a year now without the missionaries.  Basically,

throught the internet (which is always sketchy).  So we taught her, and she basically was like ¨Yeah I´ve wanted to get baptized for a year, but I do like to drink a little wine with dinner sometimes. What´s that all about?¨ So we told her we would get to that commandment and told her what we do as missionaries and stuff.  She seems pretty
promising.  Then we hopped on a mini cruise ship (Isn´t life so rough) and sailed down to Gran Canaria.  It was a 5 hour boat ride and really is like a little cruise ship.  A pool, bars, lots of chairs and stuff.  Unfortunately only the chairs really did us any good as missionaries. yay. Then we slept there that night and the next morning I left Elder

White with the missionaries of Vecindario and caught a flight to Madrid.  Basically, I spent the entire weekend there just to do an hour of residency stuff.  The good news: I can stay in Spain for a really long time now.  The bad news: We were away from our area for 4 days!  So I hung out with Elder Jackson and Elder Vogel (the
secretaries) and called life good (boring) as I just went to their visits and stuff.  There were some funny members that had me do the chicken dance as a way of being welcomed into the ward Friday night though. That was good stuff.  The other good news is I was able to put some of conference on CD and print a few talks.  This is enough to suffice until I can read them ALL (thanks mom).  Basically, That´s all I did.  Then on Monday Elder White and I were back in action finally! We called Omar (17 year old with a fecha) to set an appointment and found out he is in Juvi!  He broke into a house with his friends and started breaking stuff.  It´s so sad!  He had been living a sketchier life and decided to change it and wanted to get baptized and everything then he did that.  So now we´ll see what has to happen. Pretty sure he has a long time before he´ll be able to get baptized now though what with probation and all that good stuff.  Shoot! Rosana is still legit though and we will hopefully be finding some more people soon.  Elder White and Elder Schuerch couldn´t do a TON of missionary work because of a lot of personal issues that were going on with Elder Schuerch, so the work is a little slow here right now. That´s basically all I have.  Sorry!  I also forgot my camera, so I can´t show you all the fun pictures of swimming in the ocean that

Elder White and I did for P-Day today.  Oh wait, we can´t swim!  Yup. We were going to visit the island, but the member that was going to drive us car´s broke down, so we had another chill P-day that I somehow didn´t do anything productive that I should have.  Oh well! next week eh?  I really did forget my camera though.  So sorry.

Mom, Father´s day really did happen here in Spain, so I´m not a complete fool.  I will just be skyping from either a random members house or a locutorio.  I think that means cyber cafe in English.  I have no idea at what time or anything though.  Who will be there? Could I add in with Tim and his family and everything? Are you going to invite Kylie over? etc... Let me know what the situation is and when would be best to email.  I got all my mail in Madrid, etc.  So that´s good.  I also got it from Vigo, including my license.  Thank you.  I´m sorry it´s snowing over there. I'm soaking up sun for all those who are in a fight with Mother Nature.  You´re welcome.  Caitlyn King is engaged?!?!  Wow.  Mind blown.  Jaw dropped.  Tanton (Elder Jefeson) is surprised.  But that´s awesome.  Lots of engagements going on I hear.  Not me though, no way! Single for life baby (or 2 years at least).

I have a challenge this week.  I noticed that there were a lot of talks in conference about gaining a testimony little by little and not having one big vision type thing, so I would like to invite anybody who reads this to pay attention in the next week and try and write down 5 ways they see the Lord´s hand in their everyday life.  Then, when you have succesfully rocked this challenge, to either email or snail mail it to me!  I would love to hear about the blessings that are going on back home.  I love you all!  Thank you for all you do for me.  You´re the Lord´s hand in my life sooo often!


Love,
Elder Jeppson

Don´t Canaries die in caves?

A very Happy :) Elder Jeppson

Map of the Canary Islands

Hola!  Holy cow.  I´ve been translated again! Or is it called transferred?  It´s hard to tell when you´re in the CANARY ISLANDS!!!  Yup,  that´s right.  Let´s get started with what happend this past week, eh?

