Elder Jeppson
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week 6 of transfer 5

9/30/2013

 
I don't have a lot of time today, spent too much time emailing individuals, but hey, when you get 16 emails, its takes time!     Training is going well, and I am working really hard.  I am seeing so many blessings and I know that the Lord is definitely with us, especially as we work diligently to help bring others to the knowledge of him.  
     I found out that Trinidad is trinity in spanish, and was named that because Christopher Columbus saw its 3 mountain peaks on it as he was sailing in.  pretty sweet history here.
No great successes, no investigators came to church but we have helped re activate some inactive people.  
We had a super big rainstorm, and we had to drive through puddles almost a foot deep at times.  was really cool and interesting.
I will do a better email next week, but I am getting some letters out soon too.  If you want a letter, tell me, and I will send one off.  If you haven't written me yet, then you will probably have to give me your address as well.
-Elder Jeppson

p.s.  here is a funny story.  so a missionary here was teaching a lady about how she needs to get baptized.  she didn't have the faith that she could do it and was doubting so they left 1 NE 3:7 with her to read.  She mis heard them though and read 3 Ne 3:7 in answer to her concern of getting baptized.  You should look that up right now, in the library.  hilarious happening.
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1st week in Trinidad

9/23/2013

 
This week was culture shock.  Very different.  Also, driving here is ridiculous.  there are no rules on the road, and the ones they do have, the police never enforce so you get very dumb driving all over.  a lot of the drivers are probably driving illegally without liscenses too.    I worked really hard this week.  Me and Elder Beck have already done some great things and I hope I am doing a good enough job training him.  I have needed to adapt my finding and teaching methods as there are many hindu's and muslims here.  The devout Hindu's place flags in their yards to mark which of their gods they specifically worship.  When we see a black flag in the mix, as you see in this picutre I got, you do NOT contact that house.  Those are the Hindu's that believe in sacrifices and we leave them alone.  I also have red zones in my area for a change which is cool.  Our area is pretty safe, but a couple miles north of us is Laventille, and that is a entire red zone.  Bad place.
     Working with a ward is great, we have lots of meal appoinments.  we got to eat traditional indian food with our hands on these large leaves as plates.  super cool experience.  We have a really great investigator that we have been teaching at his work but he lives outside our area so we sadly are going to pass him off to some next elders.  He has a baptismal date too!  
     Being a JCAP is pretty much the same missionary experience, we just have to occassionally run a errand for a police report or drop someone at the airport.  we do get left over food from the recent senior couple conference... salmon and seasoned potatoes.  was really nice.  I need to pick up some better eating or exercising habits because with driving everywhere I will probably be getting fat.  :(  thats a scary thought!
    I got to actually do some shopping this pday, I got a sweet new tie, a sunglasses case, and a small portable music speaker.  all of which I needed but could not get on Grenada (except the tie).  
 I love having hot water, a dryer, and a/c!!!  Life is good, I am working hard and even though it is taking some stretching, I am growing.
Love you all!  be safe!
-Elder Jeppson
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E.T. off island! Address Change!

9/16/2013

 
Yeah, so unsuspectingly I got a call on Thursday from President telling me that I am going to be Emergeny Transfered to Curepe, Trinidad and that I was going to be with a next missionary, Elder Beck and that I would be serving in the JCAP position (junior Companion to the Assistants to the President)  Its kinda complicate but essentially there is a 4 man apartment with the 2 APs and the 2 JCAPs.  We share an area and when the APs are in town, we split off and work but when they are gone, which they often are, especially with Zone conferences coming up, me and the other JCAP serve together.  So I am in a new area with a trainee who has only been out 3 weeks.  Seriously I am in such culture shock right now, I only flew in 3 hours ago and everything here is awesome!  Our apartment has A/C, Elder Beck seems like a great missionary, and the BEST THING OF ALL IS I GET TO DRIVE A CAR!!!!         So maybe an over reaction but Its cool.  You have no idea how off I feel, not having driven for 6 months and now having to drive on the left side of the road on the right hand side of the car.  Trippy.
     I really will miss Grenville, at least I got to say my goodbyes and have a last great sacrament meeting with them.  It was really sweet.  I loved that area and I have grown a lot there.  I will probably be used to the new area by next week.  So with mail, stop sending it to Grenada, and now send it to the mission office.  It actually gets here a little faster.  all the letters that are going to Grenada now will be redirected to me sometime in the future when a next missionary comes down from there, so don't worry.
   The reason for the E.T. is there was an opening that came up in the JCAP position and a next 2 missionaries are now in Grenville, which is funny cause one of them is Elder Sherren, my MTC companion.
   For the last morning/p-day in grenada we went on a adventure to a place called Hog Island, some place where they were going to build a resort there and had a bridge built but the company failed or something and now its just an empty island that we explored on!  was a great time and a cool last day thing.  
          I really don't know my thoughts completely on leaving.  I loved that area.  I love those members, that is such a great experience to see the church in its grass roots and now I get to see it in its most functional form.  from a tiny group where i ran church to a ward with several companionships in it and the most busy area in the lesser antilles.  weird, but i will love it here!   Expect next week a lot of pics of me eating miscallaneous fast food places here!  going to get real fat, especially cause we have a car!
      I had a last meal goodbye with the branch's, I love them!  I hope to meet them again.  Also the sisters in St. Georges had a baptism last saturday and I got to perform the ordinance in the Grand Anse bay which was great.  The guy is going to be great for the church there!  And now I get to cross of my mission goal of baptizing in the ocean, and on such a beautiful bay too!
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Week 2 of transfer 5

