A finch wakes up to worms.

¡Buenos días!

How is my glorious family this great 27th of April?  First off, it seems like everybody had a great Easter, and second off I have slacked off on birthdays so happy birthday to Sophie, Taylor Peacock in the past weeks and to Tim and Stepmom this week!  Wahoo.  Life is so great when you get older ;)

My past week has been another slower week.  It was the Semana Santa.  This means like the whole week is Easter week basically.  All it really means though is Spring Break.  Everybody goes on vacation and family trips and stuff.  So there was basically nobody in the streets and most of our investigators had families in town and stuff like that so they couldn´t meet with us. It´s ok though, because even on hard days we´re still in paradise, right? :)  Greg got me my travel stats.  Here they are for those interested:

So I did the math on the distance you've traveled (in direct distance, not on roads):  

-From Vigo to Madrid: 289 miles

-From Madrid to Canary Islands: 1115 miles

-Back to Madrid: 1115 miles

-And back to CI: 1115 miles

For a grand total of 3634 miles!  To put that in perspective, that's the distance across the US, from Aberdeen, MD, to Anacortes, WA.  If you were to ride that distance by bicycle at an average pace of 3.3 mph (which is the average pace of an average bicycle rider on long rides), it would take you 66 days to make the trip.

Cool, right?  Thanks Greg.  So teaching English classes has been fun.  We showed them ¨The Restoration¨ in English so that they could ¨Practice listening¨ hahaha Aren´t we such sneeky missionaries?  Rosana is continuing to progress well.  She has come to church both Sundays since we invited her and the branch is really welcoming her well.  The only problem is that she wants to wait until like Septemer so her friends can be there or something still.  So we will talk to her about that in the next week or two hopefully.  Sunday, I found out before church that I had to give a talk (which I have never done in Spanish yet)  So I got to wing a talk in Sacrament Meeting.  I feel like it went well.  I talked about covenants and the importance of making them and why we have ordinances and stuff.  Yup.  Hmm. Carmen is an investigator that has been investigating for a long time. I´m not sure exactly, but I think it´s like a year or so.  She is so ready to be baptized, but is just postponing it.  We are trying to help her feel ready.  She says she doesn´t feel ready yet.  I think there might be something else there too, but we can´t help her if we don´t know it!  We´re doing our best though.  Hmmm, yesterday, my companion got stuck in his bathroom for an hour.  He went in and a few minutes later I got a yell ¨Elder Jeppson, come here I need some help¨.  So I was like, well this is never a good situation.  Lo and behold his lock broke haha.  So he couldn´t get out!  Eventually we ended up drilling a hole through the door with scissors and a screwdriver and then I handed him the screwdriver through the door so he could prise (pry)(ummm...) it open.  It was good fun.  Pictures included.  Luckily we didn´t have to cancel any appointments.  If he had been in there for like 20 more minutes we would have had to.  ¡Todo salió bien!  That´s about all I have to report.  Life´s been great/chill this past week.  I have P-Day tomorrow actually.  Because we´re going to have have it with the other missionaries on Tenerife.  We´re flying there (surprise surprise I´m flying again) for the Zone Conference that is on Friday.  Everything should go well with that I´m hoping.

Hey dad, could you send me a picture of our family?  Maybe better to ask Stepmom that desire, huh?  Hey Stepmom, could you send me a picture of our family? I don´t have one of all of us :(  And if anybody else wants to send pictures I would love to have hard copies of all the great things going on back in your lives.  Mom, could you put some general conference talks on disc in Spanish and send them to me? I would like to practice listening to Spanish and this is the only solution I can really come up with.  It doesn´t matter from what session or anything.  If you need help, maybe Greg can help you out? I dunno.  But I´m still bad at listening! Getting better though.  I would like to give a personal shoutout to Tim and Melissa for their recent missionary work with a lady at the hospital.  You rock!  The branch here feeds us better than any other area I have been in.  Every Tuesday, Thursday and every other Sunday we have people pretty much consistently, so don´t worry about that.  Unfortunately, I don´t have a crock pot in my new piso.  As far as Skype goes, I will be skyping on Mothers Day.  I hear it´s the 8th.  So that day.  I need to know what time will be best for everybody so I can do it when you are on Skype.  It´d be a shame to waste my time on Skype with no family there!  I can do it at any time of the day, and I´m 7 hours ahead.  So dad, mom, figure out how that´s gonna go. I don´t get that much time, I´m not sure if I´ll have to split it between families or how that will go, but let me know by next week what´s going on.  Hmmm.  I think that´s all I really have.  I love you all! Go to the temple if you can, if not, then just prepare for it by reading the Book of Mormon hahahahaha I loooovovveeeee the Book of Mormon!

Love,
Elder Jeppson

P.S. the attach a picture thing isn´t working.  Sorry!

April 20th.

Hello familia, amigos, y desconocidos.  ¿Cómo estáis este gran día?


Welp, I had a killer week.  I basically have nothing good to talk about this week.  I´m sorry.  I will run a recap anyways though, because I think that´s better than not sending a letter.  I am only sending this to you, Mom and Dad.  This computer is ghetto.  Please forward it like a boss.


