The end of a decade, the start of an age

Long live!

 

Today is also the anniversary of the martyrdom of Joseph Smith.  Might be a good idea to read his history or something today. I dunno.  I just know I am extremely grateful for all he went through and supported so that I could have the true church in my life 175 years later. 

 

Moving right along.  It's been a pretty fast/blurry week.  The calm before the storm is still what I'm calling it.  Haha I'm sure that the president change won't actually change that much at all, but it's fun to get hyped up about it and make it a big deal.  On Monday we had our last meeting with President Watkins.  This Friday is when President Jackson will get here.  It's crazy how fast it has come. I remember a whole year ago when I was in the Canary Islands doing contacts with President Watkins.  Then going to the office and getting to know them so well, sleeping at their house on Christmas and whatnot.  Now I'm back and they're leaving.  I've learned a lot from the Watkins. Probably more than they'll ever realize.  Today is P-day of week 5 of the transfer, which means we all went to the temple.  It was cool to see all the missionaries in the Celestial Room and we all got to say bye to President Watkins.  And that's that.

 

Elder Rigby, Elder Jeppson & President Watkins

President Watkins & Elder Jeppson

Elder Rigby, President Watkins & Elder Jeppson

President Watkins, Elder Jeppson and Hermana Watkins

On to the missionary work instead of just my abstract thoughts.  It has been one of the best weeks of my mission in regards to the work.  We achieved the 20 lessons and 105 contacts goals of the mission.  It was a lot of hard work running around planning lessons and still finding time to talk to people in the street, but it was a good way keep us focused and working our hardest.  Zoila is all set to go on her fecha for the 7th of July.  It'll be the last weekend for Elder Rigby so it'll be cool for him to go out on a baptism.  She's really good.  She'll have her interview this weekend and then next week we'll get the service all set to go and life will be good. 

 

We also set a baptismal date with Katy.  Pronounced like Catty.  Or having to do with a cat. Gatos. Buah.  But she is way good. I've talked about her before. she's the one going through hard times that is a friend of a recent convert.  It's crazy to see how much it can change somebody's life just to say "Hey, you're already here whenever we share messages with María, would you like us to start visiting you too so you can see what we're all about?"  And now she's happier than I've ever seen her and understanding the purpose of this life and the importance of following Christ.  Might just be a simple little invitation, but it can still change lives.  That's the magic of this gospel.  Right there. 

 

I'll throw in a little miracle of the week for those of you who haven't gotten bored and left this email yet.  Yesterday, we decided to go to the Barrio 8 district meeting.  On our way into the stake center here on the temple grounds we ran into a member that has a mom going through some hard medical times.  She wanted us to offer her a blessing.  This is a pretty normal situation in the mission.  The miracle is that we were outside of our area and this lady came across us and her mom actually lives within our area.  Probably not like a huge deal. She could have found us through the proper means of talking to the temple square people and whatnot, but I think it was the hand of the Lord putting her there and us there at the same time so we could get over that afternoon and give her a blessing.  The priesthood is an amazing blessing. 

 

Well, that's about all I'm gonna talk about for this week.  Happy birthday to Abby and then Krista this coming week. I'm pretty sure I'll actually write on Krista's birthday, but I'm sure I'll forget to say something.  So here it is: FELIZ CUMPLEAÑOS (a las dos).  Hope it's a great week for everybody.  Hopefully I'll have good things to say next week. 

 

Love you all.  Keep it real back in Zion.  Disfrutad un poco del verano, eh?  Sorry the pictures are a little monotonous.  Can you use monotonous as a term talking about pictures? Is it even spelled monotonous? Sorry they're a little repetetive anyways. or is it repetitive? *sigh* Just have a great week.

 

Love,

Elder Tanton Jeppson

IWAWO

Wassup Nuckuhs?

Big welcome to Elder Gray.  Took me a couple of weeks but he survived and now he's on the list. Crazy.  

