Esto es mi hijo amado, ¡Escúchalo!

Blimey Jimmey, this gator´s a big ´un!

Alrighty, so I´m not really in a super big typing mood.  So if this email´s a short buzz kill, be grateful there are 104 weeks in the mission and it took me like 30 to fail (I know you´ve loved every other one).  Welp, first of all, I´m sure as heck still here in Arrecife.  Thank heavens!  We did get mini-missionaries.  This means they´re 19/20 year olds preparing for their mission or deciding if they want to go and so they come live with us and be our companions for a short period of time.  They will be here for 2 weeks. It´s still Elder White and I here in Arrecife, but we´re really with our mini companions.  Mine has the name of Amado.  I think you should snag out those last names before you blog this bad boy mom, because the missionary department just told us not to include anybodies full names in emails haha.  But so I´m kind of training.  He speaks Spanish pretty well, since he is from Gran Canaria.  He has a SUPER canary accent, which is like super lazy and all slurred together.  It´s perfect for a half sordo jokester like me when it comes to Spanish.  But when you train, you call them your son, right?  Well Amado means loved. in Spanish, adjectives go after.  Así que mi hijo amado means my son Amado as well as my beloved son, which is what Joseph heard in the first vision.  Thought you might like the explanation of the Subject today.  It´s rare, usually the subject is just a mind grenade and everybody spends the whole week trying to figure them out, right?  Cool.  Let´s crack this egg.

Last Thursday. Don´t really remember anything from it.  Don´t have my agenda here to review.  We did eat chicken and clean the piso though, I do remember those out of the norm things.  Friday. Ummmm. We did some missionary work.  Taught some English. Good stuff.  Saturday, we had a grand lesson with Christina.  Ugh.  I wish she didn´t love that the catholic church has so many idols and the Church of Jesus Christ doesn´t have as many.  She still doesn´t want to go back to church because of the emptiness of our idol-free zone.  Other than that she really is progressing little by little though.  She knows it´s true! I swear she does.  Whenever we invite her to make changes she says she wants to but it´s too hard to change and then lowers her head.  I want her to just give it a whirl and realize that yeah it´s hard but so worth it! Needless to say we are continuing with her. De hecho, taught her last night.  We´ll get there.  Sunday we went to church and then contacted and stuff and ate food to survive until Monday, when the mini missionaries came! Wahoo.  We picked them up from the airport and spent the morning getting them back home and unpacked and we went and got another cell phone and doing all that jazz that had to be done, then mediodía, then we whipped them right into the real (missionary) world.  Which means we walked. and we contacted.  And we knocked doors.  And my companion was like jimminy crickets we do this all the way til ten tonight? Yes sir.  So it was a pretty tiring day. But yesterday we had District Meeting, then a surprise meeting with President Watkins where he basically told the island missionaries that we need to drive less (we´re the only 2 without a car, so we didn´t feel too chewed out for that) and to baptize more.  The islands have been doing horrible this whole year baptism wise, and since our purpose is to baptize people, that´s not good!  Hopefully his little get-us-going talk works and the work picks up here in the Canaries.  Wicky Wack.  After we had meeting time we cooked food and went out and about.  These two punks from Gran Canaria love to cook, which is like...a miracle for missionaries.  So we´re loving the real food right now.  Grilled Cheese sandwhiches aren´t old after 2 months of them yet though ;) hahaha don´t worry mom and stepmom, it´s just a joke! We eat fine.  Hmmm, after we ate yesterday we went and contacted a bunch of people, they´re just as Spaniard and/or Colombian as ever.  

bunones...

Then we had a FME with some members, and then we taught Christina and Jon again.  Legit.  My comp loved when we taught people and felt the spirit and stuff.  It was great.  We taught the 10 commandments to them.  Number 2 was fun.  They gave us buñones.  They were good.  I might have even added a picture of them.  Not sure really.  If not, better luck next week I guess.  Today the day of glory we just went to Gran Hotel and up to level 17.  It´s the only building that has like more than 6 floors because of laws here on the island.  So we could see out over all of the reef (Arrecife is Spanish for reef). Good times, and now I´m in a hot and gross locutorio so I can let everybody know I´m still alive! Wahoo.  Good week, eh?  

Level 17 Gran Hotel

Level 17 Gran Hotel Looking over the reef

Welp, now that everybody knows I´m still here, feel free to send anything.  I did think of 2 new things for the package.  St. Ives face wash and refill lead for my pentel scripture marker pencil thing.  To find the second one, Deseret book.  Ask them where the 8-colored pencils are.  I would like dark blue, red, and that´s probably enough.  Just one little canister of each of those colors.  

To finish this one off, the best part.   So this past week I finished the Libro de Mormón for my first time in Spanish.  It was tough at first, but I could still feel the spirit of the book and what I needed to learn, a great example to me of the spirit the book has. By the halfway mark I could feel my Spanish improving a lot and I know it´s a blessing from Gordon B. Hinckley´s promise that if we read the Book of Mormon in a foreign language, by the time we finish it we´ll be able to communicate in the language (or something close to that).  I love the help from the Spirit.  It´s the recognizing it part that´s hard.  The second part of this is that I finished it on June 27.  This day is very important to me because it´s the day Joseph Smith was martyred.  He is such a hero to me.  So full of courage.  So many trials that he suffered to bring this amazing gospel into my life.  As he was the translator of the Book of Mormon, I thought it was pretty cool that I finished it then.  I went back into our little bedroom so I could kneel and pray and thank my heavenly father for Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. I know this gospel is true.  

I also pray and thank my Heavenly Father for all of you.  You´re the bestest bests out there.  

Love,
Elder Jeppson