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