9/9/2013

 
Not too much happened this week, but a few interesting things of note occured.
-I taught my first district meeting

-the church in St. Georges got burglared

-I got to go on a trade off with one of the APs and work in Grenville for 2 days

    Thats the sum of it!
So last Tuesday I got to teach my first district meeting!  It wasn't bad, the first half hour was a little slower, just me talking, not a lot of participation.  Its hard to stand up for 1.5 hours and just teach/talk.  Thankfully a lot of my fellow missionaries here on Grenada or newer than me, so its not too bad.  After we got some roleplaying about teaching the book of Mormon then participation got going and things got better and more natural.  District Leader is fun, more responsibility but it is SO worth it because my relationship with the other missionaries improves and I learn more about them and how to help them.
    After DM (district meeting) the week went back to the normal drive around and do errands and work in an office.  well, sit around while the ZL does office work as he is the acting Senior Couple.  Super boring.  I have studied, read, made card houses, and slept.  And we just sit all day.  I sure missed missionary work.  The greatest thing happened though is we got up to Grenville for a day and did a tiny bit of missionary work and then got some new fans and mattresses for our apartment down in GV.  I guess that's one advantage to having the senior couple as your companion, because we finally got that done. 
     The Assistants came in on Saturday morning and split off with us.  One of them went up to Gouyave, the other came over with me to Grenville.  Me and Elder Boyer had a great time.  We taught some great lessons and had a great meeting in church, oh and a dinner appointment.  I love my area, and the members here.  We have such a miraculous group over here.  The whole carribbean area struggles with retention and having lots of less actives but here in Grenville we have 100% attendance.  All 14 members showed up, which is pretty common.  I know it has a smaller member group, but so do many others that have bad percentages of church attendance.  We didn't have any investigators at church, but Im not letting that bother me because we have such strong members.  Elder Boyer gave a great talk on fasting and I gave a nice one on prayer.  I am used to things here but Elder Boyer said that it was the most spiritual sacrament meeting he has ever had on his mission, and he has been out 23 months.  High praise! 
     We had a lot of great teaching appointments, but the best one was with a old investigators boyfriend.  The lady has been not keeping commitments and we were going to drop her but I wanted to catch her BF home and teach him, see if that will excite her.  Anyways, we did find him home and had a great lesson with him.  He is a very very intelligent man who went to school in cuba and is a chemical engineer.  I had to dust off some unused corners of my vocabulary.  He had some wonderful questions.  He had a lot of problems with Christianity as he saw it, and had 2 great concerns,  one was where did Satan come from, where he got his bad bone from and the other was how is just 2 rewards, heaven and hell, fair when there are so many different levels of worthiness in the billions of mankind.  We answered both questions and tied them both into the restoration and how we had come to a knowledge of the answers we gave him.  He was so impressed by our explanations and the spirit was there testifying to him.  It was great seeing him renew his faith in God, and we will follow up with him on Thursday, hopefully.
        Oh yeah, and the church got broken into.  someone at night went through with a crowbar and man handled most of the doors open.  they stole the microphone, 2 speakers in the sacrament room, and a 30 inch HDTV in the branch president's office.  Its a small miracle that that is all they took.  the clerks office is connected to the branch presidents office, and it is behind the bathroom, so the burglar probably saw the sign "Clerk's Office" and figured that it was a janitors closet, cause that is what a clerk is here sometimes.  Seriously, he missed the room full of computer, printer, scanner, and networking equipment with confidential church info on it.  Small miracles.  I figure he should have paid for attention in school, then he may have known what "Clerk" really means.
      So I am looking forward to this week, I am going to have a good one, I can feel it.  I won't let any bad circumstances change it.  I have learnt that you really can just choose to be happy, regardless of what happens. 
I do have a thought for this week, and it comes from a saying I heard this week, and I don't know who said this.  "If you don't stand for something, you fall for everything"   I really like that because that's exactly what I see happen here.  If we just go with the flow, we will get washed and blown around to the lows of life.  So just stand for what you believe and what you FEEL is right.  Feelings are a lot more dependable that I used to think.  The world makes us think that our feelings are not useful compared to a worldly knowledge and logic, but the opposite is true.
 
I hope you all have as good a week as I am determined to have! 
Be safe and stand strong!
-Elder Jeppson
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I went back to the U.S this week!!!

9/2/2013

 
  Don't freak out, I didn't go home.  I went to the U.S. embassy which counts as American soil.  I felt patriotic and free, even though it was in a high security compound. 
    Anyways, the reason I am going around to that place and others is I am not in my area, I haven't really been there for a while.  The problem is my companion/trainee and 2 other missionaries are stuck in Trinidad waiting for their work permits.  Oh, and our new senior couple too.  So me and 2 other missionaries are in a trio, doing all the senior couple business.  We do barely any missionary work, and since Elder Dall is the one doing all the work, me and Elder Hazlett just go around and talk all the time, which is sweet cause he is a fellow redneck from Moab and we talk all the time about trucks and cars, much to Elder Dall's dismay.
  Being District Leader is going well too.
    Anyways, elder Regis is in ST. Lucia now, we had a send off for him and a birthday party for me with our members in Grenville.  It was really nice and I truly love this area, I hope I don't leave for a while still.  Great people!  But right now we only have time to go to grenville for 2 or so days a week.  I hope those permits come through as soon as possible but they may not. 
     We had a sweet sunset/rainbow, I sent a pic along.
Its been a good week!  Hope this finds you all well!  I hope I have my companion next week but not likely, so until then, I spend my time backing Elder Dall out of spots and holding keys to buildings, and talking about trucks.  Sucks, I miss the missionary work.
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