Wednesday, P-day.  I don´t really remember what happened that night.  So let´s skip it.  Thursday, well, let´s skip it too.  Friday,  I got a call from the ayudantes during the morning studies times.  ¨Elder Jeppson, we just received a call from President.  There is going to be a change in the transfers from the past week.  You will be going to the Canary Islands to be with Elder White.  We´ll be there to pick you up in an hour. Pack your bags.¨  Holy!  So I did. I packed my bags.  Elder Raiano and I were a little sad because we got along really well and worked really hard for the 4 days we were together.  I think we would be really good together.  But we didn´t really have that long to be sad, because I had to pack up everything I had just unpacked once again.  I also had to leave behind all the food I had just bought AGAIN.  So much food I´m buying for other missionaries these days.... Well the ayudantes picked me up about 45 minutes late, as always, and we were off.  But guess what,  they couldn´t get my plane ticket until Saturday morning, so I got to spend Friday with the ayudantes (Elder Cerro replaced Elder Ketchum) back in Barrio 2.  The first thing we did? We went to lunch in a park with Elder Ketchum and his parents!  It was fantastic to get to say goodbye to him AGAIN hahah.  Then we went and taught a lesson to Jon, who I had taught in my first transfer.  Then we got to see Gorki and Gloria, 2 recent converts in B2 that are superstar members.  I was so excited to see everybody again!  It felt like it had been SOO much longer than just 6 weeks since I saw them all.  So that was a blessing.  Then I got to sleep over in the same old piso that I used to live in.  Wahoo.  Saturday morning we got up bright and early and the assistants took me to the airport.  I said goodbye to Elder Driggs, my part-time trainer, for the last time (or so we thought), because he goes home in 2 transfers, and people are always in the islands longer than that (I hope I didn´t just jynx myself).  Plane went well.  It was weird to be alone, without a companion.  I was afraid to talk to any females. haha that´s a joke, but I really didn´t talk to any... I showed up in heaven and got my bag from baggage claim.  Walked out and found Elder White and Elder Schuerch (who flew to Madrid later that day)  and we went out and about.  Saturday wasn´t that great.  We helped a member prepare for an activity for less-actives haha.  Then Sunday we had church and I got my own little dedicated testimony time to introduce myself to the branch.  This branch LOVES missionaries.  It would crash without misisonary support.  Monday went well as well.  Nothing too extraordinary happened on these days other than the fact that I just walk around talking about the gospel with an ocean breeze in my face and a big smile.  It´s amazing here!  Then on Tuesday (yesterday)  we got GOOGLE EARTHED.  hahaha I´m not sure if this is for sure, but the dang google earth car that takes street pictures drove by us!  I am not sure if they were taking pictures, or just driving by, but it´s always been my dream to be on google earth as a missionary.  Wahoo!  And now it´s Wednesday.  I´m sorry a lot of those days are rushed. I´m trying to get in all the important stuff today.  We found out yesterday that I have to go back to Madrid on Friday.  bahhaha ohhh my goodness!  I haven´t done my residency here in spain yet and the secretary forgot I had my appointment on Friday, so tomorrow Elder White and I are taking a ferry to Gran Canaria to leave him with the zone leaders and then I´m flying there, doing all my stuff on Friday, wasting a day in Madrid because tickets were cheaper Sunday than Saturday, and flying back on Sunday at night.  So that´s gonna be interesting /a waste of 4 days missionary work wise in our area.  It´s kind of sad, but I´m definitely breaking some type of record for distance traveled in the first 3 transfers in this mission.  I have now covered the Madrid mission, Bilbao mission (Vigo), and now Málaga mission (Canaries).  Am I a tourist or a missionary? Hmmmm....interesting. ;)  Let´s see here.  My area!

Lanzarote's Flag

I´m in Arrecife.  It´s on the island Lanzarote.  It´s the one farthest North and East.  It´s like a desert island.  We´re the only island that doesn´t have a car.  There are also missionaries on Tenerife and Gran Canaria.  There are 10 missionaries here.  It´s all formed by volcanoes I hear.  And P-Days are going to be spent hiking volcanoes and doing cool stuff like that.  Today was spent cleaning the most filthy piso in the world that I refuse to live in until it´s clean.  Hmmm, the weather here is always sunny and warm, it hardly ever rains, and it doesn´t get as hot as Madrid.  In fact, the weather here basically doesn´t vary at all.  My new address(again) is:

Elder Guapo
C/Apolo 17, 2B
35500 Arrecife, Lanzarote
ESPAÑA

You know the drill.  Anything sent to Barrio 1 I´m hoping to pick up this weekend since I´m already going back to Madrid, but I might not get it until April 29th, when we have a zone conference.  As for the package, if it´s already sent, I´ll try and get it this weekend too.  If not, you can go ahead and send it right to my piso.  I´m not sure if Fedex covers the islands (if it does I´m sorry I doubted, Dad). And also, Elder white got a package with food in it yesterday! So I think it´s still possible! But it was USPS so...  Hmmm that´s all I have for that.