This past week has probably been the fastest one of the mission. And I'm sure it's all downhill from here.  We have found out that the Jackson's will get here on the 30th of this month.  I'm not sure if we'll meet them that day, or if we will have to wait until our weekly meeting on the 2nd, but either way that's like in 10 days.  And then a week after that my companion goes home and I feel like everybody is leaving me to go back to the states.  It'll be weird for a bit.  I'm pretty dang excited about it all though now.  I'm convinced it's gonna be good.  

I had a lot of time to write, but I wasted it all on LDS.org.  Sorry.  I also haven't written a letter in like.... 6 or 7 weeks probably. And my companion goes home in like 3 weeks, so he isn't super hot on hanging out in the piso to write people. I have a stack to write back to, but I just don't know when that'll happen.  I'll stop wasting time with excuses and write something worth reading.

Zoila is still going well. We had a lesson with her this weekend and she said she's been having some doubts and isn't sure if she still wants to get baptized and whatnot.  We had a doubt clearing up session and then took her to the temple on Sunday.  She loved it.  So she is basically back on board.  We did move her date back a week though to make sure we prepare her completely and she gets all the lessons in the proper way and whatnot.  But all is well after a little bit of a scare.  Fantastic.

We also are really close to setting a date with Claudia and also Karina.  Claudia is from Romania and Karina is from Ecuador.  We have talked to them both about it and basically they're just deciding on a date.  Hopefully within the next week that can be solidified.  Claudia is actually going back to Romania until mid July, so that will be a little bump in the road I suppose.  But it should be fine. Karina is just super shy and her big reason not to get baptized is having to bear her testimony in front of people... So we'll see I suppose.

We're actually teaching a lot of people right now, so I am not gonna go into a ton of details and whatnot, But the work continues to move forth.  The Lord is blessing us with people and we're doing what we can to get them closer to the waters of baptism.  It's a fun little job I must admit.  Ya never know what to expect, that's for sure.  

Today we played volleyball.  I thought I'd throw that out there for any volleyball players this makes it too.  I'm rusty. But I still love it.  I also thought you would all like to know that thet Red Bull X-Fighters freestyle event is coming to Madrid this year.  And to what part of Madrid? The Plaza de Toros, which we happen to pass every. single. day.  Talk about temptation at it's finest, eh? I might be a little trunky on July 20th.  But that's what's up these days.  Life is good. Come what may and love it. I love you all.

-Elder Tanton Jeppson

Paint the night NEON

Good 'ay mates. 

Here we are again.  Another Wednesday, another computer screen, another email.  The last week has seemed pretty dang normal.  Which is good I think.  I guess I'll share some parts of it with you.  

Zoila is legit.  She is way ready to get baptized.  Well, she will be by the 30th at least.  We taught her the word of wisdom this past week and she was like I can't drink coffee?! Buah! I guess I'll have to go back to my Colacao (it's like hot chocolate) then! Stuff like that just shows that she is doing her part and completely willing to change her life for the Lord.  Crazy the blessings that come once we just open up and let Him in completely.  

Hmm, another person that we taught this last week is named Kati.  She has been in and out of lessons with an investigator for the last month or two, but this time we taught her and focused on her.  Come to find out she is going through a divorce right now and that seems to be pretty rough.  Luckily (I suppose) I was able to tell her that my family is divorced as well and we're still all happy and that there really is hope.  It's super sad though cause she totally doesn't want to get divorced, but he is insistent.  They have 3 kids together.  Gotta be pretty rough for her these days.  But we taught about how the gospel offers us a fresh start and Jesus Christ wants to forgive us and help us overcome hard situations.  

I'm pretty drained on energy right now so I'm sorry if this jumpy and short.  

