Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

 Merry Christmas Everyone! Hopefully Christmas made up for everything that happened this year because I know it sure did for us. There's just something about the month of December that brings a ton of joy, happiness, and unity into all of our lives. Not a whole lot happened this week due to Christmas, but there still were some highlights;

Our friend Alice was finally able to make to church in person! It's pretty funny because although we have been teaching her for like a month now, we had never met her in person until Sunday. It was super awesome to see her there and she was super happy to be there. Her testimony is getting stronger everyday and she really wants to be baptized, so hopefully next Tuesday that will be able to happen.

We had a pretty cool call with a member this week. She texted us and asked if we would be able to help her become a better missionary and of course we said she found the right people to help. We did a zoom call and were able to help her learn how to share what she believes in a nice simple conversation way so her friend can feel comfortable and not like she is sitting in a lecture. We were able to do a little practice teaching with her which allowed her to see what we were talking about in action. All the members here are super solid and have a desire to share the gospel.

Fun fact: I successfully made a turkey for the first time haha. It was a whopping 17lbs and tasted delicious. I admit it was a tiny bit on the dry side, but hey it'll still make your mouth water. 

Well that's it for the week, finish 2020 off strong! Try to not stop smiling until the first of this year. It may sound challenging, but it's only 3 more days. Have a happy New Year!

Tangiringkami ni Kabane 

Elda Jeppson

Merry Christmas 

My first Turkey

Christmas dinner missionary style 

Elder Young, Me, Elder Groll

Having a Zoom call with our friend Delancey (aka our boardwalk singer friend)

Caroling Fun

 How's it going everyone? I hope your all enjoying the warm weather of California because it feels like the Artic over here haha. This week was one for the books for sure. So let's just jump right into it shall we:

Tuesday was a packed day! We had our zone conference about an hour and some minutes away. It sure was awesome being able to see the other people in our zone in person again. It's funny how different zone conferences here in the states are than back in Kiribati. Zone Conferences in Kiribati were basically mission conferences because the whole mission was there due to the smallness of the island. Here it's about 25 people but still super awesome. We of course snagged some photos because it's pretty hard to leave zone conference without some new pictures. We also got our Christmas packages which really made everyone happy. After it finished we drove straight home, ran into the house to throw on some warm clothes, then drove another 30 minutes to go caroling to a members sister. I forgot how fun caroling was, but I don't know how you Utah people do it when it feels like 0° outside haha. It definitely was exciting singing because the house is right off of main street so you got lots of people watching you. The lady loved it though and she said it made her year which brought joy to us.

On Wednesday we got some snow! Man that was exciting at least to me because I don't live in the snow unlike my companion who basically lives in snow year round in Idaho haha. We of course had a little snowball fight because what person can't throw a snow ball when it is snowing outside. Then it started raining during the night so all the snow melted. That was a bummer.

We were supposed to have a baptism on Saturday, but our friend got stuck up in New York because it snowed a ton up there. Hopefully, she can get back down here soon so we can have her baptism. 

The rest of the week was filled with teaching people and drinking hot chocolate;) We also made a new video so if you haven't watched it, you better be going on Facebook after this. 

That was basically the whole week! Make sure y'all are lighting the world during this last week and remember to smile!

Tangiringkami ni kabane 

Elda Jeppson 

Elder Groll and I 

It snowed!!!

Elder Johnson and I 

The alley way photoshoot

Classic selfie with the tree pic

Elder Groll, Young, Me, Shurtz, and Sorensen

Some Caroling fun, Sister missionaries, Us and some Members from our ward 

Me, Elder Jorgensen, Elder Young 

Our wonderful tree 

Wait...I Thought It Was December?

 Mauri mauri everyone! I hope you are all still doing well during this fine holiday season and hope that y'all are enjoying all of the treats /bread/letters/soap/you name it that is usually gifted during this time of the year haha. This week I honestly forgot that it was the middle of December but I will get to that in a second. For now let's jump into the rest of the week:

We have been having surprisingly good success with being able to teach old people that were taught a while ago. Everyone seems to answer there phones right away right now which is pretty sweet. I don't know if they answer it right away because they think it's the Amazon truck telling them that there package has arrived or because they truly want to talk to us, but either way we have been able to teach a couple of them which has been sweet. One of the people that answered was the biggest conspiracy theorist I have ever met. I mean he was saying some stuff that wasnt even making sense to me haha. We probably said about 5 words that whole call because he just non-stop talked. But the more he talked the more it sounded like he believed what our church is all about, so hopefully we can meet with him again.

