Well, I managed to get through my last Christmas holiday in my mission.  It wasn't nearly as hard as last year, we had fun!   Watching the movie How to Train Your Dragon 2 I think trunked me out a bit more that talking to my family, but it was all great!  The movie was awesome, I love getting our yearly Christmas movie, its just a lot to look forward too.  Talking to my family was nice, and we made a lot of plans for 2 months from now.     We did a lot of christmas activities.  on Christmas eve we spent the entire day caroling to members and investigators. I got a bit sick of driving and singing, but it was quite fun and did more good that we could have done trying to see people during that busy time.  We also got our final tally of the #HeIsTheGift pass along cards.  We passed out 609 cards over 2 weeks.  Pretty good!  It was really fun too.
    Oh, while I remember, have a happy new years!
   I pulled a prank on Elder Little.  When he was in the shower one morning I unbound his Preach My Gospel, flipped the 12th chapter upside down/backwards, and rebound it.  He noticed later that night, and was really confused at first.  I guess I still get up to mischief.  :)
    Church was amazing this week, we had 56 people in attendance, 7 of which were investigators of ours.  I think thats a record for me!  We also had less active members we had been working with come out, and good topics were discussed and taught.  A great experience.  
      We have a baptism planned for Bernadette this Saturday, and Keshala may get baptized then too.  Should be a good week.  The Zone Leaders are coming up today on the ferry to do a tradeoff/split with us for a day, and we get to celebrate 2015, what fun!
  Hmm, Its having trouble uploading the pics this week, sorry, none in the email.  BTW, we got to do a bit of golfing today, driving range mostly.   I was very rusty, but it was fun!
   I hope you all have a great year, I will see you later in it, and take care!

-Elder Jeppson

P.S.  I found my "brain"  (its really a perfect sized brain coral)

 That same P-day a week ago I got my christmas package, which contained lovely chocolates and hot cider packets that I had actually been craving the week previous. Perfect timing, and thanks to my family for their loving support.  I now just need to wait for a good time to use them!
   On the same lines of food, we saw Cookie Dough Oreo's at the store and we had to by them, they are really good, I would recommend them.  Lots of sugar this week....
     We did some more bamboo and bush cutting this week with machettes on a steep slippery hill above a members house.  My mom probably would have been nervous and told me "be careful!"   I only got one cut on my pinky from a piece of cut bamboo that my hand struck, so don't worry mom!
   Our baptism didn't happen this week, the investigators mom got sick and so we are going to try for later in the week after we get to explain more things to the mom. It is going to be really busy this week with all of the holidays so we will see how that goes.  Shopping was really crazy today, huge lines, we waited half an hour to just check out.  Its sad to see how people get so focused on the worldly things this time of the year.  At a time when the best thing to do is to hear a message about Christ, they are too busy shopping, cleaning, painting their houses (a big holiday thing here), and going to these big Christmas parties for their kids that they do not make time to visit with us.  
     We have been loving doing this #HeIsTheGift initiative, we gave out 100 cards yesterday and everyone who has seen the video absolutely loves it!  if you havent seen it YOU NEED TOO!!!! the address is 
christmas.mormon.org
     Its been great to show others the true reason for the season, and we are almost out of cards!  We have met some cool people too.

Pretty good for my tiny amount of lego's that I have, I know its a bit short, but its all I could do.
     So today we are going to be having our christmas dinner, our white elephant gift exchange (I got this gnarly purse thing made out of a coconut that looks like a teddy bear, should be awesome!), and then watching How to Train Your Dragon 2 for our yearly movie.  I am really looking forward to that.  Plus if I get some time, I am going to do some more kite flying, with the 2 handed one and with a giant one we found crashed in the bush yesterday that is like 4 feet tall and 3 feet wide, its big!
     Anyways, that is all I can think to gaff about today, I'm happy and getting through the holidays much better than last year!  Tobago is still the best!   If you could all only be here...  Have a merry Christmas everyone!
-Elder Jeppson
    

Merry Christmas everyone!
     
