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

 Right off the bat, unfortunately our baptism didn't happen this week, but thats ok because they needed another week to help them prepare.  They are trying again for this upcoming week, so hopefully the James Family will be baptized by the time you hear from me next.  Our other most progressing investigator Bernadette is doing well, although she was sick and didn't make it for church.  She will be solidly ready forDecember 13th.
   Today in about 2 hours we will be flying to Trinidad and enjoying a wonderful dinner and meeting with all my old missionary buddies over there.  Lucky Tobago missionaries get to go!
    Me and Elder Horsley are still getting along fine, no problems in that department!
    I had a nice experience this week where the spirit taught me something mid lesson about the need for revelation today.  This investigator asked us a question how come our church seemed to be based off the Book of Mormon and not the Bible like all the other churches.  I pondered on this for a moment, and then I answered him like this:  "All those other churches are based on the Bible, and hold onto that because its "how the ancients did it" but if you really think about it, the ancient church in Christ's time or even previous didn't have a bible, they may have had scripture, but it wasn't "the Bible."  Those churches were founded and based on the words of living prophets, revelation in their day!  Our church is the same, we are based not on the Bible, or the Book of Mormon, but on living prophets today.  Its ironic how they use the bible as it is evidence of past revelations but they deny modern revelations!"      This had never really dawned on me quite in that way, and it was a sweet experience that I wrote in my journal that night.
   For service this week we helped a lady that had gotten hit by a speeding truck as she was crossing the road.  It was late, about 8:40 and we were about to head towards home and we came around a corner right after she got hit.  She was carrying her young child too and the truck did a hit and run, he drove off.  She didn't get hit right on, but more on her side from the side of the cab, being hit badly by the mirror on her arm, which seemed to be dislocated.  I called the ambulance while Elder Horsley and some other people comforted her, took care of her daughter, and prayed for her.  We stayed till the ambulance arrived, and we ended up being a little late in the door that night, but I'm quite confident that it was an ox in the mire and we were following the spirit of the law there.  It would have been wrong to say "well sorry, we know your still laying on the ground here in pain, but we have a curfew, so good luck!"   Yeah, that wouldn't have worked at all.
    Yesterday we took a drive up the island to a far away area called Roxborough, its a 25 KM drive away and takes a long time cause of the skinny curvy roads.  We saw some members that live up there and they live quite in the bush.  On the edge of the remote rain forest practically.  As we were walking up the trail to where they live, something really sweet happened.  A huge flock of wild local parrots, probably like 15 of them, came squawking and flying around with this beautiful backdrop of jungle and mountains behind them.  We stopped and just watched for a minute.  I tried getting a picture, but I couldn't get one with the birds, but I have one of the view where we saw them

​  Lets see, other noteworthy things this week... on a side note i hope you all appreciate how long I make these things, I have done a good job lately I think with these.  I found out this week that Tobago has around 55,000 inhabitants, which surprised me how small it was.   Grenada was even bigger than that, and Trinidad had 1.3 million, so its definitely smaller!
   I got to play a members flute, that was fun.  Even though I haven't played for like a year, and its been almost 3 since I have played seriously, I still remember most of it.  I will definitely be applying myself to further study on that instrument when I return.  (Dad, Mom, would you please get my flute service before I come home so that its all ready for me?  thanks!  I think its in my closet.)
   One last sort of funny story, Daniel James, Br. and Sis. James' son, asked us a question.  He asked us why we were teaching them, and when we answered and asked why he asked, he told us that a lady he knew told him that we were really just teaching them to steal their souls.  He wasn't really concerned, so it was funny.  Gives you an idea of the superstitions we fight against here.   Stealing souls... what would I do with extra souls anyways?   Even If that was possible, It's taking all my time and attention to figure out what to do with just one, mine, IDK what I would do with more!
   Thats about all for our week, I can't believe its already week 6, this transfer has gone SO fast!  I can't think about anything else, I wish you all a happy thanksgiving, try to be grateful during in it and mindful of those without as much.  
-Elder Jeppson

Our Area is doing well, we should hopefully have the James' family get baptized this week. Its dependent on a few things though, but we should see them baptized soon regardless if its this week or not.  Its been wonderful to teach this great family and see the gospel bless their lives.  
     We have been struggling with our member work, we just don't get members to come with us, and when they do, our appointments fall though.  I suspect increased efforts on our part combined with the lessons we will learn at our zone meeting this week will greatly aid us in that category. 
      Elder Horsley is doing well he seems to still like me, so thats a plus!  Its such a great blessing to serve with him because we get along, and we work hard.  We are trying to figure out all ways to make our area effective.  I see a lot of benefits of us working together.  He helps me work harder with his zeal and his dedication, and I help with experience that helps us work smarter/more effectively.  Its a good combo I feel. 
    I am in the process of reading the teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, Jesus the Christ (again), and reading through PMG from front to back.  I sure love reading good books.
     One thing I was pondering on this week was about something I have always thought.  Its along the lines of "wouldn't it be better to live like there is a God and a life after, and there not to be than to live like there is not a God and then after this life find out that there is one?"  It just makes more sense to me.  Besides, from my observations, the life of a god fearing christian is better than a godless person, before you even weigh in the consequences that come AFTER this life.  It just doesn't make sense to follow a godless life, and I think the only reason someone would do that if they were to really think about what I have discussed is because its easier to live a godless life.  Water runs down hill, the path of least resistance, and It misses out on everything up the hill that it could have chosen had it the power to do so.  thankfully for us we have the God given ability to choose for ourselves our destiny.  Free Agency.  what a blessing if we use it properly.  Thankfully Christ is there to help us as we attempt to change our course and free ourselves from the natural or carnal man.
    Sort of following along the same discussion, its sad how a person can hearken to the voices of the natural man so much that they can blind themselves to reality for the temporary relief of searing their conscience.        We visited this week a member of the church who hasn't come out for a long time and has really backslid in his life.  Its sad to look on the state he is choosing to live in, and how devoid of the spirit his life and home is.  The main discussion we had was concerning the word of wisdom, as he is a raging alcoholic and a smoker.  He insists and has seriously convinced himself that smoking and drinking will make him live longer.  He cited 2 instances of people that lived long lives while smoking/drinking, and ignored the MILLIONS of lives that have been ended sooner than they needed to due to substances.  This man truly is a slave to his carnal appetites, and it all came from the unwise use of his agency.  He and his family is paying and is going to continue to pay the price of sin, for the wages of sin truly is death.
     Ok I'm going to get off my soap box now, I didn't mean to rant there, that stuff has just been on my mind.  I didn't have many emails to reply to today and so I had more time to speak what was on my mind.
    On a more positive and cool note, I have learned a great fact this week.  Apparently the classic film, "Swiss Family Robinson" was filmed on this island, Tobago!  I heard that 2nd hand though, so someone would have to confirm that for me.
     Also, next p-day we have a fun activity planned.  We are going to be flying over to Trinidad in the morning, doing some Christmas caroling, eating a thanksgiving dinner with all the Trinidad missionaries, and then flying back that night.  Its helping me not be trunky cause i'm so excited to do this!  In what other mission do you get to fly to a next island and then back for a P-day!!!  When we found out about that we were very excited.
      so I will probably email earlier next week to make room to fly!
I hope your all doing well, please ponder on what I have talked about this week, the principles discussed will be a blessing in your life if you apply them! 

Elder William Jeppson