We have been having a lot of fun with the Light The World. On Friday we made some cookies and delivered them to a couple people in the ward and then word got out that these were the best cookies that they have ever tasted, so on Saturday I whipped up another batch and we delivered some more to more members. It was awesome. 

Now here's why I forgot it was December. Besides the one day where it kind of snowed, it was super sunny and about 60 degrees. It was awesome! It felt like it was the end of spring, not the middle of winter. I will be very happy if the rest of the winter is like this. 

Here's some Spiritual Food:

There's a simple scripture that we have been sharing and its found in John 14: 27, it says, 

"Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid."

Hopefully, you all can focus on the simple words of this scripture and be able to recognize the love that God has for each of you.

Well that's sums up the week quite nicely. Remember to keep on smiling!

Tangiringkami ni kabane 

Elda Jeppson

Elder Jorgensen and I

Bowling with the District 

A massive Hershey bar 

I Used To Think I Enjoyed The Cold...Until Now

 Hello Everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful first week of December and have been able to join in on Light The World. If you haven't, now is a great time to start! I also hope you all are enjoying the warm weather out there on the west coast because it is freezing here haha. Who knew it could get so cold. Well let's jump into the week;

We had a super cool experience on Saturday. A member from Arizona called us saying he has a friend here in our area whose wife and kids are not members and that he wants us to teach them. The Husband was his seminary student about 18 years ago out in Utah. He got baptized when he was 18 and he only took seminary because he needed an extra class and his friend told him he could sleep through it all everyday. He is now 36 and has a wife and 2 young kids. He came back to church yesterday and has become fully active again which is awesome. He wants us to help him help his wife to join the church with his kids. This was definitely an awesome little miracle!

Our other friend is still on date to be baptized on the 19th of this month which is awesome. She has a strong desire to get baptized and is doing everything she can to meet that goal.

We had our interviews with our President on Thursday and we found out that all three of us are staying another transfer together. That means by the end of this transfer I will have spent 7 months in this area- pretty crazy huh? It will be pretty awesome though.

 I'm definitely not all that pumped about how cold it has been getting now. It gets down to about 20ish degrees at night but with the humidity it feels like zero and it gets around mid 30s in the day but feels like 10° haha. Luckily we are still inside pretty much all day so we don't have to be out in this weather. We actually got pretty locked down again, so no meeting in person with people unless it's at the church.

I hope you all were able to watch the Worldwide Christmas Devotional! If not, you should because it was awesome. The speakers were awesome and so was the music. It really focuses your thoughts on the Savior during this Christmas season.

That's the week folks. Remember to keep on smiling!

Tangiringkami ni kabane

Elda Jeppson

Some Awesome Sunsets! 

Sunday night Zone Zoom game night 

Our District 

A "Golden" Week

 Hello Hello Everyone, Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you all ate some quality food and some delicious pie because I know I did. But the real question is who won the Turkey Trot/Soccer Game/Football game/whatever other activity that is done on Thanksgiving morning?? Well this week was pretty cool so let's jump right into it;

We had the craziest experience last Monday night. We were driving home from getting some pizza when we get a call from some Sister missionaries up north that they have a referral for us. They gave us her number and we were about to call her, when she called us instead. She told us that she saw our last video on FaceBook (the one of us dancing with the Book of Mormon) and asked us if we were the "dancing missionaries" and told us she wanted to get baptized! We were so surprised when we heard this because 1: We have never had some call is from our videos, and 2: She told us she wants to be baptized haha. We asked her if she knew anything about baptism and she said she did. She went on to teaching us every single lesson there is haha. I mean how cool is that! This lady was teaching us the lessons! She told us when we were about to get off that she is what missionaries call a "Golden investigator" hah pretty sweet huh!?

We had a pretty tasty Thanksgiving dinner if I must say. Two awesome ladies in our ward made it for us because we weren't able to go to someone's house for dinner. But it was still a great day! We of course played a little soccer in the morning because you can't not play soccer or football when its Thanksgiving. 

I encourage you all to go a read President Oaks last general conference talk titled "Love Your Enemies" again. We discussed this talk with a lot of member this week and I realized how much we can learn from this amazing talk. 