   The subject line of this email is one of my "names" here.  People really struggle to say Elder Jeppson and this week, after I introduced myself to a lady, she started calling me this.  So I kinda let it happen.  Made me chuckle, and I wanted you to get a laugh from it too.  Oliver Jackson.... LOL
    So I got some pretty crazy news today from our president:



Dear Elders and Sisters,

I have been authorized to announce by the First Presidency that as of July 1, 2015 the West Indies Mission will be split. The new missions will be named Trinidad Port of Spain Mission and the Barbados Bridgetown Mission. 
    The Trinidad Mission will consist of Trinidad, Suriname, Guyana and the ABC islands off the coast of Venezuela.
    The Barbados Mission will consist of the Islands north of Trinidad already in the mission including French Guiana that is part of the Guadeloupe District.
    I will receive from the missionary department further instruction on what to do to prepare for these changes and I will let you know as soon as I do.
Please continue to work as you would normally do. 

I sure love you all,

President Mehr
  
   This isn't going to happen in my time, so I don't mind so much, but its going to suck for those other missionaries who's island traveling prospects get halved. I'm glad I got to serve here when It was this mission, and this mission alone!  W.I.M. is the best!
      Anyways, work continues on here, even though it is being slowed by the Christmas hassle.   It has been much harder for us to get appointments, for members to come out with us teaching and for people to come to church, just like last year, but its not too bad.  The problem rises that the Trinidadians LOVE to get really busy this time of year, so its sad to see them lose sight of the true meaning of Christmas.  It makes the holidays even harder to get through, but don't worry, we will survive.
  Our greatest success is Keshala should get baptized this week.  Her concern is wanting her busy mom to be there, and thats been the reason her baptism has been being put off in the past.  We have been meeting with the mom with members, helping her to get comfortable with the church, while also strengthening Keshala so she will have the faith to go forward with it even if her mom is not there.  We are trying something new in the sense that we have given her all week and said to her to pick ANY time on ANY day to baptize.  She is getting interviewed right now and as soon as she and her mom is available, we will do it.  If her mom continues to not cooperate, Keshala agreed to do it without her at the end of the week.
     We got to find a beautiful sunset this week and we took a few minutes to take pictures. This was over Caribbean side, near Black Rock.  Probably one of the prettiest sunsets I have ever seen!

All is going well over here.  Serving with Elder Little has been great, we just get along on all aspects and we get work done.  We are building relationships with members and things are looking up.  We got a lot of member lessons this week, and it was great!
    A struggle is I caught a cold and so I was still able to work but pretty miserable.  I had a lot of congestion, trouble sleeping, and a bit of achey fever in the day.  Its all good, I'm mostly over it now.  A next struggle we had was our car battery died and after getting it jump started three times at different places in our day, we decided that it was not catching the charge and needed replacing.  That process took a long time and we missed like 3 appointments, which sucked.
  I'm re-accustomed to driving here, it took a few days though.  Tobago is a bit trickier to drive in that Trinidad, the roads are smaller, and there are more curves in the roads.  We honestly pass by other cars just inches away quite often.  Driving back home is going to be easy!
   The James family is still doing great, and we are doing some of that awesome member work with them.  Not much more news with them...
     I got a scary email today from the misson office asking for my preference of what airport I will fly to and for my family's email for SLC to email them the flight itinerary.  I will be home February 26th, thats official now.  Kinda freaked me out.  I'm working just as hard, if not harder, but I am getting really excited.  Elder Little is going to have to put up with me with that...
      One last story this week, we were having lunch on Sunday and we got a call from a lady who said she was at the church and wanted to meet with us.  We were super excited, because people practically never call us here, so we wrapped up our lunch ASAP and ran to the church.  We were greeted by a lady who started ranting off about how she had this "crucifix" to give us, and all this stuff about spiritual kings and queens, races, and some other mad stuff.  At one point she stopped the conversation to go and pick some flowers behind the church that she saw and wanted "because they helped heal her head from the cut she got on it"   Anyways after a long time of her ranting she finally got to the point how she felt impressed to give us this cross pendant, and she went off behind the church to unpin it form her underwear (thats where she kept it) and come and give it to us.  she was going to give it to me at first, but at the last second gave it to E. Little.  She also gave us the flowers she picked, on accident I think but its hard to tell with insane people.  It's bizarre.   Anyways heres a pic of the crucifix, its was a funny story, and all ended ok as we got away and left.  