Elders White & Jeppson

My new companion: Elder White.  He´s dope.  He is super chill and we work.  He reminds me a lot of 

Kylie´s brother, Brock.  I know that nobody in my family knows him, but I put that in there anyways...  He is from West Jordan, attended Copper Hills, and thankfully did not play lacrosse.  We get along great.  He has been out for a little over a year, so I finally have a companion that didn´t enter the same day as I did (other than the assistants).  That´s all I really have to say about him.  He has a great love for music.  And we get along great.  

Welp,  That´s bascially all I have for today.  I´m in the Canaries and I got google earthed.  We set a baptism date with Omar yesterday for the 30th of April and we already have somebody else for about that time too.  I think there is a lot of potential here.  There´s a TON less people in the streets here, but we receive a lot more references from members.  It´ll be interesting to see what goes down.  That´s for sure.  I hope I´m here forever.  Mom, I have not received the conference talks from anybody.  I´m still on a conference fast.  I thought Austin Robbins would like to know all the streets around where I live right now have astrological names (in spanish) except I have yet to find Eclipse.  Mom, could you send me a picture of my room? I always tell people about my awesome wall paper but they never can see it...Also, could someone (I need to be specific so....Greg) calculate how far I have traveled between Madrid to Vigo to Madrid to Canaries to Madrid and back to the Canaries again? Thanks bro.  And when on earth is Mothers day?  I hear I get to call home on that day.  And when I say call I mean Skype.  So be prepared to be stunned with felicidad.  

I love you all!  I hope I covered everything this week.  If not, hit me up with an email and I´ll see if I can answer any questions next week.  Thank you all for your support and prayers (somebody really righteous must have prayed for me) and letters and everything.  This church is true.  The Book of Mormon can change your life if you apply its teachings. If I sound like a broken record player then I´m just gonna keep sounding like that because it´s freaking true!

Love,
Elder Jeppson

Hmmm. Is he tourist or is he a missionary?  Gotta love it! 

* If Anybody is interested in checking out where he is, and seeing some beautiful pics pull up this web address: 

http://www.lanzaroteisland.com/en/photos/arrecife/

The Dominican Republic/Most Diverse place in the world...

Buenos días familia.  ¿Qué tal estáis?

Welp,  I´m never going to try and predict transfers again.  I´m in Madrid.  Yup.  I´m in Madrid.  I said it twice so that if anybody had as hard of a time believing it as I did they could hear it twice.  I already left Vigo! Ugh, so sad.  It was sooo beautiful.  I wanted to stay there forever (summer).  Welp,  let´s get this bad boy rollin´, eh?

Not a lot happened since last Wednesday.  P-day meant many smiling faces in the missionary world, and then we taught some lessons after it ended.  Thursday I went to Cangas!  It´s across the bay from Vigo.  Google map it.  It was pretty cool going on a boat across to Cangas.  It reminded me of when we were in Mexico a year ago and we ran into the missionaries there on that boat.  Except this boat was a lot smaller.  No big deal.  I wish I could go back to Mexico now and speak with them.  Although I´m sure it wouldn´t be THAT much better than last year hahaha. Keaton and I running around telling people ¨Tiene un buen día!¨ in a super gringo accent! bahahaha at least now I can say it properly in a little bit less of a gringo accent.  People still don´t believe me when I tell them I´m from Columbia though, so there´s room for improvement :) Friday, we had another lesson with that grand Honduran I told you all about last week.  We set a baptismal date with him! The 23rd of April.  We got a calender all ready so he knew what we would be teaching and everything.  Super stoked, then we returned to the piso and found out transfers.  Hey, Elder Jeppson, you´re going to Barrio 1 in madrid.  Have fun! They closed Vigo 2.  I´m pretty sure this is the only reason I got transferred back down.  Nobody EVER goes to the north for just 1 transfer it seems.  They´re always up there for like 6 months.  But it´s ok.  I love Madrid too.  Maybe someday I´ll head north again, or, if I´m REALLLY lucky, I´ll head south to the Canary Islands.  Who knows what the Lord has in store, eh?  Saturday was a day that we did exchanges with the other elders in Vigo so that they could get to know our area from us.  They now run the entire city missionary work-wise.  They are gonna have a lot of work up there.  Then, at night (well at 6) we got to watch conference!  Wahoo.  I looovvveeee conference.  It was the Saturday morning session.  BUT we had to watch it in Spanish.  I understood everything and all for the most part, but it just wasn´t the same!  I love English.  I appreciate it more now hahah.  Then Elder Quevedo and I took some pictures of us in Vigo after and that was Saturday.  I noticed a lot of talks about service and caring for/helping others in that session of conference.  It´s always so amazing to me that they don´t have assigned topics yet they always flow together so smooth.  Sunday was an interesting day, at 11 in the morning we watched the priesthood session.  I loved it! I especially loved President Monson´s talk.  He really hit home for Elder Jeppson.  I always love the priesthood session so much.  But here´s the bad news.  My train left at 1:30.  So right after conference ended at 1 I was right off to a train with my luggage and didn´t get to see any more conference! ugh.  How sad is that.  As a missionary, we sure love to watch conference. It´s crazy to me that that was only my first one.  3 more baby (on the mission).  I rode back down to Madrid for 7 and a half hours with Elder Albretsen from Wisconsin.  He actually knows the Ropers that worked with me at the movie theatre.  So we had fun talking about that and about life on the mission and stuff.  He was on his way back down to Madrid so that he could go home after his 2 years of service, so I tried to keep his mind off the sad part.  It was a good trip.  He´s great.