Last Wednesday was P-day, and we teach English classes.  I taught the beginners.  It was fun.  They have terrible pronounciation, and I have terrible spelling now.  I´m getting worse at English and slowly (sloowowwllly) getting better at Spanish.  We´ll see where I´m at at the end of the mission eh? Maybe I´ll just be terrible at both.

Whatevs.  Thursday began the travels.  We left at 10 in the morning, but before that we taught Rosana.  Let me tell you a little bit about her.  She´s legit.  She came to the church looking for the missionaries.  She had been once in Barcelona and apparently has been investigating for a year now without the missionaries.  Basically,

throught the internet (which is always sketchy).  So we taught her, and she basically was like ¨Yeah I´ve wanted to get baptized for a year, but I do like to drink a little wine with dinner sometimes. What´s that all about?¨ So we told her we would get to that commandment and told her what we do as missionaries and stuff.  She seems pretty
promising.  Then we hopped on a mini cruise ship (Isn´t life so rough) and sailed down to Gran Canaria.  It was a 5 hour boat ride and really is like a little cruise ship.  A pool, bars, lots of chairs and stuff.  Unfortunately only the chairs really did us any good as missionaries. yay. Then we slept there that night and the next morning I left Elder

White with the missionaries of Vecindario and caught a flight to Madrid.  Basically, I spent the entire weekend there just to do an hour of residency stuff.  The good news: I can stay in Spain for a really long time now.  The bad news: We were away from our area for 4 days!  So I hung out with Elder Jackson and Elder Vogel (the
secretaries) and called life good (boring) as I just went to their visits and stuff.  There were some funny members that had me do the chicken dance as a way of being welcomed into the ward Friday night though. That was good stuff.  The other good news is I was able to put some of conference on CD and print a few talks.  This is enough to suffice until I can read them ALL (thanks mom).  Basically, That´s all I did.  Then on Monday Elder White and I were back in action finally! We called Omar (17 year old with a fecha) to set an appointment and found out he is in Juvi!  He broke into a house with his friends and started breaking stuff.  It´s so sad!  He had been living a sketchier life and decided to change it and wanted to get baptized and everything then he did that.  So now we´ll see what has to happen. Pretty sure he has a long time before he´ll be able to get baptized now though what with probation and all that good stuff.  Shoot! Rosana is still legit though and we will hopefully be finding some more people soon.  Elder White and Elder Schuerch couldn´t do a TON of missionary work because of a lot of personal issues that were going on with Elder Schuerch, so the work is a little slow here right now. That´s basically all I have.  Sorry!  I also forgot my camera, so I can´t show you all the fun pictures of swimming in the ocean that

Elder White and I did for P-Day today.  Oh wait, we can´t swim!  Yup. We were going to visit the island, but the member that was going to drive us car´s broke down, so we had another chill P-day that I somehow didn´t do anything productive that I should have.  Oh well! next week eh?  I really did forget my camera though.  So sorry.

Mom, Father´s day really did happen here in Spain, so I´m not a complete fool.  I will just be skyping from either a random members house or a locutorio.  I think that means cyber cafe in English.  I have no idea at what time or anything though.  Who will be there? Could I add in with Tim and his family and everything? Are you going to invite Kylie over? etc... Let me know what the situation is and when would be best to email.  I got all my mail in Madrid, etc.  So that´s good.  I also got it from Vigo, including my license.  Thank you.  I´m sorry it´s snowing over there. I'm soaking up sun for all those who are in a fight with Mother Nature.  You´re welcome.  Caitlyn King is engaged?!?!  Wow.  Mind blown.  Jaw dropped.  Tanton (Elder Jefeson) is surprised.  But that´s awesome.  Lots of engagements going on I hear.  Not me though, no way! Single for life baby (or 2 years at least).

I have a challenge this week.  I noticed that there were a lot of talks in conference about gaining a testimony little by little and not having one big vision type thing, so I would like to invite anybody who reads this to pay attention in the next week and try and write down 5 ways they see the Lord´s hand in their everyday life.  Then, when you have succesfully rocked this challenge, to either email or snail mail it to me!  I would love to hear about the blessings that are going on back home.  I love you all!  Thank you for all you do for me.  You´re the Lord´s hand in my life sooo often!


Love,
Elder Jeppson

Don´t Canaries die in caves?

A very Happy :) Elder Jeppson

Map of the Canary Islands

Hola!  Holy cow.  I´ve been translated again! Or is it called transferred?  It´s hard to tell when you´re in the CANARY ISLANDS!!!  Yup,  that´s right.  Let´s get started with what happend this past week, eh?

