Every bird learns to fly, but lions learn to roar

¡Madre mía el tiempo vuela!

Pues, ¿debo escribir este e-mail en español?  I´ll spare everybody the google translator mess and just do it in English.  Plus, everybody would find out I´m still super ghetto in my Spanish.  

How has everybody been?  Seems like everybody has had good weeks.  Trey rocked some Sports Academy action, Dylan, Sophie, and Natalie are growing up into their careers already (or at least having fun pretending) and the rest of everybody seems to be loving May.  Glorious.  I thought I should mention that I graduated from High School one year ago today.  I´m amazed at how fast time flies.  I´ll be seeing ya´ll again before I even know it.  Ah!

Spain Madrid Temple...out of pens/pencils

Alright, so this past week has been a pretty decent week.  As you all know already, all of the people in Arrecife have had the grand pleasure of firing Elder White and I.  So we have been hitting the streets and apartment buildings a lot to find new people.  Thursday had the highlight of creating the Madrid temple out of pens.  It´s attached as a photo.  We did this after planning and before bed.  

Other than that we had a day of contacting and teaching Fani, a menos activa here in the branch.  But, she forgot about us, so that didn´t even happen until Saturday. Friday was cool because an investigator (that should totally be baptized, but his wife doesn´t want to marry him or something) that is super legit had us over for dinner and then a lesson.  I wish something could work out for him to get baptized.  I really do.  But I don´t know what to do.  They have a kid together that´s 7 so they he doesn´t want to leave them but she refuses to get married or something. I dunno really.  But I love talking to him.  He also comes to our English classes.  So that´s always fun.  Saturday was the day we started knocking doors legit-like.    We try and enter all the apartment buildings now.  Like actually push on every door to see if it´s locked or if they last person accidentally left it cracked hahaha then we just start at the top and knock every door to the bottom.  We found some legit people doing that this week.  We did it Saturday an d Sunday and after all of that we found a mother and son from Columbia named Christina and Jon, and then another family that is a mother from Uruguay and her 3 daughters that are 7, 10, and 12.  She recently left her husband and now the daughters have a hard time trusting men, so I´m thinking the gospel would be perfect for them!  You'll see more on them on Tuesdays part.  Monday was another pretty regular day.  Contact contact contact.  I´ve talked with everybody in this city it feels like at times, then I look down the street and there´s just a ton of people I´ve never seen in my life before! So we keep at it.  Tuesday, yesterday, was a good day.  We taught lessons! Wahoo!  It´s been so crazy to go from Barrio 1 with the ayudantes teaching a ton to Vigo and teaching a lot still and then to Arrecife where the lessons are like blessings wrapped in gold.  It really is different depending on the zone, but I know there are people everywhere waiting to hear the gospel.  We taught 2 less active members yesterday and then we taught Claudia, o sea, the lady with 3 daughters.  She sent her daughters to the library to "study" during out lesson but I think she was testing us to see what we were all about.  It went well.  We found out about her situation more (like with her husband) and that she really wants to strengthen the spiritual side of her life again after being with an atheist for so long.  Seems promising, and she said the daughters will be there all together next time (friday).  I´m pretty excited about that.  After that we taught the Columbians I talked about earlier.  They were really nice people as well but didn´t seem as pumped to have Christ in their life like the family before.  The mom has a lot of questions.  I´m hoping they read and pray and attend church.  If they would just do that and have faith they´ll receive an answer I know that it will happen!  But that´s the story with every investigator I suppose.  That is what happened in my past 7 days.  Were you all entertained? I´m glad.  Also, today I broke my mail fast, o sea, I got some letters!  Silly Brad, I don´t live on calle Miami anymore. hahahaha I did finally get your letter though.  I love hearing about these crazy hockey playoffs.

