And a little less like a board...

 

Well hello there family!  I have probably done more things in the last week to write about than any other week in the mission and I have less time than usual. 
Good combo...and go!

So last Wednesday night after P-day ended we had to catch a train to go up to Vigo.  There was a zone conference in A Coruña on Friday and since President Jackson wanted us to go with him, we figured we might as well go a day early to get some exchanges in with the zone leaders since we don't usually get to since they're so far away.  It was fun to be in Vigo again. Crazy to be back to that area after I had been away for so long. Seems like just yesterday and it also seems like 3 years ago.  Either way, fun to be back on the same streets. I even finally took a picture with the fishermen statue that I always walked past and always wanted a picture with but just procrastinated too much.  I got to go on exchanges with Elder Reeder while I was there. He is from Brigham City and basically lived the same life I lived, just on the other side of the mountain. I mean, the kid was even a projectionist before the mission! It was good to get to talk to him and all.  He has been going through some rough times with the companions and whatnot he has had at the start of his mission so I just talked to him about how hard Vigo was for me too and I feel like we had a real good time together.  Elder Ashworth went with the zone leader Elder Tyndale-Biscoe and then that night we caught a train to A Coruña for Zone Conference.

Zone Conference was great. It was the first one with the Jacksons so they had a lot of good plans and a good message to basically get the mission transitioned over to the Jackson style of life I guess you could call it.  Talked about the Army of Helaman and how we know how great they were, but it never talks about any of them individually.  What really matters is they had unity and they got their job done.  It is the same in our mission.  It was good. We talked about members and the importance of working with them.  I would love to talk more but I'm in a 9 minute rush so... I got to go with the zone leader in A Coruña after the conference.  Elder Rodríguez Silva.  It was fun to get to know him and talk about his zone a little bit and get a cool picture with the sea hahaha.  Not a lot more to share about that. We caught another sleeper train (super small, tight beds) and were back to Madrid.

Elder Jeppson, Zoila, Elder Ashworth

So we woke up in Madrid on Saturday.  Crazy fast trip but crazy busy and went really fast.  The baptism of Zoila was the big news from Saturday.  It went really well. Katty also had her interview for her baptism next week.  It was cool to hear her tell us how strong her testimony is. I am honestly grateful for the 2 week delay because of all the things that happened and how much it strengthened her testimony of this decision. I know she made this decision because she truly believes it and not just because she wanted others to see her get baptized.  I also got to confirm her on Sunday, so that was really cool.  Always a good experience to get to use the priesthood.

I'm gonna jump to Tuesday night. We caught a flight to the CANARY ISLANDS. So I'm back here in paradise baby! I don't know how I have gotten so lucky on my mission.  But I'm here again. I'mon Grand CAnaria and we had a real good p-day today. So I'm not complaining. I am out of time though so just know that we got to see some cool look out points and I miss the ocean breeze like nothing else in this world. Except a couple of people maybe. And even then it's a close tie probably.  So have a great week. Keep it real. The gospel is true. I love you all!

-Elder Jeppson

It's all about style...

Well hello there. A wonderful day, isn't it? A bit hot, but I'll take what I can get these days. 

It has been another crazy week.  Basically we just run around doing everything we need to and in between everything we try and think of things we're forgetting to do. It's great fun. I'm gonna start with a miracle of the week. Actually, I'm gonna start with a miracle of the mission. Gotta get it out before everyone gets bored, eh?

Elder Jeppson, Zoila, Elder Ashworth & Sergio in front of Plaza de Toros

So back to Zoila.  I can't remember where I had ended off with her. Probably with her not getting baptized but saying she would still meet with us.  Cool.  I'll go from there. So Friday we called her and asked her if we could meet with her on Saturday.  She was a little bit like "Well I don't know when I get off work and so I don't know if I'll get home but if I do I'll call you..." Right. So we set up a visit with her sister at 7, hoping that we would catch her at home as well.  Success! When her sister got home Zoila was there as well. Fantastic. So we used the opportunity of Elder Ashworth being new to ask her what was her story and what she was looking for and everything and all seemed well. She told us about a dream that she had had in which she returned to our church and a bunch of dead plants became alive again.  I wonder what that dream can be interpreted as, eh? We unfortunately didn't have a lot of time, but she came to the Ward Home Evening with us and then took us out to pizza after! Legit.  So we were pretty excited and seemed good. 