Wednesday, P-day.  I don´t really remember what happened that night.  So let´s skip it.  Thursday, well, let´s skip it too.  Friday,  I got a call from the ayudantes during the morning studies times.  ¨Elder Jeppson, we just received a call from President.  There is going to be a change in the transfers from the past week.  You will be going to the Canary Islands to be with Elder White.  We´ll be there to pick you up in an hour. Pack your bags.¨  Holy!  So I did. I packed my bags.  Elder Raiano and I were a little sad because we got along really well and worked really hard for the 4 days we were together.  I think we would be really good together.  But we didn´t really have that long to be sad, because I had to pack up everything I had just unpacked once again.  I also had to leave behind all the food I had just bought AGAIN.  So much food I´m buying for other missionaries these days.... Well the ayudantes picked me up about 45 minutes late, as always, and we were off.  But guess what,  they couldn´t get my plane ticket until Saturday morning, so I got to spend Friday with the ayudantes (Elder Cerro replaced Elder Ketchum) back in Barrio 2.  The first thing we did? We went to lunch in a park with Elder Ketchum and his parents!  It was fantastic to get to say goodbye to him AGAIN hahah.  Then we went and taught a lesson to Jon, who I had taught in my first transfer.  Then we got to see Gorki and Gloria, 2 recent converts in B2 that are superstar members.  I was so excited to see everybody again!  It felt like it had been SOO much longer than just 6 weeks since I saw them all.  So that was a blessing.  Then I got to sleep over in the same old piso that I used to live in.  Wahoo.  Saturday morning we got up bright and early and the assistants took me to the airport.  I said goodbye to Elder Driggs, my part-time trainer, for the last time (or so we thought), because he goes home in 2 transfers, and people are always in the islands longer than that (I hope I didn´t just jynx myself).  Plane went well.  It was weird to be alone, without a companion.  I was afraid to talk to any females. haha that´s a joke, but I really didn´t talk to any... I showed up in heaven and got my bag from baggage claim.  Walked out and found Elder White and Elder Schuerch (who flew to Madrid later that day)  and we went out and about.  Saturday wasn´t that great.  We helped a member prepare for an activity for less-actives haha.  Then Sunday we had church and I got my own little dedicated testimony time to introduce myself to the branch.  This branch LOVES missionaries.  It would crash without misisonary support.  Monday went well as well.  Nothing too extraordinary happened on these days other than the fact that I just walk around talking about the gospel with an ocean breeze in my face and a big smile.  It´s amazing here!  Then on Tuesday (yesterday)  we got GOOGLE EARTHED.  hahaha I´m not sure if this is for sure, but the dang google earth car that takes street pictures drove by us!  I am not sure if they were taking pictures, or just driving by, but it´s always been my dream to be on google earth as a missionary.  Wahoo!  And now it´s Wednesday.  I´m sorry a lot of those days are rushed. I´m trying to get in all the important stuff today.  We found out yesterday that I have to go back to Madrid on Friday.  bahhaha ohhh my goodness!  I haven´t done my residency here in spain yet and the secretary forgot I had my appointment on Friday, so tomorrow Elder White and I are taking a ferry to Gran Canaria to leave him with the zone leaders and then I´m flying there, doing all my stuff on Friday, wasting a day in Madrid because tickets were cheaper Sunday than Saturday, and flying back on Sunday at night.  So that´s gonna be interesting /a waste of 4 days missionary work wise in our area.  It´s kind of sad, but I´m definitely breaking some type of record for distance traveled in the first 3 transfers in this mission.  I have now covered the Madrid mission, Bilbao mission (Vigo), and now Málaga mission (Canaries).  Am I a tourist or a missionary? Hmmmm....interesting. ;)  Let´s see here.  My area!

Lanzarote's Flag

I´m in Arrecife.  It´s on the island Lanzarote.  It´s the one farthest North and East.  It´s like a desert island.  We´re the only island that doesn´t have a car.  There are also missionaries on Tenerife and Gran Canaria.  There are 10 missionaries here.  It´s all formed by volcanoes I hear.  And P-Days are going to be spent hiking volcanoes and doing cool stuff like that.  Today was spent cleaning the most filthy piso in the world that I refuse to live in until it´s clean.  Hmmm, the weather here is always sunny and warm, it hardly ever rains, and it doesn´t get as hot as Madrid.  In fact, the weather here basically doesn´t vary at all.  My new address(again) is:

Elder Guapo
C/Apolo 17, 2B
35500 Arrecife, Lanzarote
ESPAÑA

You know the drill.  Anything sent to Barrio 1 I´m hoping to pick up this weekend since I´m already going back to Madrid, but I might not get it until April 29th, when we have a zone conference.  As for the package, if it´s already sent, I´ll try and get it this weekend too.  If not, you can go ahead and send it right to my piso.  I´m not sure if Fedex covers the islands (if it does I´m sorry I doubted, Dad). And also, Elder white got a package with food in it yesterday! So I think it´s still possible! But it was USPS so...  Hmmm that´s all I have for that.

Elders White & Jeppson

My new companion: Elder White.  He´s dope.  He is super chill and we work.  He reminds me a lot of 

Kylie´s brother, Brock.  I know that nobody in my family knows him, but I put that in there anyways...  He is from West Jordan, attended Copper Hills, and thankfully did not play lacrosse.  We get along great.  He has been out for a little over a year, so I finally have a companion that didn´t enter the same day as I did (other than the assistants).  That´s all I really have to say about him.  He has a great love for music.  And we get along great.  