Thats all for the week, until next time!
-Elder William Jeppson

Wow, what a great week!   Saturday was definitely the highlight of it as we had an awesome baptism service with the James family, I got the transfer call I was dreaming of, and we had a great branch talent show that got us to get a new investigator named Korin who is preparing to be baptized for the 27th of December.   Saturday was wonderful!   
    The baptism service was performed at a beach we found called Arnos Vale Beach.  It was a very secluded little cove with an old abandoned hotel right behind it.  Very picturesque.  The water was very clear, and I got to go in it, which is an added blessing of baptizing.   I really loved the service and I am so happy for this great family that has joined the church.  this is actually the first time I have baptized a family on my mission, so it was great to see the happiness enter their lives from the gospel.  That is Br. and Sis. James with Daniel and their 7 y.o. daughter, Sky.  

 Saturday morning we got our transfer calls early in the morning.  Elder Horsley is going to be going to my old area of Curepe and being a JCAP (junior companion to the assistants to the president).  I'm excited for him.  The greatest news though that I was SO STOKED FOR was one of my best friends in the mission, Elder Little is going to be coming to replace him!  Elder Little is even from Sandy UT, same as me, so we are going to have a grand old time.  I have already been around him for 5 transfers and done many tradeoffs with him so I already know we get along and that we will work well together.  I will be driving the car, and E. Little is going to be the DL up here, so I get to take a break from DL. I probably won't be in leadership for the rest of my mission.  Its something our president does to reduce the impact when leaders go home.  Instead us "older missionaries" train the younger ones.  Thats weird refering to myself as an older missionary....
 Elder Horsley is super excited, but sad to leave all he has known here.  I think he is more excited though, at least to what he has expressed to me.  I thank the Lord for the chance we had to serve together, I learned a lot from this good man that will bless my life.
  I would say I learned more about priesthood blessings this week, as I gave one to the sister's investigator, Brenda, and a next one in the form of one of the confirmations on Sunday.  In both situations the spirit really helped me speak eloquently and coherently while there was not much coming from me.   You know how it is, at the times that you normally are speaking with potency, it takes great thought towards what you say, but I wasn't needing to do that.  Instead I was more just trying to listen to the spirit, and the rest just happened.  I love those experiences.
    We cut some bamboo around a less actives house for him. He couldn't do this on his own due to a heart problem he has, and so it was a good project to help him.  Cutting bamboo is pretty dangerous, because sometimes the bamboo goes down after 10 swipes, sometimes your machete slices through with one.  Some of the younger shoots have these small fibers on them, similar to fiberglass.  They stick in your hand and cause problems.  The most dangerous part about it though is the cut bamboo is just as sharp as your cutlass.  I actually cut my leg on one that I back up into.  Its not bad, but taught me to be careful.   The member came to church too, and just as we are reading in Alma 17 right now, service opens doors that would otherwise be closed.  
     I also got to help plaster a wall for Br. James, and that was fun to learn how to do.  I got it all over my proselyting clothes but I didn't care, and it washes out.
    So much happened this week, we had 2 thanksgivings, one in Trinidad (which was great) and one here with some members.  Both were wonderful.  The Zone leaders came up here and did their transferly trade-off with us, and I got to watch a house burn down!   That was actually on tradeoffs, I was with Elder Brown and there was a house that had just caught fire between us and our appointment.  We were blocked by the firetrucks and the wires sparking all over so we decided to watch it burn. No one was inside, but those wood houses sure do go down fast!

​So that was a first, to watch that.  It sounded just like house fires do in the movies, crackling and breaking glass, and a roar.  Impressive and sobering to behold.
    Thats all I can think of for this week.  I'm sorry my email was a little all over the place, I wasn't sure exactly all that I could put in it when I started.
  
-Sincerely and Excitedly,  
 Elder Jeppson

I'm including this just so you can see me and so you can see how happy I was on Saturday