And then on Sunday she didn't come to church.  She had told us she had gone back to the catholic church the week before, and so when she wasn't there, I immediately knew she had gone to the catholic church again.  Which was another downer I suppose while we were there in church. Especially since one of her doubts had been how we partake of the sacrament.  Ugh.  But she can only meet Saturdays and Sundays, so right after church I called her to see if we could meet with her in the afternoon cause we didn't want to miss that chance.  She said yes.  We chose to take Victor, a member that had accompanied us a couple of times before with her. We asked him to ask her some questions as well, since we wanted to verify some of her doubts but we had already asked her.  So as we started the lesson he started asking her questions about what had happened and how it had made him sad and whatnot. She explained that she had gone to the Catholic priest that morning and had a talk with him.  She talked to him about what she wanted in life and mistakes she had made and how she was about to be baptized in our church but didn't in the end. She also asked him about the Book of Mormon and whatnot.  She told us that he said the Book of Mormon was a good book, and the Mormons were a good religion.  He then told her that he doesn't believe in baptizing babies, but only does it cause parents ask him to.  

Throughout all of this she kept saying "esto."  that means "this" in English.  "This" is not very specific when talking back and forth between Mormons and catholics.  She kept saying "I have decided I want to continue with 'this'."  Every time that got my hopes up, like "this" means the Book of Mormon and our church.  but then she seemed really nervous and so I thought maybe she meant the catholic church and she didn't want to continue with us.  The third time she did this, the member asked her when she was gonna get baptized.  She was like, well, I guess these two (talking about us) are in charge of that, aren't they? Which was like the moment we finally found out what "this" meant hahaha.  My companion and I (and Victor) all had like a giant sigh of relief.  So we talked to her and decided it'd be best if she gets baptized this Saturday!  So she's back on track for baptism this Saturday.  All thanks to her catholic priest testifying to her of the Book of Mormon.  That, my friends, is a pretty cool story. I guess the Lord has lots of tools to bring his children to the fold...

I don't even know what else to talk about haha.  We're way excited about that.  We also set 2 other dates this week. So we have 4 lined up for now. 2 are real fijo.  2 are...coming along. We'll see if they do their part.  It's crazy cool to get to see the gospel work in the lives of others.

We also had a leadership meeting this last Monday.  All the Zone Leaders and District Leaders came.  President talked about the desire to work coming from within us and not needing outside motivators (like counting contacts) to make us want to work.  We then talked about having a good attitude and not being prideful as leaders because one day we might be ayudante and the next just a regular missionary or district leader.  We all change seats around the table of leadership in the church.  After the meeting we helped the Elders in B8 move.  

After having such a miracle story of this week I'll also share a failure.  I missed a train.  After all my months I've had running missionaries around the blasted mission, I have never missed a train. But we did on Monday. We picked up a mini missionary and drove him to Chamartín.  We were running late and had taken a wrong turn or two so when we got there we knew it was close.  We literally ran through the whole station and ran down the platform and the lady saw us coming and looked us in the eyes and then grabbed the rope and slowly dragged it shut in front of our faces.  We missed it by like literally 6 seconds.  Ugh. So we bought another stupid ticket and put him on the train that left 20 minutes later.  No big deal. Just lost some money and damaged my pride.  Thought you would like to know that not all missionary stories are throwing the bags on at the last second and making it.  Awww man!

Taking the English to an American diner.   

"Let's go to Calle Alcalá to contact. There's
ALWAYS people there."

So that's about all I have for now. I get along real well with my new companion.  He's from England, and he's a champion.  We're always laughing and just making sure we don't lose the spirit of the work.  It's great.  The best is that we always argue about if England is better or if the States are better. Obviously the States. Revolutionary war, need I say more? I guess I have a pretty bad English accent now though. He says it used to be better and it's getting worse.  Stupid kid from Manchester. It's all about London!

