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!