Other than all of that good stuff life continues over here in Spain.  Adventures seem to happen occasionally, and I love it.  It´s hard at times, but I love it.  I´m very grateful for Grandma Vinson especially at this time, such an amazingly strong woman and a great example for all of us.  She is in my prayers por supuesto.  Well, I´m pretty much out of stuff to say.  I love you all. I love the church. I love my Savior.  His hand is in our lives.  Don´t forget to recognize it.  I have an amazing family.  I have 2 amazing families that are joined into one giant family de hecho.  Thank you all for being incredible examples to me and helping me to become who I have become, aunque I still need to learn lots of stuff, like how to cook.  I have you all to thank for all the great things I´ve learned in all these 19 years of living.  Yup.  I love you all. 

Love,

El gran Elder Jeppson de Arrecife

P.S. feel free to ask me lots of questions in your emails and I´ll answer them and have lots of awesome stuff to say every week. I am just fatal at thinking of things on my own. And I have this cool key on my keyboard: ç

A scoundrel in the night.

I gave my email that subject so that everybody would think a crazy story happened in the night this week or something, but nothing happened.  Sorry!

Familia!  How are you all doing?  Sounds like a lot of things have been going on back home.  Lots of awesome weather too.  I love how many people always talk about the weather! It´s like everybody has one giant grudge against Mother Nature.  It´s ok everybody.  It always rains a lot in May! hahaha It´s getting really humid here on the island.  So although the temperature is nothing too amazingly hot, it´s really humid and makes you sweat more than normal haha.  It´s good stuff.  Well, here´s the summary you´re all dying to hear, unfortunately not a lot happened this week:

We taught our English classes just like normal Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.  That´s usually fun.  It´s a nice break from walking around in the street at times too.  We taught a less active member on Thursday and she came to church on Sunday, so that was cool to see.  Her name is Fani.  She´s from Uruguay.  We just keep going on our super cultural mission here.  Rosana hasn´t been coming to church and can never meet with us, so that has been a dying cause it seems like.  She says she´s really busy with work.  We´ll see if that dies down soon or if she keeps coming up with excuses.  Saturday we found out transfers.  Which reminds me, I´m still in Arrecife.  I expected that.  In fact, not a single missionary in the islands changed at all. There´s only 10 of us down here.  In fact, there weren´t even too many changes in the whole mission.  We did pick up Cuenca (a city) from the Málaga mission though.  So there are Madrid missions in Cuenca now.  It´s clear out in middle of nowhere.  Also on Saturday an 8 year old girl got baptized in the branch here.  That was kind of fun to go see.  Church on Sunday was pretty much really normal. No investigators came so we just went to all the meetings like normal.  I love going to church.  It´s always such a great 3 hours of my week.  Monday was a pretty good day.  We taught a lesson on the temple and it made me really miss it and wish I could go.  It was a good spiritual lesson though and I´m hoping it gets that family stoked on going to church again.  They´re kind of in a slump... Also, later that night we went to the outskirts of Arrecife to give a member a blessing.  I gave it this time and it was really cool to see how much my Spanish has improved since my first blessing that Elder Gardner and I gave in B2.  hahah I wish I could hear that one again.  They probably didn´t even have any idea what I was trying to get across.  Oh well I guess.  But the really cool part about blessings is feeling the spirit guide.  The priesthood really is such a blessing in our lives.  It really is.  Then yesterday, Tuesday, nothing really happened.  We tried to have district meeting but there was a big server crash in SLC or something so the conference system didn´t work.  Dang gatekeeper kept rejecting us, that bully (haha).  So we spent an hour trying to fix that (we hadn´t been told it was a SLC crash) and then had a couple of people cancel on us in the afternoon and went and taught a family from the branch that they ask us to visit every week or 2 weeks-ish.  It´s always fun.  Lessons are the best.  They´re good Spanish practice for me.  That´s all I really have for this grand week.  Yay.  P-day today we just hung out in Arrecife.  No members offered to take us so we basically just did our chillaxin thang in the city.  

Mom, I need my other SD card so I can send you this one before you go to AZ.  So put that in the mail! I only have 2. I sold one in the MTC hahaha.  Also, I might be going back to Madrid again for another residency trip haha.  

They´re not sure if I have to personally pick up my Residency Card or if they can do it for me.  So we will see if I make another quick trip to Madrid in the next couple of weeks.  I want to know what happened to Washington in the playoffs.  Dangit! I also need the MTC address.  I thought I had that thing memorized forever but I already forgot it!  Love you all.  