Love you all!

-Elder Jeppson

Us with Zoila and Sergio in front of the plaza de toros

"Let's go to Calle Alcalá to contact. There's ALWAYS people there"

Taking the English to an American diner.  Toma tío!

Sobreviviendo la matanza

Elder Ashworth & Elder Jeppson

Alright mates!

Do I sound a little English? My new companion is from England.  So if I use
words like rucksack and rubbish bin, well I'm just going back to the roots,
alright?

It's been a crazy week.  Just crazy.  I'll start with the sadder news.
Right after leaving the locutorio last week (that's where I write my
emails home to you) we got a call from Zoila telling us that she didn't
want to get baptized after all on the 7th.  Crushing.  We told her to think
about it for 24 hours and to call us on Thursday with her final decision.
She did. Same final decision.  So that was pretty sad.  She didn't come to
church on Sunday either and the two times we met with her sister she wasn't
there.  The good news came on Sunday night when she called us to apologize.
I asked her if we could meet this Saturday (we can only meet on Saturdays
and Sundays) and talk about what had happened and whatnot and she said yes.
So this Saturday we are going to talk to her to figure out what happened
and see if we can help her overcome her doubts.  I think she found
something on the Internet. Not really sure though. So that's a bitter sweet
story. At least she called us and is willing to meet again though.  Still
pretty sad for a last weekend letdown for Elder Rigby. I felt bad for him
for that.  High hopes to go out baptizing and then doesn't happen.  It's
alright though. She'll get baptized.

Katty is doing really well still. She is taking notes and reading lots and
really has caught the spirit.  She still has her date for the 28th of July.
She is understanding everything really well and really progressing. It's
great to be able to see it.  The blessing of the gospel.  We called Brian
again to see if we could visit him and he told us we could, but when we
went by nobody was home, so we'll see if we can't get a hold of him this
weekend.

That's the missionary side of things in a nutshell.  The last week of my
life hasn't been the most missionary work I've ever done, but definitely
some of the busiest days of my life.  On Sunday, we picked up my new
companion, Elder Ashworth.  He is from England, as I said before.  He is
way legit.  Real fun guy.  Hard worker.  Plays Rugby, so you know he could
eat me if he wanted.  I don't know what else to say really.  Elder Rigby,
Elder Ashworth, and I all stayed the night at the mission home after eating
with the Jacksons and then Monday morning we went to the Stake Center and
had the transfer meetings where we left Elder Rigby and now I'm with Elder
Ashworth.  Sad to see elder Rigby go.  He and his family are doing a 2 week
tour of Spain together though, so I don't feel too bad for him.

Yesterday was a really busy day as well.  We had the new missionaries
come in from the MTC. So we had a meeting to train the trainers, and
then we met with the new missionaries and eventually sent them out to
the field.  They are always so excited and scared of not being able to
speak Spanish. I love it.

An adventure from yesterday: We dropped 8 missionaries off at the
train station to head north. 4 to Santiago. 4 to León.  The 4 going to
Santiago called us about 10 minutes after we had left because the
train man wouldn't let them on their train.  We returned.  I talked to
the man for like 5-10 minutes and he just would not let them on with 2
bags.  The blasted tickets say 3 bags on them and we have NEVER had
problems in the past with this.  The lady who scans tickets herself
even said "Ésta es una tontería". Which basically translates to this
is ridiculous.  But the man was in charge so we sent them to the north
with just one of their two bags.  So we currently have 4 bags in our
car. The other 4 made it on their train just fine.  Such is life I
guess....

That's about all I have time for. I hope my emails aren't like boring
now.  If they are, well there are loads of other great missionaries
with blogs. Google one of them and just know that lots of missionaries
are out here doing work.  Like a boss baby. I love this work. I'm
grateful, as always, for all of you.  I'll try and attach photos, but
it isn't looking promising. Pretty ghetto computer today.  Love you
all!

-Elder Tanton

Just give her the dollar! Give it to her!