Welp,  That´s bascially all I have for today.  I´m in the Canaries and I got google earthed.  We set a baptism date with Omar yesterday for the 30th of April and we already have somebody else for about that time too.  I think there is a lot of potential here.  There´s a TON less people in the streets here, but we receive a lot more references from members.  It´ll be interesting to see what goes down.  That´s for sure.  I hope I´m here forever.  Mom, I have not received the conference talks from anybody.  I´m still on a conference fast.  I thought Austin Robbins would like to know all the streets around where I live right now have astrological names (in spanish) except I have yet to find Eclipse.  Mom, could you send me a picture of my room? I always tell people about my awesome wall paper but they never can see it...Also, could someone (I need to be specific so....Greg) calculate how far I have traveled between Madrid to Vigo to Madrid to Canaries to Madrid and back to the Canaries again? Thanks bro.  And when on earth is Mothers day?  I hear I get to call home on that day.  And when I say call I mean Skype.  So be prepared to be stunned with felicidad.  

I love you all!  I hope I covered everything this week.  If not, hit me up with an email and I´ll see if I can answer any questions next week.  Thank you all for your support and prayers (somebody really righteous must have prayed for me) and letters and everything.  This church is true.  The Book of Mormon can change your life if you apply its teachings. If I sound like a broken record player then I´m just gonna keep sounding like that because it´s freaking true!

Love,
Elder Jeppson

Hmmm. Is he tourist or is he a missionary?  Gotta love it! 

* If Anybody is interested in checking out where he is, and seeing some beautiful pics pull up this web address: 

http://www.lanzaroteisland.com/en/photos/arrecife/

The Dominican Republic/Most Diverse place in the world...

Buenos días familia.  ¿Qué tal estáis?

Welp,  I´m never going to try and predict transfers again.  I´m in Madrid.  Yup.  I´m in Madrid.  I said it twice so that if anybody had as hard of a time believing it as I did they could hear it twice.  I already left Vigo! Ugh, so sad.  It was sooo beautiful.  I wanted to stay there forever (summer).  Welp,  let´s get this bad boy rollin´, eh?

Not a lot happened since last Wednesday.  P-day meant many smiling faces in the missionary world, and then we taught some lessons after it ended.  Thursday I went to Cangas!  It´s across the bay from Vigo.  Google map it.  It was pretty cool going on a boat across to Cangas.  It reminded me of when we were in Mexico a year ago and we ran into the missionaries there on that boat.  Except this boat was a lot smaller.  No big deal.  I wish I could go back to Mexico now and speak with them.  Although I´m sure it wouldn´t be THAT much better than last year hahaha. Keaton and I running around telling people ¨Tiene un buen día!¨ in a super gringo accent! bahahaha at least now I can say it properly in a little bit less of a gringo accent.  People still don´t believe me when I tell them I´m from Columbia though, so there´s room for improvement :) Friday, we had another lesson with that grand Honduran I told you all about last week.  We set a baptismal date with him! The 23rd of April.  We got a calender all ready so he knew what we would be teaching and everything.  Super stoked, then we returned to the piso and found out transfers.  Hey, Elder Jeppson, you´re going to Barrio 1 in madrid.  Have fun! They closed Vigo 2.  I´m pretty sure this is the only reason I got transferred back down.  Nobody EVER goes to the north for just 1 transfer it seems.  They´re always up there for like 6 months.  But it´s ok.  I love Madrid too.  Maybe someday I´ll head north again, or, if I´m REALLLY lucky, I´ll head south to the Canary Islands.  Who knows what the Lord has in store, eh?  Saturday was a day that we did exchanges with the other elders in Vigo so that they could get to know our area from us.  They now run the entire city missionary work-wise.  They are gonna have a lot of work up there.  Then, at night (well at 6) we got to watch conference!  Wahoo.  I looovvveeee conference.  It was the Saturday morning session.  BUT we had to watch it in Spanish.  I understood everything and all for the most part, but it just wasn´t the same!  I love English.  I appreciate it more now hahah.  Then Elder Quevedo and I took some pictures of us in Vigo after and that was Saturday.  I noticed a lot of talks about service and caring for/helping others in that session of conference.  It´s always so amazing to me that they don´t have assigned topics yet they always flow together so smooth.  Sunday was an interesting day, at 11 in the morning we watched the priesthood session.  I loved it! I especially loved President Monson´s talk.  He really hit home for Elder Jeppson.  I always love the priesthood session so much.  But here´s the bad news.  My train left at 1:30.  So right after conference ended at 1 I was right off to a train with my luggage and didn´t get to see any more conference! ugh.  How sad is that.  As a missionary, we sure love to watch conference. It´s crazy to me that that was only my first one.  3 more baby (on the mission).  I rode back down to Madrid for 7 and a half hours with Elder Albretsen from Wisconsin.  He actually knows the Ropers that worked with me at the movie theatre.  So we had fun talking about that and about life on the mission and stuff.  He was on his way back down to Madrid so that he could go home after his 2 years of service, so I tried to keep his mind off the sad part.  It was a good trip.  He´s great.