Just a little weather report for the state of New Jersey: it has been in the 50° to 70° range for the past couple weeks now. Hopefully it stays that way because I've heard winters can be rough here. Right now the weather is treating us well. 

That's a wrap on the week! Keep on smiling!

Tangiringkami!

Elda Jeppson

Thanks Mom! 

Post Thanksgiving shenanigans 

Santa....Is that you??

Service, Chiropractors, and Pizza

 Hello Hello Everyone! I don't know about you but Wow I am exhausted, in a good way of course. This past week was definitely our busiest for sure. We didn't have a moment of free time but it was awesome I have to say, so let's jump right into the week shall we:

I don't know if I already said this, but we put out an add on Facebook saying we will do free Leaf Raking and Yard Work for  any day from Tuesday- Saturday as long as they have the equipment because missionaries don't have any haha. Wow that add blew up! We had a ton of people reach out to us telling us they wanted service done. We had service everyday this past week except Saturday. I never thought I would say this, but man I was happy to be doing yard work again and getting my hands dirty again haha. 

Another awesome thing that happened this week was we were able to start teaching a member fiancee who isn't a member. They are both Chiropractors and were pretty busy, so we just taught them at their office on their break. It was a pretty solid lesson! He was pretty open to reading and praying about the Book of Mormon which is awesome. After the lesson He adjusted us all for free, I guess that's the benefit of teaching a Chiropractor haha. They also ordered us this pizza to take home and it was some of the best pizza I have ever eaten. Now this isnt your ordinary pizza place, they make about 12 different pizzas and put them on display, your job is to pick a piece or two from those 12 pizzas. It is crazy the toppings they put on the pizza. I got this Lemon Chicken Pizza and a taco pizza, see picture below because my description won't do justice. Let me tell you this, the pizza was beyond phenomenal! 

If any of you didn't get to chance to see our Prophets message to the world on Friday, I encourage you all to go and watch it because it was amazing! What's awesome about it is how social media is blowing up with the #GiveThanks posts. I have yet to see another post that's not the #GiveThanks one since Russell M. Nelson gave that message. So awesome!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlcILxGmVrI

Also, if you didn't get a chance to check out our Latest video, umm.. your missing out because it was awesome haha. Y'all will get a kick out of it that's for sure.

Well that was the week! Remember to keep on smiling and looking for ways to serve those around you!

Tangiringkami ni kabane!

Elda Jeppson 

Welcome to New Jersey haha

Surprise Selfie

Elder Groll 

Some Drawings haha 

Missionary Houses = Goodwill

 Hello Hello Everyone! I hope you all had a fantastic week filled with smiles, laughter, and fun. This week was pretty solid if I have to say so myself. We met some new people and had a couple awesome experiences, so let's jump right to it;

First off, doing service just got approved for us which is awesome because now we are packing our schedule full of it. We were able to go do service for our friend Cindy who we are teaching right now, and it was awesome! She had a pretty decent sized yard that was covered with leaves, I mean I couldn't see one spot in the the whole yard where the ground was actually showing haha. Anyways 25 big black bags filled with leaves later, her yard was looking very good. The coolest part about it was when we were in the middle of raking, she came up to us and asked, "wait so what do I need to do to become baptized?" We were super surprised that's she asked that but mostly we were super excited! It was cool because we went to her house just to serve her, we weren't planning on teaching her anything. That's why we were pretty surprised when she asked that because it came out of nowhere haha. We were able to tell her what she needs to do, so hopefully in the next couple weeks she can get baptized.  We also put an add on Facebook for free leaf raking so we have a pretty full week this week. 

Something super awesome happened to us on Friday. A member in our ward is moving out west and is getting rid of all there furniture. They couldn't sell these 2 couches and desk so they asked if we wanted them. Well since our 2 couches have been around since the dinosaurs we happily took the new ones. They also gave us some cool road signs and license plates which we hung up on our walls haha. The lesson here is, if you cant sell furniture give it to your local missionaries because odds are they are in need of some 99% of the time hahah. You could say that are houses are a Goodwill haha because we will happily accept donations.

Spiritual Food:

You should all go and read 3 Nephi 12:44 and apply it to your own lives, especially during this crazy time in our lives.

"But Behold I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you and pray for them who despitefully use you and persecute you"

Well hope you all have a great week and remember to smile!

