Heroes are hard to find...

Familia. Hello.

I must admit, I have pictures this week.  People have been missing them apparently, but I just haven't taken any since the last time I sent some. So sorry! 

So it's been another pretty darn good week.  I've smiled at least 10 times.  I'd say more.  But I'm trying to be an optimist these days so.... let's start.  We ate some glorious Dominican food last Thursday with Esmeralda.  She's this great member here. Zoraida's mom, de hecho.  Zoraida is the mom of the family if I have never mentioned that.  So she is helping us by supporting her daughter and their family.  We met with the family on Thursday night too.  We finished up the Plan of Salvation with them and it went glorious!  We took our branch president and he really got to meet them and see their progress and was a máquina en the lesson with us. So it was a win-win situation.  Then on Friday we met with the mom to set up a stop drinking plan.  It was a really good lesson about the Word of Wisdom.  Gave her a calender to see her progress and everything. Wahoo!  They then came to church on Sunday.  Except that little scallywag again.  We're racking our brains for any ideas possible that we can do to get that punk to come to church! Unfortunately, 2 hour sessions of conference aren't the best to interest an 11 year-old.  But we're gonna do what we can by dang! Church went really well for them. Lots of support and stayed the whole time.  The dad later told us he woke up and said he wasn't going to go, but then prayed for strength and ended up getting up and getting ready.  What? Legit! Win!  Then we met with them that night too with Florín.  He's the Romanian that gave us the reference, remember him?  Well he's dope.  And did a great job of helping us teach them the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  I asked the mom if I could see her calender to see if she had been following the plan and she said "No hace falta.  No he bebido ninguna cerveza desde entonces!"  Jolín!  That was a fantastic moment.  So she has started out strong.  And that's where we sit with them for now.  We should have a lesson with them this afternoon.  

Things are going well the mom of the other part member family too.  She didn't come to church this week, which made me sad, but she says she's gonna come to conference and so we're gonna challenge her to have some questions ready beforehand so she can find out if they're real apostles and if the church is restored and whatnot.  Let's hope it all goes well and Conference for the win!  Like always.  

Speaking of which, let's talk about Conference.  Lots of people have asked.  We get to watch Conference here in our fantastic church building that's a real church building.  We'll see one session on Saturday, and then 3 on Sunday.  That's it.  I won't get to see the afternoon session of Saturday, but I plan on downloading it next p-day and putting it on my flash drive. So I'll get to hear it anyways.  I ain't gonna let no conference get away from me.  I love it.  Conference is so legit if you prepare for it spiritually.  Have some questions in mind. Pray about it.  Think about where you're at and where you want to go. Then watch it, listen for answers and have the faith and courage to put it into action. That's what we've been teaching a lot this last week, so I thought maybe you'd like to hear it as well.  

Pedro.  I forgot to talk about him last week I think.  Oops. Sorry :)  He is a Dominican too that has a mom that is less active, but has been going to church for like 8 months again.  They say he got baptized when he was 8 in the Dominican Republic, but there are no church records for it.  So we have been the lucky ones to go through and re-teach him everything and he passed his baptism interview on Saturday.  So he'll be getting baptized right before conference over here in Spain on Saturday.  It'll be legit!

And today we went on a walk along this big cliff place up here on the coast of Spain.  If you can look really far off into the distance in some of them, I think France is over there somewhere.  I miss you Tim.  

Happy birthday Mom.  One year older and wiser too!  Happy Birthday to Krista on July 4th of last year too, I guess I forgot.  :)

Love you all!

-Elder Jeppson

Elder Jeppson and Elder Rigtrup

Elder Jeppson & Elder Rigtrup

Lions don't play Hunger Games...Toma!

Well fine day to ye all.

I can't believe it's already been a month since I left Alcobendas and came up to Gijón.  Another testament to me that time has wings.  Just keeps on flying by.  Slippin' right into the future.  But let's talk a little about this past week.