Elders Jeppson and Raiano

Now I´m here in Madrid.  Monday I met Elder Raiano.  He is my new companion.  He´s a native from Argentina!!! Two natives already.  How lucky am I?  He lived in Málaga for a bit and now he´s serving a mission.  He is 24 years old and speaks more English than Elder Quevedo did, but still I wouldn´t call him fluent.  I´m really excited to work with him.  Like Elder Quevedo and I, he also entered the mission November 10, so we´re still rockin a companionship of young guns.  I got to say goodbye to Elder Ketchum (who goes home) on Monday, so that was awesome.  He was a great example to me as well.  I also got to say goodbye to Elder Knorr bahahhahaha.  He still doesn´t know.  Ummm that´s pretty much it for Monday.  Yesterday we had district meeting, so I got to meet my new district.  We have hermanas, 4 of them, in our district now, so that´s something new for me.  We also have the zone leaders and Elder Raiano and I in the district, so there´s 8 of us.  It´s gonna make for some good times I´m sure.  We have a baptism this Friday with Jaquelina, who I still haven´t met, so that should be good.  And that´s the down low on my past week. Boom. Roasted.

It´s been great to hear from everyone this past week.  I´m sorry the North Carolina clan has been getting owned by temperature differences without AC/heating.  I´m sorry!  I´m also sorry to hear that Trey smashed in his two front teeth.  Ouch!  Although I am glad to hear that both are pumped to go to KINDERGARTEN this coming year.  Wow.  Time flies, doesn´t it?  I hope that all goes well with that.  I´m sure it will.  Oh! My new address is

Elder Guapo Jeppson

C/ Bravo Murillo 127 3ºD

Madrid 28020

ESPAÑA

Make sure you put España in caps so you don´t forget which country I´m in.  I bought a bunch of stamps so that Elder Hoskins can forward me any letters that are going to Vigo right now hahaha So don´t fret about that.  Ummm, I don´t really know what´s going on with the package situation, but I do need some short sleeved t-shirts.  It´s gonna be KILLER in Madrid this summer. It´s already getting up to like 26 degrees, and I hear it´s around 35-40 in the summer, so that´ll be...interesting. I´ve never melted into a puddle before, should be fun. But obviously if you send a package, send it to the mission home now.  Not to my piso in Vigo.  That´d be interesting.  If you could toss in a new missionary journal from Deseret book (the gray binder kind) That´d be nice too. I´m about to fill one up.  But if not, It´s not a big deal, they sell journals here in Spain too apparently.  Crazy! Also, if you could either print out the conference talks or download them and put them on CD, I´d be super grateful.  I´m too impatient to wait a month for the Liahona. Love you! I'm stoked to hear Gavin gets to know what it´s like to be a king at Movies 5.  Nothing better than rockin´ the projectors day in and day out.  Mom, Brad, and Abby-Disneyland is the land of happiness.  I hope you walked away happy.  I´m sure you did.  I´m pretty jealous you got to go to Cali.  Hope it was amazing.  Dad & SuperStepmom (hahaha) I´m glad to hear all is well with ya´ll as well.  Good luck with the coming month in lax.  April was always super busy with games and dinners and hating practice by the end of the month.  Good times. 

Welp, gotta run!  Love you all.  Keep reading and praying.  The church is true.  I love being a missionary.  I love you all.

-Elder Jeppson

Quick! He could take the elevator!

¡Hola!

First of all Happy Birthday Mom!  Sorry I missed your cake party.  Maybe next year?  But I wouldn´t count on it...

Zone Conference

Another quick week has gone by, just like they always seem to when I get to email, haha.  Let´s see what happened in the life of your favorite american spaniard this week.  Last Wednesday we taught Jesús about apostles and prophets and all went well.  Then we taught a menos activo family the same thing.  I want to pump people up for conference this week! Woot.  Thursday we have weekly planning which takes a long time, but we still taught some lessons and Jesús had his last lesson with us.  He wanted to understand Jacob 5 more so I busted out the Brother Larsen stuff I learned in institute.  Unfortunately I can´t say anything like that in Spanish, so it was rather different than I imagined haha but I kept it simple and he got it better I think.  Friday, we had a zone conference.  That was great.  Got to see all the missionaries from up here and President came up and all that good stuff.  The sad part was that it was pretty much the same zone conference we had in Madrid  last transfer and I didn´t get the giant package of food haha.  There has to be a way they will let you send me food! Oh well.  Life goes on.  I´m still happy.  I´ve been in a crazy mood all yesterday and today.  It´s great fun.  