I tangiringkami!

Elda Jeppson

Yeehaw 

A member of our ward hooked us up with these killer signs
and gave us a Christmas tree. 

Our service at Cindy's 

Fall fun

Behind the scenes of one of our videos 

Elder Jorgensen, Elder Zinkland, Me, Elder Young, Elder Groll 

Service at Cindy's 

Rubies, Diamonds, or The Book of Mormon?

 Hello Hello Everyone! I hope everything is going well over there in the beautiful state of California. This week was a little less busy but we were told some exciting news on Wednesday. We were told we could start doing service for people not of our faith ohhh yeah. Now this might not sound all that exciting to you, but when you have been stuck in a house for the last 5 months anything that gets you outside is very exciting haha. Well let's just jump right into the week:

We were able to teach our friend Delancey again down at the basketball courts by the pier we usually meet  him at and guess who was there? Well do you guys remeber when that father and son came up to us with his guitar while we were on the pier singing with Delancey, well his son and wife were at the basketball courts shooting around. We shot around with them and were able to talk with and meet his wife which was awesome. Slowly his wife stopped playing so she could just let her son play with us. She sat on the bech right next to the court and started taking pictures of us playing with her son (he's 11 by the way) and was smiling a lot. She ended up going back to her house which is right behind the basketball court and was watching us from there, which we didn't know at the time. After we were walking back to our car we heard the mom yell out, "Bye! Have a good day!" That's when we realized she was watching us the whole time. I feel like we left a good impression of us on her because when we asked if we could do service at their house, they agreed happily! 

The weather here has been absolutely incredible these past couple days. 75 degrees, sunny, no humidity, and a little ocean breeze. It also is pretty colorful because of the millions of trees here which is a sight for the eyes.

Yesterday, during church, I was asked to give a talk about The Book of Mormon. While I was preparing for my talk, I was reminded of the importance of why the Prophet and Apostles focus so much on reading the Book of Mormon. President Nelson asked us, "...How precious is the Book of Mormon to you? If you were offered diamonds or rubies or the Book of Mormon, which would you choose? Honestly, which is of greater worth to you?" We need to take President Nelson's and Monson's invitation to us to read the Book of Mormon everyday to heart. The guidance and blessings that you will receive are innumerable.

I hope you all have fantastic rest of your week, remember to smile always and read the Book of Mormon everyday. 

I tangiringkami ni kabane!

Elda Jeppson

PS. If you didn't see that video of my companion falling down a hill, or getting hit by 40 tennis balls, go check them out on our Facebook. 

Our first Zone conference in person.  It was great to finally meet everyone in person. 

I voted! 

Me, Elder Young, Elder Groll at one of our lessons

Early Morning workout 

Who Knew It Could Get So Cold Here?

 Hello Hello everyone on this fine day of November! I hope your Halloweekends were filled with fun and candy because who doesn't like candy. Unfortunately, we weren't able to go Trick or treating, but we did have some kids come to our door. Luckily, we had some candy that a member gave us so we just gave it all to them.

This past week was pretty good and very busy for us. We picked up a new companion named Elder Groll which means we are now a threesome over here. He's a cool guy from Preston Idaho. Also side note, I don't know why but for some strange reason this state is dropping in temperature rapidly. I mean we walked outside one morning with it being 29 degrees with 78% humidity so it felt like 0 degrees haha. It also snowed in New York so hopefully that's not coming down this way.

We met a new guy who wanted to lesson with us because he told us he knows there is a greater purpose for our lives here on earth but just doesn't know what it is. He gave us his whole story and wow it is a crazy one. He has been a drug addict since he was 13 and he was in and out of jail throughout his life. He truly wants to change this time and we know this gospel is the one the can change him for good! We had a pretty sweet lesson with him on the Restoration and he accepted the invitation to read the Book of Mormon.

A cool chapter in the Book of Mormon we studied with a member this week was Alma 41. You should all take some time to really study that chapter and then talk about it with someone because it is chalked full of amazing stuff.

Well besides it feeling like the North Pole, I'd say we had a pretty awesome week! Remember to keep on smiling!

I tangiringkami ni kabane!

Elda Jeppson 

District volleyball game.  It got too cold and windy so then we went bowling. 

Our District 

Elder Groll my new companion 

Our friend Helmut

Our trio: Elder Young, Jeppson, and Groll

Our pet duck