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!
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!
as the sun set further it got even more colorful.
We had some fun with the #HeIsTheGift pass along cards we got in our mission. We went to the botanical gardens which were all lit up with Christmas lights and passed out like 80 in an hour, it was really fun! Some people were great, others were scrooges.
The James Family is still doing well. I love seeing how they are reading the scriptures together and getting along better. Br. James told me how they had the whole family gathered around on the bed reading the scriptures. The Gospel of Christ really blesses families!
Got to find and play with a parrot! This parrot's name was Milo and was one of the friendliest ones I have met. He allowed random strangers (us) to pick him up, and even put him on our shoulders
We had some fun with the #HeIsTheGift pass along cards we got in our mission. We went to the botanical gardens which were all lit up with Christmas lights and passed out like 80 in an hour, it was really fun! Some people were great, others were scrooges.
The James Family is still doing well. I love seeing how they are reading the scriptures together and getting along better. Br. James told me how they had the whole family gathered around on the bed reading the scriptures. The Gospel of Christ really blesses families!
Got to find and play with a parrot! This parrot's name was Milo and was one of the friendliest ones I have met. He allowed random strangers (us) to pick him up, and even put him on our shoulders
The last story I will mention for the week is about this lesson we had with a guy. This guy has a REALLY weird concern about wanting to be independent from God or the devil. We have met with him a lot and tried helping him out. There was a point in the lesson where we were testifying to him the need to have faith in what God knows is best, to lean not to our own understanding. I explained faith in a cool way that I hadn't done before (thanks to the spirits help) I described it as "acting as if you know." I felt the spirit very strongly as we were testifying to him how the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the only way to eternal happiness and that if he followed it he would be happy. He sadly more or less rejected it by wanting to continue with what "he wanted" but thats ok, we did our part. Cool to feel the spirit strongly, and he acknowledged he felt it too. I know now of a more surety that what I was speaking about was true and that God wanted us to know that from him.
Thats about all for this week, love you all!
Merry Christmas!
Elder Jeppson
Thats about all for this week, love you all!
Merry Christmas!
Elder Jeppson