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 

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