That is so dope!

Well hello there familia! Familia means family in Spanish.

It has been quite a week once again.  I really know that all missionary letters start out that way and then everyone of them says "I bet you're getting sick of hearing that" but I bet you really are getting sick of hearing that.  I am no longer in the Canary Islands.  So that's just a crying shame.  I might not seem so chipper this time.  But I might still, cause I have the song "El Amor Volverá" stuck in my head. EFY songs were never so great until they were in Spanish and I was on a mission.  Es cierto, algo me falta a veces!

Since we last spoke we have had 2 more zone conferences.  The first one was in the Islands.  It went pretty well.  We had played football(soccer) the day before and been in the sun lots and so I was pretty dead tired, but that was ok.  It still went quite well.  What we have been teaching in Zone Conference is about working with the members as well as tracting. How there is the importance in the both aspects of finding people.   We use the story of Ammon and Aaron.  Ammon served Lamoni by chopping peoples arms off and then the king listened to him.  That was a baptism thanks to his own initiative.  Then his whole family got baptized and gave the missionaries a reference of his father.  Which is then the importance of working through the members, less actives, and recent converts.  Look at that, the scriptures really do teach us how to live life.  Even how to be missionaries.  Crazy.  I really like the part where King Lamoni's dad asks Aaron where Ammon is and basically Aaron is like "Dude, they transferred him. I'm the new missionary. What's up?" Because whenever there are transfers people are always like "Ohhh man and 'so and so' was just about to get baptized in my last area too!" Suck it up dude, it's been happening since 90 years before Christ in the Antiguas Americas! So that is basically what we have been teaching. We also use a marble example with bags and they represent people and whatnot, but I don't really want to explain all of that right now, so just know we came up with it in the Vigo piso and it seemed kind of lame but people seem to legitimately enjoy it, so that makes me feel better about it. 

Elder Jeppson & Amado (mini-missionary)

After the conference on Thursday we had a little bit of time before our flight, so I asked the Vecindario missionaries if they could take me to see my mini-missionary that I had had a year ago.  They said yes. I said thanks.  So they took me and Elder Ashworth over to see him and it was real cool to get to see him again. He was with his girlfriend, who actually reminded me a lot of Kylie. So maybe Amado will get out on a mission here in about a year.  That'd be wicked cool.  But it is crazy to see how much difference a year has made in my ability to communicate with him.  Back when we were together I think he didn't like the fact that I sounded like a terrible American and couldn't say hardly anything. Now I sound like a terrible American but I can actually joke around with him and communicate now. It's crazy how much a year changes things.  The language really does just come with time....and study I suppose. Mostly just time though.

The weekend went pretty normal.  Had some lessons on Friday and then Saturday night we had Katty's baptism! It went quite well.  The one nice thing about working in a ward instead of a branch is there are a lot of members and that means that sometimes you'll get a good ward mission leader that actually plans and gets everything ready for the baptism.  Which means we don't have to worry about it while we're flying to the Canary Islands :)  But it all went well and even her husband, who is going through the separation thing with her, came and supported her. So we're hoping that might spark some interest and maybe he'll hop on board in the future. 

Katty's baptism

Monday was a pretty normal day, but during our meeting with president he definitely made it sound like a very likely possibility that I will be transferred out after this transfer. I would not complain about that. I guess I have done everything I needed to do or learned everything I needed to learn real fast here.  Mostly president just found out I have never trained in my mission and that I will only have 12 weeks left of the mission after this transfer. Well, with the new training program it takes 12 weeks to finish, so I would need to be moved out of AP to train at the end.  I always wanted to train. Never got to. Obviously nothing is final til it's final, but I thought I would let the family in on a little transfer leak there.  

Yesterday was the Madrid zone conference. That is about 2/3 of the mission.  It was actually what I would say our best presentation though up til this point.  Everything went really well and it's always great to see all the missionaries and have a good time.  But I will not lie, I was dead tired in the whole afternoon.  I love the mission. The best two years of your life? Que va! More like the two most tired years of your life. Doesn't even matter that I sleep way more now than in High School.  I still somehow always have the energy I need to be a missionary though.  Life moves on.  

So that's about it. I'm real excited for this week. We have a train in an hour and a half that will take us to... Gijón!  I miss that place.  We're having zone conference there on Friday.  Today is actually not our P-Day.  But I'm writing anyways so that my mother doesn't think I've gone scuba diving without a tank in the islands or something.  We're going to have P-Day tomorrow with the León Zone in Oviedo.  Then do intercambios in Gijón with the zone leader and I am way excited to go visit all my little Gijonés friends.  It's gonna be dope! That is soooo dope! I love you all.  Tune in next week for another email that starts "Wow. It's been a crazy week!"

Love,

Elder Jeppson