Elder Jeppson & Jesus

Anyways, Friday continued with a baptism of Jesús.  He was going to be baptised by a member, but nobody told the member, so he showed up like 5 minutes before and didn´t have white clothing.  Long story short, I ended up baptising him.  In some awesome clothes that the relief society had there in the building.  A size 16 white shirt hahaha.  Good thing I haven´t gotten fat on the mission!  It was a really cool baptism, especially since I have been here for all the teaching of Jesús, except the first little get to know him session.  So that all went well.  Pictures included. I know you people go nuts when there is a picture attached to my email, so go nuts!  Saturday was a great day too.  Wanna know why?  Because we had a reference from the other elders here in Vigo.  Jud.  So we show up to teach him and he answers the door.  Big tall black dude.  Cool.  So he takes us in to a little room with a tv.  4 other big black guys and 2 black girls all waiting for the lesson.  Wow.  Next awesome thing we find out, they all only speak English.  Remember my companion, Elder Quevedo, that only speaks Spanish?  Welp, that left me to teach basically. So we sat around a table with a six pack of beers and 12 bottles of beer and bottle of champagne and I taught them in English.  They were all on the edge of their seats trying to learn more.  They love Jesus Christ.  hahahah. It was super intimidating, but super fun.  I don´t know if they´ll progress, but they are some fantastic people and I loved speaking English for once.  haha  Sunday we had church.  Yay. I love church.  Everybody that reads this should go to church.  It´s a happy place.  Later that day, we taught Maynor.  He´s from the magical land of Honduras, super close to San Pedro Sula.  He seems promising to me.  We´ll see. I would love to see him progress and get baptised though.  As a missionary, I say that about everybody though.  Monday we had exchanges with the other Vigo elders again.  This time I was with Elder Hoskins.  Elder Hoskins, at the start of the transfer, was one of those sketch missionaries, but during this transfer I have seen a big change in attitude and desire to do the work from him.  It has made me really happy to see.  We have saved each other from going crazy with native companions.  Natives are crazy when they´re together.  They just have the lamest jokes! and to them they´re just the funnnnneiesssstttt things ever! hahaha It´s been fun in our piso this transfer for the most part.  Everything went well that day, we survived and everything.  It was nice to work with him for that day.  We also taught Jud again.  There were only 5 of them there that time though.  But it was nice that Elder Hoskins could teach in English too.  yay.  Yesterday was P-Day eve and today was P-Day! It´s raining, so there isn´t much to do.  So it´s been a pretty chill day.  hip hip hooray! ºair punchº  We ate at a Chinese restaurant.  That was pretty cool and expensive.  Especially the expensive part hahah.  

Baptismal Font

Welp, That´s all I really have about my week.  Was it great? Did you all love reading it? Well, if not, I´ll try again next week.  This weekend are transfers.  So I could leave Vigo.  I could stay.  I´m pretty sure I´ll stay.  So sure that I bought a ton of food grocery shopping today.  So that would be at tragedy if I left.  I would eat wayyy too much Saturday and Sunday.  Oh, another interesting thing.  Benjamin Franklin´s idea caught up with us.  Like always, Europe is just behind the United States.  Our clocks changed this past weekend.  Boom. I wake up at 7:30 now.  How glorious?  I also go to bed at 11:30.  I´m sleeping more than I ever have in my life!  I love this mission.  Also, I found out at zone conference that Elder Gardner went home.  I wasn´t super surprised.  I did feel like a ton of bricks hit me in the chest though.  He was having hard times in his family and wasn´t feeling very successful in the mission.  I think he went home for reasons like depression or ¨temporary medical reasons¨ which means he could come back out at some point. I hope he does.  I think he´d stay in the states though.  If somebody could get me that glorious Star Valley address I would love to write him a letter.  He´s a fantastic guy.  Humble as ever.   A big field loving teddy bear.  Mom, I swiped a bunch of money from an ATM from my account back home so that I have the proper amount of emergency money, so don´t worry, it wasn´t a thief, and I´m not short on money, it´s all just stashed away.  I´m sorry this letter is a little bit shorter, but I thought there were some fun stories.  yay! I´m just chuggin along and trying to learn a different language. It´ll be interesting to see what goes down with transfers this weekend.  I´m sure I´ll be the first one to tell you what happens, so you´ll have to wait until Wednesday.  That glorious day of the week when the sun comes out and everybody receives a little notice on their cell phones because everybody is so freaking fancy in the world today :) P.S. thanks for all the crock pot recipes.  Krista, I need a different way to make hawaiian haystack sauce, there´s no chicken soup in a can stuff here! ahhhhh...

General Conference.  Watch it.  The prophet of God will help us use our agency to be happy! So will the Apostles and other leaders of the church.  I´ll explain this real quick since I have a couple of minutes.  I get to watch Saturday morning session at 6:00 Saturday afternoon, Priesthood-Sunday at 11:00, Saturday afternoon-Sunday at 2:00, and Sunday morning-Sunday at 6:00.  You´ll notice there´s no Sunday afternoon there.  I´m pretty upset about that too. But I´m crossing my fingers somebody prints that bad boy out and sends it to me in an envelope.  If not, I´ll just wait for the Liahona of Glory.  I´m sooo excited! We even have it in English here in Vigo! So Elder Hoskins and I are gonna trap ourselves in a little room all alone while everybody else in the world (Vigo) wishes they spoke the language of the restoration.  In reality they´ll watch it on a big screen in what they call the ¨language of the angels¨.  psh.  Whatever.  I love you all! Keep it real, eh?  READ THE BOOK OF MORMON.  It really is true.

Love,

Elder Jeppson

Elders Jeppson & Quevedo

Baaarrrruuuummpaaaa!!!!!!! hahaha

Hola familia! ¿Cómo estáis?