It's been a week a bit different than normal.  Crazy, eh? but really, it's been quite normal.  We did set up a couple of quit smoking plans.  It still continues to blow my mind how many people smoke over here. I never thought I would come home from my mission addicted to cigarettes after so much secondhand smoke! So if I suffer some withdrawals, just support and love me.  But I have never really worked with anybody that smokes on the mission, as crazy as that sounds.  I don't know how, but it's just something that dodged me I guess..

For Mediodía on Saturday we had dinner with a family of recent converts that the mom of the family (María) is not a member.  We have been working with her lately and they had invited us over to eat charlafan, which is basically just Ecuadorian fried rice haha with hot dogs and ketchup thrown in. Welcome to Spain...or Ecuador... and then we had a lesson with them.  She hadn't read.  Which was sad. But we gave a good lesson about how we can gain a testimony and talked about how important it is to read and go to church, then invited her to church and she said straight up no.  Crap.  So I asked her why and she said she already goes to another church that starts at the same time and she is just waiting for her Father to call her to the path. I bore testimony that I was willing to go to her church if she would come to ours and then told her that it was very possible that we, as missionaries, were the answer that her Father was sending her to change her paths. I tried to be bold, but not overbearing, but I left that meeting wondering if I had just left another Ecuadorian offended.  Kinda felt bad, to be honest....

We met with Luis and Zoraida on Saturday night and at first we were a little scared cause we showed up on time and nobody was there.  That came at the end of a pretty long time of blegh too.  My companion was just like downtrodden and I just tried to smile and act like it was exactly what we wanted to happen.  Eventually they all started rolling in though and by 8:30 they had all showed up! Ha! And we had a good lesson about how praying, reading the scriptures, and attending church are the foundation of our testimony, which is the rock of Christ basically.  Helaman 5:12, anybody?  It was a good lesson.

Then Sunday rolled around. Ohhh Sunday.  It was the craziest Sunday I have had at church on the mission I think.  Why? Because there were 10 non-members there! Jolín! 10 out of the 50 people that were at church.  Luis's family came (except for Wagner, that little punk!) and even brought a friend (who is the father of another family of 5..we're working on that..), Pedro came (I'll talk about him in a minute), Oseias was there, and María!  María is the Ecuadorian from up above that I thought I had offended.  Needless to say we were extremely excited and trying to make sure everybody had a great time at church.  Most of them even stayed for the whole 3 hours.  Luis and his family almost left, but some members invited them to stay and they did! It was sooo great! I love the tender mercies of the Lord.  

The only other thing I have time to mention is that we went down to León again on Monday for a 4 hour meeting I had to go to.  It was... interesting.  Kind of boring, but we talked about lots of good things to help others and improve the mission, so that was fun.  Although I am growing to love/hate that 2 hour bus ride.  The good news is it goes through the mountains and I get to see snow.  We drove through a blizzard.  That's what's up!  So that's basically what happened in the last wonderful week of Elder Jeppson.  Did you enjoy it? I sure did.  

Love you all. You're fantastic.  and great. and glorious. and stuff...

-Elder Tanton Jeppson

Ya know, I dream sometimes about flying...

Who doesn't?  G´day mates! Rise and shine! I think ya'll had daylight savings time, no? If not, then soon.  Fathers day is this week here in Spain, so here's to a good Father's day on the 19th to Dad and Brad! Also, Let me rock some birthday wishes I suppose.  Melissa, last week, yeah! Trey on the 10th, Wahoo! Caden, you are a big oldy now too. I didn't forget about you. And Natalie should hit 2 this week I think too.  So holy smokes just a good time to have a birthday I suppose. Happy Birthday! 

It's been quite the week.  Just like always. Even if it isn't quite the week, it's still quite the week.  Don't judge me.  So that Angela girl that was so fantastic won't answer the phone now and we didn't get to help them move.  Dang you Colombianos!  But we have had some good visits with others.  We've been working with some of the less active members and members that are recent converts and whatnot.  For the most part we don't really have any investigators except Luis and Zoraida and their family.  Which leads me to happiness.