Elders Jeppson and Raiano

Now I´m here in Madrid.  Monday I met Elder Raiano.  He is my new companion.  He´s a native from Argentina!!! Two natives already.  How lucky am I?  He lived in Málaga for a bit and now he´s serving a mission.  He is 24 years old and speaks more English than Elder Quevedo did, but still I wouldn´t call him fluent.  I´m really excited to work with him.  Like Elder Quevedo and I, he also entered the mission November 10, so we´re still rockin a companionship of young guns.  I got to say goodbye to Elder Ketchum (who goes home) on Monday, so that was awesome.  He was a great example to me as well.  I also got to say goodbye to Elder Knorr bahahhahaha.  He still doesn´t know.  Ummm that´s pretty much it for Monday.  Yesterday we had district meeting, so I got to meet my new district.  We have hermanas, 4 of them, in our district now, so that´s something new for me.  We also have the zone leaders and Elder Raiano and I in the district, so there´s 8 of us.  It´s gonna make for some good times I´m sure.  We have a baptism this Friday with Jaquelina, who I still haven´t met, so that should be good.  And that´s the down low on my past week. Boom. Roasted.

It´s been great to hear from everyone this past week.  I´m sorry the North Carolina clan has been getting owned by temperature differences without AC/heating.  I´m sorry!  I´m also sorry to hear that Trey smashed in his two front teeth.  Ouch!  Although I am glad to hear that both are pumped to go to KINDERGARTEN this coming year.  Wow.  Time flies, doesn´t it?  I hope that all goes well with that.  I´m sure it will.  Oh! My new address is

Elder Guapo Jeppson

C/ Bravo Murillo 127 3ºD

Madrid 28020

ESPAÑA

Make sure you put España in caps so you don´t forget which country I´m in.  I bought a bunch of stamps so that Elder Hoskins can forward me any letters that are going to Vigo right now hahaha So don´t fret about that.  Ummm, I don´t really know what´s going on with the package situation, but I do need some short sleeved t-shirts.  It´s gonna be KILLER in Madrid this summer. It´s already getting up to like 26 degrees, and I hear it´s around 35-40 in the summer, so that´ll be...interesting. I´ve never melted into a puddle before, should be fun. But obviously if you send a package, send it to the mission home now.  Not to my piso in Vigo.  That´d be interesting.  If you could toss in a new missionary journal from Deseret book (the gray binder kind) That´d be nice too. I´m about to fill one up.  But if not, It´s not a big deal, they sell journals here in Spain too apparently.  Crazy! Also, if you could either print out the conference talks or download them and put them on CD, I´d be super grateful.  I´m too impatient to wait a month for the Liahona. Love you! I'm stoked to hear Gavin gets to know what it´s like to be a king at Movies 5.  Nothing better than rockin´ the projectors day in and day out.  Mom, Brad, and Abby-Disneyland is the land of happiness.  I hope you walked away happy.  I´m sure you did.  I´m pretty jealous you got to go to Cali.  Hope it was amazing.  Dad & SuperStepmom (hahaha) I´m glad to hear all is well with ya´ll as well.  Good luck with the coming month in lax.  April was always super busy with games and dinners and hating practice by the end of the month.  Good times. 

Welp, gotta run!  Love you all.  Keep reading and praying.  The church is true.  I love being a missionary.  I love you all.

-Elder Jeppson