Love,

Elder Jeppson

Timanfayyyaaaaaaa

Hola familia.  ¿Cómo estáis?  Ojalá que todo está bien. 

Long time now see, eh? haha I can´t believe how fast time goes!  I´ve already had 2 out of my 4 phone calls home (although I didn´t get to call home from the MTC at Christmas), and I just barely hit 1/4 of the mission!  Time has flown by.  Holy cow... Well, it was nice to see everybody and to hear that all is going well.  I don´t have tons of time, so I´ll dive right in.  

Last Wednesday we taught English classes as we do every Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, then a miracle happened! Auwdu, some black guy that speaks English, showed up at 8:30 for a lesson!  We had originally set this lesson up at 8, but were still there at 8:30 talking to a different person that isn´t a member.  We were flabbergasted (good word, huh?) when he came lolly-gagging into the church confused as ever.  Unfortunately, he fired us on the next two visits we set up, so we need to call him again. But still, I was happy he came in the first place!  Thursday was a pretty average day.  Rosana has been super hard to get a hold of lately and hasn´t come to church lately.  We´re pretty afraid of upsetting her too because we had to cancel an appointment with her because the male member didn´t show up.  That was frustrating.  She wasn´t very happy.  Hopefully we can get a hold of her this week though and she´ll come to church this weekend!  We have also taught a couple of other new people.  The one I´m most excited about is Jefferson.  He is a 17 year old joven that is from Ecuador.  I stopped him on the street one night and we had a lesson with him a couple days later.  I´m hoping to get another lesson with him before Sunday and invite him to church.  we´ll see though.  That was pretty much my last weekend.  Then Sunday nothing great happened at all.  Oh wait, that´s a lie.  I called you all!  That was fantastic.  It´s nice to see all is still going well back home.  It was especially cool to see the nieces and nephews.  Kids are gonna be huge when I get back!  Monday we taught an evangelist.  It all went well until we told her that the godhead is three separate beings.  Then when we showed her the scripture where Stephen is being stoned and can see Christ on the righthand of God and is filled with the spirit (which proves their 3 separate beings) she was even so upset that she went to get her OTHER version of the bible.  Then, when it said the same thing, she told us that she just doesn´t believe it hahaha. Ohh people kill me!  I´m hoping that she takes us up on our invitation to pray though.  That´s the key to gaining your testimony!  If you take the inititative to pray and ask for help from God, he will help you!  I have learned that this is such a key, that Satan will do anything he can to stop it from happeneing.  Like having 5 people call her during the lesson hahaha.  Such a scoundrel, that devil. 

"Bump Day ~ 6 months out"

 Yesterday my companion got a cold, and so we stayed in so he could heal up.  I got a lot of studying in and that was really cool.  It was also my 6 month mark (for those of you keeping track back home) and that means you burn a tie, right? Well, in Spain that doesn´t really happen, because the buildings are so tight and you can´t really do it in your piso.  BUT, since I live in paradise, we have a little balcony up on the roof with a small room attached where we can do it.  I believe I have attached the pictures. If all went well up there with those little blue loading bars at least.  The bad news about the tie burning is a stupid drop of flaming wax dropped onto my hand and I have a big ol´ freaking burn-blister on my finger now.  Luckily, my body does this magical healing trick and so we´ll see how that goes haha. 

Elders Jeppson and White

 Then today, some members offered to drive us around a bit, so we went to this cool place of cliffs by the ocean and then we went to a volcano.  It´s called Timanfaya and it´s super legit.  It´s still active I´m pretty sure.  There was even this place where there´s just a hole in the ground and if you throw a dry bush in it just starts on fire from the heat of the volcano.  That was pretty cool.  I tried to throw some pitctures of all that in too...  and now I´m sitting at a computer typing an email to my grand family.  Wahoo.  Week success.  As always, right? I also ate a Tamarindo and had Tamarindo juice.  I didn´t like them very much.  But they´re wicked popular in Ecuador apparently.  Go figure!