Tanton in front of the Madrid Temple

It sounds to me like all is well back in Utah.  No nuclear reactors melting down and lots of snow.  How lucky is Utah?  Things are going well here in Vigo.  Just trucking along.  The weather has been amazing here.  We´re already down to going without suitcoats haha.  My companion is NOT a fan of wearing suit coats, and I´m supposed to match him, so that´s what we do these days.  I think suits look way more legit, but whatevs.  So this past week has not been anything too extraordinary story wise.  Jesús is all on track to get baptized still.  His baptism is this Friday at 9:00 at night.  So that´s interesting.  Friday will be a busy day what with Zone Conference duriing almost the whole day and then we will come back have a couple of hours to work/teach and then it´s the baptism and then we have to hurry home to be in bed on time hahaha.  I really like busy days though.  So I guess it was St. Patricks day this past week, eh?  I honestly completely forgot about it until about 7:00 at night we walked past a pub that had green balloons outside.  Even then I didn´t think anything of it until my companion tried to say St. Patrick´s day in English haha.  I love when he tries to speak English.  It´s always fun to decipher his super super super spanish accent.  We read from the Missionary handbook everyday in English now to try and help him learn a bit of English.  That´s been fun.  Atilio did not let us back in to learn more unfortunately, so I do not have a lot to tell you about him.  A lot of you did ask about him though. We did teach Antony and Margarita this week though, they are from Peru and seem to have at least a little bit of potential.  Everybody from South America has more potential than Spaniards though.  Those blasted cold-hearted Spaniards!  Another investigator that is coming along is Silvia.  She has desires to find a church and all, but is afraid to commit to a date for baptism until she receives an answer that the church is true.  She came to church on Sunday and was hoping to receive her answer there, which makes sense to me, but said that she couldn´t because the branch was being too talkative during the most sacred part, the Sacrament. Silvia took this very seriously, like she didn´t even want to partake because she didn´t feel worthy, and then all the adults were like talking and stuff, so that wasn´t too great.  She said she understands the kids (thankfully) but the adults were disrespectful.  She is going to keep learning more and moving forward and whatnot, but she wasn´t impressed with that.  So that was hard.  We talked to the leaders of the branch about that and hopefully that will improve for this coming week.  Ugh! Hey, was the 19th fathers day in the US?  Well it was here.  So happy Father´s day Dad & Brad! I love you both.  You´re great.  I don´t know if it was back home though.  I feel like it´s in April? I dunno.  I should have paid more attention to stuff like that I guess haha.  Last week, as in Sunday to Sunday, was the first time that I have achieved Equilibrio for reals on the mission (I´m pretty sure we technically achieved it every week with the Ayudantes).  It means that you teach 20 lessons, have a baptismal date, and contact at least 15 people each day of the week.  The 20 lessons is really the hard part.  But we did it! Just barely. 20 exactly.  It´s so crazy to read Elder El-Bakri´s letters and letters from Central/South America where they teach like 30 lessons every day.  It seems so strange to me.  On Sunday Ana Belen fed us again haha but his time all 4 of us missionaries here in Vigo.  Her food is always...good.  haha  It´s always nice to not have to cook.  I have much to learn in the cooking industry.  Monday I went on exchanges with Elder Soliz, our district leader.  It was great.  We went in his area, which means we went to the beach! Not really, because we aren´t allowed to, but we sure went as close as is possible, then we just walked along a little trail that follows the ocean and contacted everybody haha.  It wasn´t the most effective place to contact, but I wasn´t gonna complain I could see the big beautiful ocean.  It was really nice to go on exchanges with him.  He is a native and speaks even less english than Elder Quevedo.  I took advantage of this.  Elder Soliz is more help with the language.  Elder Quevedo is less patient with my weaknesses there so I don´t dare ask as many questions.  But such is life, eh?  That´s pretty much a quick recap of what has been up in the life of your favorite Elder Jeppson.  

So I have a crock pot.  So if that helps with recipes at all... 

Thanks mom for the hockey news!

Greg, thanks for the world news update. 

Thanks for the package in advance.  I am super excited for Zone Conference this week!

and I need email addresses from all my brothers except greg and caden.  

Love you all! Thanks for your love and Support.

Love,

Elder Jeppson.

Un hijo de Dios

¡Hola!

Hello all! I know that you have all been dying for this glorious moment when you get to hear from me, so here it is:

Not a lot has happened in the last week, but I will try to talk about some good things nevertheless. Thursday, I was walking on the street, and it was kind of boring because we had a long walk and there was nobody to talk to in the street, so I told Elder Quevedo to watch me and I did a 360 off a ledge to try and have fun. All my pass-along cards went flying and my agenda and pen and everything. It was great. I don´t know why I told you all that, but it was great fun anyways. We also taught Jesús again that night, but I´ll talk more about him in a minute. Friday we went to the city hall to register me in Vigo finally, that was super fun waiting in line. Elder Hoskins went to Madrid that day to do residency in Spain stuff, so Elder Soliz was in a trio with Elder Quevedo and I. That was great fun. Saturday, Ana Belen fed Elder Quevedo and I at Mediodia. We also taught Jesús again that night. Sundays in the mission are always special, because we get to go to church! wahooo! Especially when investigators go! We only had 2 investigators this week, but it´s always better than 0. This sunday we had a lot of people fail on us. That was super lame and made the day wicked long. But life goes on and we still managed to teach a couple of lessons. Monday, a man named Atilo let us in his house. We taught him about baptism and the restored authority in the world again. He loves Jesus Christ but hates religion. He was very interesting to teach. It´ll be interesting to see if he lets us teach him again. Tuesday is always great because it´s P-day eve haha we have a joke here in Vigo because Elder Hoskins is always just counting down the days until P-day and all day on Tuesday he just talks about how it´s P-day eve. Good stuff. Also, some man wanted us to teach him in the train station in English. He says that he is from England and has lived here for 25 years. He has no british accent though. It was nice to teach in English and be able to say everything that I actually wanted to say how I wanted to say it, but it was weird because Elder Quevedo couldn´t help me and we were in a freaking train station... We also have been trying to focus on working with the members of the branch more and getting references from them, so we met with the family Avila on Tuesday to help them. They´re great. They both served missions in Venezuela and have a great accent that is super difficult for me to understand. Ohhh Spanish..... Today, for P-day, we went to Santiago and had a zone p-day together. It was fun. Not super exciting, but good to see everybody. It has been raining here a bunch lately though so we couldn´t plan sports or anything. I did get to write 8 letters on the train there and back though. Wahoo! And that´s my week in a nutshell!
I´m gonna tell ya´ll a little bit about Jesús now because he has a baptismal date in a little more than a week and he is progressing well. He is a reference from a member and wanted a blessing a couple of days before I got to Vigo. The elders that were here gave him one and he said he could feel the spirit so he wanted to learn more. That´s when I came into Vigo. So I have basically been here to teach him the whole way through. It´s been really cool to see him accept the gospel and feel the spirit throughout the lessons. He has definitely been an investigator of gold. He hasn´t had any difficulties like smoking or not being married (he´s single actually) and is always at our appointments and everything. He has really helped boost my hope here in Vigo haha. That´s jesús. I hope you all feel like you know him a little better now.

Elder Quevedo, Ana Belen, Elder Jeppson
I´m super glad to see that Trey had a great birthday! I can´t believe that he is 5 already. Wow. He´ll be 6 when I get home too. He´s gonna be huge and in school and everything. Wow. Ficus. Also, mom, I would like my full myldsmail.net email on that driving form thing. Sorry I messed that up. I also bought that paper from the BYU bookstore at the MTC. I hear that everybody had daylight savings time back home. What was it, spring forward? Does that mean everybody lost an hour of sleep and ya´ll are just 7 hours behind me now? We don´t have that here in Spain. Nope. Benjamin Franklin´s idea didn´t make it across the sea successfully apparently.

Next week is the big ol´ Zone Conference, so I believe that this is my last chance to request anything in the package I hear you´ll be sending. Hmmm, definitely want a brochure from USU bookstore so I can see that glorious grin of Caden Shepherd! For the most part else, there isn´t anything I actually need at this point. Food is always glorious. Especially things that I can make easily, like mixes that I can add water to. Easy mac is amazing. Things that are good to snack on are great, and don´t expire super fast. Like granola bars and Golden Graham bars. Things of that nature. I do not have a crockpot, but I do have a sandwhich maker (cooker thing), a ricer maker, and a stove and oven. Oh, and a griddle! and a waffle maker. So maybe syrup and bisquik? :) Jam too if that is safe to send. I don´t know about that though. I feel so greedy saying all these things! I´m sorry. I swear I don´t mean to be all needy over here. I´m doing fine and all without all this stuff haha.


Welp, This is it for my grand letter. I do have a couple more minutes though so I would like to talk about something I have learned in my short time here on the mission, and that is the importance of the example that we share for everybody else, not just as members of the church, but as people. I never realized how many people really notice all the decisions we make day to day. These decisions can have a big impact on those around us, whether for good or for bad. Also, we can always learn from the examples of others, both good and bad. From the good we can learn things we want to apply to our own lives, and from the bad we can learn from others mistakes and hopefully help them as well. I would also like to make mention here that the other elders here in Vigo have a investigator that wants to get baptized because of the example he has seen of the members for over 40 years. He can´t yet, because he´s super addicted to cigarettes, but it just goes to show how big of an impact our little examples can be to all those that see us, whether we realize it or not. Now, why would I say all of this? Well because I think it´s all true. Especially amongst the family. And I want everybody to get practicing on how they´re gonna be an amazing example for my new niece or nephew because KRISTA IS PREGNANT!!! Wahoo!!!! So don´t forget to pray for her and her new baby! I love you all. It was super hard to save that for last (although there was foreshadowing in the subject).

Thank you for all the amazing examples you are to me, and for all that I have learned to become the person that I am. I know I´m not perfect, but I´ve sure learned a lot from my beloved family! Thank you. Thank you for all your love, letters, and support. It really means the world to me to open up the buzón (mailbox) and have a letter fall out for me. :)

Love,
Elder Jeppson