We met with them last Wednesday and had a good lesson with them about the Restoration.  But, they told us they couldn't come to church on Sunday (so I guess no Hippogriff :( rats!)  and in the end, they weren't able to come.  They had to do a bunch of stuff with their house all day and basically transformed their house.  Well, after church we wanted to make sure they knew they were loved and everything was ok, so we passed by around 3.  They were still really busy but we got them to let us come by at 8:30.  So we went by at 8:30.  The whole family was there so we talked about the first half of the plan of salvation and need to be baptized.  Well, the daughter had had a dream the night before that she had gotten baptized and felt cleaner and happier than ever before.  The mom was like "first she has a dream and then you two come here teaching us about it!" Haha and then towards the end I really felt like we needed to invite them to get baptized, so I did.  And they accepted!  So as for now, they're on to get baptized the 14th of April.  We're pretty dang stoked that this whole family wants to get baptized.  Yeah! That's what this work is all about.  Families being together forever.  So that was pretty much the highlight from the week.

On Monday I went down to León to do exchanges with Elder Evans.  He is this big Marine that is just super full of love and a great guy.  León is also a pretty old school Spanish city.  Lots of like old-school walls and such, so that was kind of fun.  We taught some investigators they have that are from Columbia about the Spirit and how we can recognize it and listen to the whisperings.  And also a recent convert.  Other than that we did some contacting and looking for people.  We talked to a lot of people that day...

Then we switched back yesterday at district meeting.  So it was a pretty good exchange.  Got know Elder Evans better and decided I'm joining the military after.  Just kidding.  But seriously, that'd be crazy.  The big news from yesterday though was that transfer news came out.  It's a really weird situation, since we're 2 weeks into this transfer already, so it'll only be 4 weeks long.  But Elder Rigtrup and I are staying together here in Gijón for now.  Surprise surprise!  There will actually be another mini transfer next week with some other missionaries that will be coming in, but we'll see if that affects us at all.  Not a lot of changes up here in our zone.  3 leaving us and 2 coming in.  Lots of changes in the rest of the misison though. Only 4 went home and 12 came in with 5 more coming in next week.  So that's fun.  

Thanks for everything just like always.  It's always nice to know that even if I have hard times that I'm so supported from back home that it's impossible to lose faith.  Ya'lls is the best. I even got a couple of letters to Gijón this past week, crazy!  I love you all. I love this gospel. I love sharing it.  There's always a way back to our Heavenly Father.  If there's something that needs to be changed or fixed, it can be changed or fixed.  I can only imagine what this life would be like without that hope.  Welp, no pictures this week either, so you'll have to forgive me.  Until next Wednesday.

Como jefe,

Elder Jeppson

Forgive me if I'm young...

Hippogrif

Hello familia.  ¿Como estáis todos? 

Another week has come and gone and it's been a pretty good one.  Nothing too out of the ordinary, but that's mission ordinary so there was still a lot of stuff that happened I suppose.  Crazy what happens when you replace Facebook time from before the mission with "walk around the streets of Spain and talk to everybody you can about the church" time.  

So we were supposed to have transfers this past week (I was emergency transferred up here a bit early), but last Wednesday we found out that there are 12 missionaries that had just barely gotten their visas and can't enter until the 15th of March, so transfers have been postponed until then, and then we'll just have ea short little 4-week transfer instead of 6 week transfer.  So that's interesting. I imagine I will be staying here in Gijón, so don't get your hopes up too high of my grand island return (although I think that was in the works until crap hit the fan...).  Not just yet ;) My hunch for the coming transfer is that Élder Rigtrup and I get split up and 2 more missionaries come up here to Gijón to be with us.  When I was in the office President had been trying to get two companionships up here and there's a lot more coming in than left, so we'll see what happens.  

On to fun stuff instead of politics... Last week I went on exchanges with Elder Ottesen in Oviedo.  It was pretty sweet.  I was hobbling around because apparently soccer rocks my world, but we got some good work done and found some good people.  We also got to travel up to Avilés to teach a family up there.  There currently aren't missionaries in that city, so it was a pretty rare chance to be able to go there.  It was fun to get to work in their area though and see how the work is going and meet a couple of the members over there and whatnot.  