Sooooo, transfers are this week, and with my luck that means I will be living somewhere else come Monday!  Haha I´m thinking I´ll PROBABLY stay here, but I´ve been wrong and surprised and traveled my face off so much already that I wouldn´t be surprised if I went somewhere else.  Like somewhere in the farthest north of Spain, because that´s the least likely thing to happen.  Hahaha I guess we will just have to see where the Lord wants me to go.  I really don´t have a lot to say to anybody at this point, because I talked to everybody on Sunday!  Sooo.... If anybody has moved out, changed last names, got married, graduated from some type of school, or had any other type of grand accomplishment, congratulations!  Those of you who are still working towards them, just remember that hard work always pays off in the long run.  haha ummm... A scripture!  I shall share a grand scripture with everybody.  I want everyone to know that while I´m looking this up the girl next to me is listening to  Shakira.  What is this strange worldly music? Alright, I´m ready now.

Alma 23:18.  Y empezaron a ser una gente muy industriosañ sí, y se volvieron amistosos con los nefitasñ por lo tanto, establecieron releaciones con ellos, y la maldición de Dio no los siguió más.  

Así vemos que el trabajo arduo es la manera en la cual podemos ganar la ayuda de Dios!  And so we can see that hard work is the way that we earn the blessings and help from God!  I love you all. 

Un abrazo (unless you´re not family and female)

  

Elder Jeppson

Greg is a graduate! Give him a hug! Wahoooooo

Hola familia, amigos, desconocidos, y todos los demás que quizás estén leyendo esto.

What is up in grand Utah?  Has Mother Nature stopped hating on you yet?  I´m sorry.  Life in paradise is still paradisaical.  Google Chrome corrected me on my spelling on that word.  The past week has been great. Well. Thursday we went on a car drive on the island of Tenerife.  We went to see Teide, the highest point in Spain.  It´s basically a giant mountain/volcano on the island.  The islands were all formed by volcanoes.  This volcano got huge, and then broke in half and slid into the ocean apparently.  So there is a giant basin near the top that is like a giant, giant field at the top of a mountain.  I don´t know if I described that well. But there should be a picture attached of it.    So that was cool.  

Friday we had our Zone Conference.  It went well.  There are 10 missionaries here in the islands, no hermanas.  Well, there is also a senior couple and two senior hermanas serving here, so I guess there are hermanas and 14 missionaries.  Nevertheless it was good stuff.  Learned about setting goals of faith.  I´m not good at setting goals, let alone goals of faith, so needless to say I can improve on that, eh?  After that we flew back (hopefully my last flight for a good 12 weeks) to teach English lessons and finish up the day.  Some people in class started asking about the church so hopefully we can get some investigators out of teaching, since that is the purpose of it and all.  OH well, at least people are learning the language of heaven.  

Saturday was gonna be a productive day, until we decided to attend a wedding.  We thought it would take like an hour to an hour and a half so when the branch mission leader invited us we went.  It was on like a different side of the island in Tinajo.  30 minute drive.  The bride is from here in the island and is marrying some american dude.  His brother married the brides sister.  Those two met in Madrid when the brother was studying abroad after a mission to Argentina.  Long story short the brides sister got converted, married, and then the other two siblings met and this was their wedding.  So we went to the wedding, which was interesting.  Spanish weddings have like a bunch of clapping, a lot of paper signing, and apparently not a lot of guests usually (so it was weird when these mormons invited everyone) hahah then they went to the temple on Tuesday to get sealed.  That´s how you have to do it in Spain.  Spain doesn´t recognize temple marriages as legit, so you have to do it civilly (thanks google) and then in the temple.  It was cool to see the Spanish style of wedding.  Not too different really though.  After, we went to their reception for like 3 hours.  Tons of food coming out, and I was fasting.  Lame! But worth it.  About 3/4 through we go up to congratulate the couple.  Well the groom is like where are you from? and I´m like well Cache Valley. He says cool my sister lives there, go talk to her.  So I do.  ¨Hey are you from the blah blah blah jeppsons of Providence?¨ ¨No, do you know Sil Jeppson?¨ ¨Sil Jeppson?!¿¿¡¡ Yeah! he´s in our ward.  In fact my husband here used to be Family Home Teaching Companions with him.  Boom.  What the freaking crap?  Steve Johnson and his wife were at the wedding.  What a small world eh? I guess they live like a block and a half away from my dad.  Cool!  So I hung out and talked about life back home for a bit.  