Well hello there familia.  What a week it has been. I say that in the most true sense I can say it, and not just in the literal "well no kidding" way.  I don't even know where to start.

 

I did exchanges on Thursday in Alcorcón with Elder Lisonbee.  Elder Hoskins wanted to eat with a member that lives in our area hahaha I don't know if I approve of the reasoning completely, but just decided to take advantage of it and do a real exchange with Elder Lisonbee.  It was fun. He's pretty new.  Speaks Spanish pretty well.  Doesn't mix up cagar with hacer caca.  So that's good hahaha.

 

Onto the good stuff. Friday morning the Watkins went to the airport to pick up the Jacksons and bring them back to the office. So we went out to the office to meet them with the secretaries and the Ovards.  We had a little meeting.  It was actually really spiritual. We all thanked the Watkins and introduced ourselves quickly to the Jacksons.  They then talked for a minute about who they were and their plans and what they want.  It was pretty short and then we just went back out and worked the weekend like normal. It was sad to see the Watkins leave, but it is going to be great to get to meet the Jackson's too.  Pretty much exactly what I was expecting I guess.

 

Zoila passed her interview on Saturday, so she will be getting baptized this weekend.  She is way excited and ready.  So that's good.  She's gonna be a good member after. I guess I should say that after anybody that's getting baptized though, eh? 

 

We also found a pretty cool 15 year old Colombian this past weekend. His name is Brian.  He totally wants to learn more and when we taught the restoration he was like "well I didn't know all of this before!"  Haha you didn't know about Joseph smith 15 year-old Brian?  Come on man! Hhahaha We passed by his house on Sunday morning to take him to church though and he didn't come down and we couldn't get him to answer the phone.  So that was a downer there I guess. We'll try and see what we can do this week...

 

Sunday Spain won the Europe cup.  We saw the last 2 goals as we entered the piso. It was way cool to see them all cheer and to get to join in. The Eurocup is second only to the World Cup.  They also only have it every 4 years. I picked a good two year to go on a mission. Start with a world cup win and end with a Eurocup win.

 

Monday.  We had our first meeting with President Jackson.  Wow.  We also have transfers after this week.  President Jackson has to approve transfers. He doesn't know almost anybody in the mission still.  Needless to say we had quite the task before us.  We had done a draft setting with President Watkins, but we found out over the weekend that a couple more people had gotten there visas and would be entering the mission.  So we had to make a lot of changes to come up with more trainers and also President Jackson wanted to change some things. We went over every single missionary and what we know about them and their personalities and everything, and then we all tried to tackle transfers.  there is a lot more to transfers than you would ever guess. I had realized this when I made a mock transfer schedule for Elder Bauer when I was training him in the office, but doing it for real was even more crazy. We didn't even finish.

 

Tuesday.  We took the Jackson's to a district meeting in the morning.  It was their first time going into Madrid.  A gypsy cleaned our window (they always try, we usually let them know w don't want it on time, but this one was sneaky!).  The Jackson's then realized they wanted money but none of us had change, so they in a frenzied hurry gave them an american doller bill they had found in their wallet. It was way funny.  She just stared at it like it was this extremely foreign object.  I suppose it really was to her though... Crap. 

 

After district meeting we went back out to the office and finished all the logistics and tried to help President Jackson get as up to date as possible on the mission.  It's already been fun to meet with him and his wife and get to know them.  They're almost like two other missionaries with us.  They're gonna be great for the mission.  We've got plans to get them out to the whole mission withing the next couple of weeks.  Should be lots of fun interviews for him and zone conferences for us. 

 

Today is the 4th of July.  Happy Birthday America! I mean Krista! Los dos!  We had a big activity of all of us here in Madrid.  A barbecue and lots of soccer.  I don't have any pictures unfortunately because I left my dang camera in the office. So a lot of words and no pictures.  Welp, I guess we can't always be perfect!  Hope it's been a great day for all of you.  I'm out of things to say so I'll go do more things so I can have more words on Wednesday.  have a great week.  Or not, the choice is yours!

 

Elder Tanton Jeppson