Monday morning we had a Zone Leader council.  Since President Jackson is coming in hot we decided to do it in a more personal way and we spent 1 hour - 1 hour and 15 minutes talking to each set of zone leaders.  Just talking about problems and successes and goals and whatnot about the zone so we can help President Jackson get right up to date on everything.  It took a good 6-7 hours though.  Made for a pretty fast/long Monday.  But we learned a lot about the missionaries and whatnot.  There are a lot of really good missionaries coming up in the mission.  Some good ones going home too, but I see a lot of hope and promise for the future here in the Madrid mission.  Lots of really good young guys that are gonna tear this mission up. I'm excited.  

So that's basically all I have for this week I suppose.  Been a really fast week. I'm sure there are things I'm forgetting and that's just gonna have to be okay I suppose.  I am grateful for this opportunity I have to throw on a name tag every morning and teach about the gospel.  It's legit.  As of today I have 5 more months of it too. We'll see if I can come up with some good stories and finish strong.  Thanks for all your support and help and prayers and whatnot.  You're the best.  

Love,

Elder Tanton Jeppson

P.S. No pictures. Sorry!

Sin sol es imposible la mañana

Fammmiillliiaaaaa!

It has been another week of my life and another week of the mission.  It has gone well.  

It's fun to be back in the same area where I started. It has helped me get to know the area really fast.  It's fun to be walking along and see all the places where I had all those experiences from clear back at the start.  I've even come across some people that I met back then.  We've been teaching a family that got baptized when I was here last time but is now inactive unfortunately.  Tryin' to get that spark to light the fire again. They're going through some real hard economical stuff though.  Makes it harder when the dad is working on Sundays.  But still fun to see Marcos and Kati again!

We also have met with a lot of new people.  Found a bunch of new investigators.  Now we just gotta teach them and do all we can to help them progress.  It's nice being able to find people that want to listen here so fast.  A lot different than it was up there in the north of Spain.  Good and bad.  The work here is a lot more of filtering through people and finding the ones that are truly prepared and ready for the gospel instead of people that are just not quite there yet we'll say.  All we can do is teach them and help them to help themselves learn for themselves.  Yup.

We set a baptismal date with a lady named María Zoila this past week too.  We invited her to get baptized the 30th of June.  She seems pretty excited.  She is the sister of a lady that got baptized about a month ago.  I guess she has been listening a bit too to the lessons, but was more hard hearted and didn't want as much.  But now she has been going to church and seeing her sister and decided she would like to prepare as well, so I'm sure it'll be a good month of June for her.  It truly is a blessing to be able to see so much progress in people and help them learn of Jesus Christ and achieve more of their potential.  

Church was pretty fun on Sunday.  Got to see a lot of members that remembered me.  Lots that didn't too.  Haha We're all just missionaries to the members in big wards.  That's one of the benefits of working in a smaller branch is you get to truly know the members and branch and help them out.  The good thing about a ward is you have tons of people that can help you and you can work with lots of investigators and get more references from the members.  I guess there's always a good and a bad to everything, eh?  

That's a pretty quick little overview of my week.  Glad to hear all is well back home.  Looks like there have been some people gaining more years and others losing more teeth, so life continues on.  Thanks for all your emails and words of encouragement and advice.  Ya'lls be good peoples.  I really do appreciate all the love and support from back home that I have. The mission is a crazy ride that I wouldn't trade for anything else during these two years.  Even an amazing wife and fun college times.  So many things that I have learned during these 18 months in the crazy country of Spain. I understand why people love the country that they serve in so much.  It's impossible to have so many experiences and meet so many people and have your testimony strengthened and not have a love grow for the mission as well.  I can't even remember all the bus rides, flights, train rides, lessons, meetings, contacts, and who knows what else that have all added bit by bit to who I am now and what I have learned.  I am extremely grateful for all I have learned up til now. Excited for the last 6 months and to see what good I can leave here in the field.  Start fast, finish strong, eh?

Oh, today we went go karting again as well.  I got beat by lame élder Hoskins though. Scoundrel! He also rides bullet bikes and whatnot.  I had a great time.  Just so you know it's been a great p-day as well and so you don't get really confused by the pictures!  

Os quiero

Elder Jeppson