Took some pictures.  Was mind blown that I ran into them all the way over here on the island of Lanzarote.  Still amazed it happened.  But so they will be able to personally tell you the story too I´m sure.  Moving on.  Sunday was a decent day.  Not a lot happened out of the ordinary.  Rosana didn´t come to church.  That made us sad/worried.  Then she didn´t answer our calls all day. Uh oh!  That´s about all we did for Sunday.  Monday morning Rosana called us and told us that she just couldn´t go because she was with her family all day for mother´s day (it was mother´s day in Spain) and didn´t have her phone all day.  So all is still well there thankfully.  Monday Elder White (the district leader) had a 4 hour leadership meeting via video conference (which is also how we do our  district meetings) and I had to be at since he would be alone without me.  So that was fun/boring/interesting/I felt out of place.  Yup.  Hmm yesterday we had our district meeting as always and Ana Ruth and Oscar fed us like all Tuesdays.  Amongst all of that we have just been contacting people and trying to find people to teach.  It´s been a little bit of a rough patch as far as the work feels like, but I´m sure if we keep it up things will turn around.  That is life of Elder Jeppson on the island of Lanzarote in the past week.  Not too crazy, eh?

In regards to other boring stuff:  I got my package finally!  Thank you tons.  Thank you for the Christmas present Greg.  I will be sure to rock that shirt like a boss.  Thank you to mom/dad for the other shirts and goodies as well.  That CD is LEGIT.  It has like all of my favorite church songs on it, even Be still my soul! which isn´t a hymn in Spanish unfortunately.  The no-bake cookies are also absolutely amazing.  I can´t believe they were baked in Nibley.  I love mail!  Hmmm, Elder Knorr went home when I got to Barrio 1 and is already engaged.  I never told him I stalked him.  I was afraid.  I did ask to take a picture with him once.  He looked at me like I was a nut and it never happened.  I did take a picture for him once though.  Thought you would all like to know the end of my creeper career.  Dad, You forgot to put our line of authority in the package.  I thought you would like to know that so you can send me one this week.  I got the hockey stats from you mom. Thank you tons even though the Red Wings are super lame and Riley Hazeldine is super happy.  Speaking of which I would like to give him a shoutout for his Virginia mission call and ask him to send me his mission office address asap.  Oh.  Hey.  I need to talk about Skype, don´t I?  Ok.  I will be skyping home this Sunday.  There´s some catches.  Not really.  But I will be doing it at 9:30 your time.  I will call mom first and then second dad.  The catch is that I get 40 minutes.  Therefore I technically get 20 minutes with each family.  Keep that in mind ya´ll.  I thought I could pull the ¨Hey I get Christmas presents from 2 families why not double the Skype time?¨ card with president, but I guess he didn´t see it as a situation for the divorce to be a benefit, so I am holding steady at 20 minutes with each.  Be ready with all sorts of awesome questions and stuff to ask me.  I´m gonna be wearing a white shirt and tie, so be ready for that.  Also, I consistently wear glasses and that might be odd for some of you.  Oh wait, that´s all exactly what you expect. Austin Robbins can be invited too.  But if he doesn´t want to, I mean that´s fine.  Well goodness look at all of that boring stuff that ended up being kind of long.  Sorry ya´ll!  I´m hoping this email is legit and makes everybody smile up a storm.  Smile storms are the best.  What the heck am I even saying...

Welp, I´m sure that I could keep blabbing on but instead I´ll hold off and talk to you all this week.  Unless we plan a visit.  Then you´ll have to wait 7 months.  But don´t worry.  That would be rare.  Because I´m not going to do that.  Welp. Brethren, Adieu!

Love, 

Elder Jefe-son.  Google that.  It means Elder the boss

I´m pretty sure.