Then it was back to good ol' Gijón.  I'm really starting to get along with the members well and warmed up to them.  This was one of my goals was to really focus on involving the branch up here in the missionary work.  My experiences up til now in the mission have definitely helped me realize even more the importance of members in the work.  If we work with the members then we strengthen the branch as well as the investigators at the same time.  Way more efficient.  We've been focused on Luis's family lately.  They are a reference from a Romanian member here.  They're from the Dominican Republic.  It's the dad, mom, and 3 kids.  So a family of 5.  Wahoo! Families can be eternal.  The problem has been that we can't meet with them an absolute ton, so we're trying to get to meet with them during the week too, but the dad works a lot, so it's a bit hard.  We do have a visit with them tonight though.  Hopefully the dad can get home from work on time.  This past week only the mom and daughter came to church, so we're gonna try and get all 5 to come this week.  That would just be like getting your very own Hippogriff for me.  

We also have been meeting with a lot of the members up here.  We met this one Paraguayo que se llama Sebastián. Colombianos and Paraguayos.  Those are just my gente.  I think I was supposed to serve in both those countries, but Heavenly Father couldn't call me to both, so I came here haha.  But he and his wife are not active these days.  They say the people here are cold.  Surprise surprise. South Americans loved the church over there then came here and didn't like the cold people so they went inactive.  Ay ay ay.... They seem really good though, and there is a different girl that lives with them (when she isn't working interna) that isn't a member, so we're seeing all sorts of little opportunities that will hopefully blossom into a boom of glory soon.

Not a lot more time, but a quick story.  So we had a good day of contacting ahead of us on Monday, and we wanted to a  great job, so we chose a section of the city, then prayed and asked Heavenly Father to put somebody in our path that needed us.  Monday mornings are usually pretty hard to talk to people on the street, so we were knocking doors and came across this....you guessed it....colombiana! She seemed really good and excited to meet with us and we haven't been able to yet, but she seems to have alot of potential.  she said she is moving on Friday to a different part of town, so we're gonna try and get in on the action and do some service. yeah!

I also learned how to make Spanish Tortilla today.  My wife will be able to cook that.  It's fan-freaking-tastic.  

I love you all. I know this church is true and I'm just doing my best to do my duty and share it with everybody.  Read that Book of Mormon.  It's true.  We've really been trying to teach and share the Book of Mormon lately and it's crazy how strong the Spirit is in those lessons.  That's about it for today.  

Love you all,
Elder Tanton Jeppson

Like a Boss.

Yo conduzco, y ella me guía

Hello familia. 

 

No time today. So it'll be short.  But that's ok, cause we got a lot of time left to write more in the future. 

Gijón.  Wow.  Love it.  It's way different than the other places I've served here in Spain.  Way more Spaniard.  Lots of old Spaniards here.  Which is cool. Makes the work a little tougher, but I mean where there's a will there's a way. 

The zone conference went well last week.  We didn't have much time to plan it.  Elder Hodges and I just kind of found a scripture that summed up what we wanted to say and then I said "Can we talk about pirates? I love pirates." and so we talked about pirates hahaha.  Anybody that knows me knows that ninjas will never be talked about in a zone conference. Boo! We talked about how our faith is the hull of our ship and our excitement/ánimo to do the work is the mast.  Those two are enough to serve the mission, but if we want to be efficient and really get work done we need a rudder, which is our obedience.  Which is a really weak point in the north here.  So that's what we talked about.  It went quite well I thought.  But it's always easier to say that if you plan it and aren't in the audience bored to death.

Got to Gijón Thursday night and basically spent the weekend getting to know people.  There are a lot of good faithful members here and lots of less actives too. Who would have thought! less actives in Spain... Crazy?  There is a Chapel here too! Not just a bajo.  A real building that is owned by the church where we have church.  That is a miracle! So beautiful.  So that's fun.  I'm really short on time today. So hope all is well haha.  I tried to attach a lot of pictures, but they're not working. It says three are attached.  We'll see if they send. I'll try a different email after this one and see if I can swing it. 

I know this church is true and I do rightly love being in the service of the Lord.  Hope ya'lls know that.  Keep up the grand work and don't be afraid to write me.

-Elder Jeppson

-Elder Jeppson