"Oh I Just Made You Cookies..."

 Hello Hello Everybody! Happy last week of February. I mean if time isn't flying then I don't know what is. There wasn't a whole lot that happened this past week honestly, but it was still a pretty good one:

Thursday was a pretty good day because we were able to meet Shakara in person. It was her birthday so we made her some nice homemade cookies (mommas recipe of course) and took them to her. You know the cookies are good when they get the approval from a Jamaican. If there is one thing that I've learned since being in quarantine is that video calls do not do a person justice because she is a whole lot younger looking than what she looked like in the call haha. But it was super awesome to finally meet in person. They are such an awesome family that just absolutely love the Gospel.

We were also able to get out and shovel some snow for some people in the area. Remember how we don't accept money from people because we do it out of the kindness of our hearts, well there was this one lady that gave us a box of cookies instead because she knew we weren't going to accept money. Well little did we know that she taped and envelope with cash inside on the cookie tin which we didn't see because she wrapped it all up. That was pretty funny because we have convinced everyone so far to keep the money, but she was thinking outside the box and hit us with the little "oh I just made you cookies" and then slipped the cash inside the cookie tin. I guess some people just really don't want to accept FREE labor.

1 John 4:19 is a quality scripture and it says,

"We love him, because he first loved us."

Take some time to ponder over that verse throughout the week.

Well Remember keep on smiling!

Tangiringkami ni kabane ao tekeraoi mai ikanne!

Elda Jeppson

Delancey and I 

Got to love it when people don't answer haha 

Having pday with one of our districts 

Quarantine vibes (isn't this what Sister missionaries like to do :) 

On our language call last week 

Wait...You Can't Drive By Yourself?

 Happy Valentine's Day everybody! I have to so say it was pretty cool to have Valentine's day fall on a Sunday this year, don't you think? Fun Fact that absolutely just blew my mind: it has been 2 years since the last Valentine's day where I was home. Like what!? How is that even possible haha. Anyways let's jump into the week...

Our Jamaican friend Shakara is doing super well. I mean besides the fact that she has been hit by every single life challenge this past week, she is noticing how the gospel is blessing her life. Its definitely crazy to see how hard the adversary works to try and push someone away from the Gospel when they are so close to becoming a member of the church. Luckily, she recognizes that and is pushing hard and keeping Christ at the center of it all. 

Probably the biggest highlight of the week was getting to drive by myself again haha hence the title. Some Sister's car in our zone had to be taken into the shop for a couple days so we had the privilege of going and taking it to the shop. I drove their car while my comp drove our car. So it was a nice 45 minutes to have to myself hahah. It might not sound like an accomplishment to yall but man was it awesome. 

Scripture time:

Proverbs 16:24, Pleasant words are as an honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health to the bones. 

Can't say it better myself! 

Remember to keep on smiling everyone!

Tangiringkami ni kabane!

 Ao nna toki ma ikai

Elda Jeppson

Nice 3 mile run 

Me after my foot fell into the freezing water ha 

I feel like I am in the movie Frozen (Hudson River) 

Elder Glauser and I 

Snow Removal Crew or Missionary?

 Hello Hello Everybody! I hope your all enjoying that beautiful California Sun for me because currently we are sitting in about 3 feet of snow haha. I'm not complaining though because all this snow allowed us to get out of the house, summon our inner manual labourer, and shovel a whole lot of snow. But I'll get into that in a bit so let's just jump on into the week shall we:

This last week was pretty good for us. I think we did more driving this week then I ever have on my mission combined haha. We had to go down to New Jersey 2 times and also all over our zone which is a lot of driving because of how spread apart everything is. But it's awesome because it's very scenic.

Elder Bargeron made it back to his original mission in Argentina. My new companion, Elder Glauser is a way cool guy as well! He's also from Utah (suprising I know haha) he is a hard worker and obedient and we get along great. He has been out the same time as me as well so that's fun. I have definitely been blessed with super cool comps these past couple transfers which is awesome.

News on our Jamaican friend, she is doing absolutely amazing! She was able to watch church for the first time and she loved it which was super happy to hear. We were able to have a member get on a lesson with us and they really hit it off. Our friend told the member that she can't wait until she is a member of this church, Wahoo! I definitely have a new found love for Jamaican people haha.

I can't remember if I told you this last week or not, but we did a little challenge in our zone where if they reached the goal they got to throw eggs at us haha. Honestly, people should call me Samuel the Lamanite because I can't get hit 😂 I did get nailed one time square in the back but don't worry Mom all those years of sting pong actually did pay off ;)

Now to talk about our snow shoveling adventure, so this member Paul called us up Sunday night asking us if we could come help him shovel out his car and what not, so of course we agreed. Well we get a call bright and early Tuesday morning at about 5:50 telling us to get out of bed and get on over to start shoveling. That call was Paul himself. So we started shoving at 6:00am. Now the funny part was that Paul not only had us do his car, but every other one in the complex haha, I think we dug out around 15 cars and keep in mind we had almost 4 feet of snow so it was no easy task. Now your probably laughing, but wait because it only gets better. All these people in the complex started coming out and were trying to give us money, but since we aren't allowed to take it guess who took it, Paul did haha. So not only did Paul not have to do any work for about 6 hours but he also made about 100 bucks while watching us. We couldn't stop laughing that whole time because Paul is just such a funny guy. Moral of the story is, missionaries are actually great at snow removal people that make no money haha

Well that's pretty much the week y'all! Remember to keep on smiling!

Tangiringkami

Elda Jeppson

Shoveling! 

Taking a break from Paul's shoveling 

Us Getting Egged 

Wait is that our car?? 

Pday with one of the districts in our zone. We tried to play kickball haha 

Me and Elder Glauser

A Story For The Books

 Well hello there everybody! I don't know what it's like over there on the West coast but here it's currently dumping snow haha. We have gotten about 6 inches overnight with more to come. This past week was pretty awesome I must say except for the part where the ice cracked over this puddle I walked on and my foot got soaked with some freezing water haha you got to love those suprise gotcha moments. Anyways let's jump into the week shall we;

The teaching right now in our area is going great right now. We are already teaching a good amount of people and this last week we found a lot more super solid people to teach. Now I keep on talking about how we are teaching some friends from Jamaican, well would you believe me if I told you that almost all of the people we are teaching are Jamaican? We are also teaching a lot of African American people as well. I think we are teaching about 2-3 white people right now haha which Is pretty funny. I guess this area is pretty diverse;)

Cool little story:

So we have this one Jamaican friend named Ericka who is super solid and loves the Book of Mormon. We called her on Saturday and her boyfriend, Hoffman, was there sitting next to her so we invited him to listen in to the lesson. He listened in while we read a little out of the Book of Mormon and taught a little lesson and at the end of it he took the phone and starting telling us how he believes the Bible to be the Word of God. We thought he was about to start contending us but instead he said, I now know that this Book is also the word of God and I have a testimony of it. Our minds were blown haha we were like whaaattt! This guy hadn't even heard of our church or of the Book of Mormon before and here he was saying after reading 5 verses that he knew this Book was true and that he had a testimony of it. It was super awesome to see that because it just strengthened my testimony even more about the Book of Mormon.

Hopefully you all can continue to read the Book of Mormon everyday because man will it bless ya!

Well that's was pretty much the week, Remember keep on smiling!

Tangiringkami ni kabane

Elda Jeppson 

Snow Day! 

The Zone

Islands meet Snow 

When your people don't answer 

Slipn and slidn

Frozen Lake