Teaching Pastor's and Becoming a Street Band

 Hello Hello Everyone! 

I hope you are all having a stellar week. This past week was definitely our busiest for sure. We were running around dropping off Books of Mormon, teaching lessons, and meeting new people. From that sentence it may sound like we are out and about but we are actually still in quarantine. We have just been getting a lot of referrals lately and have been able to teach a couple people in person, so let's get into it shall we:

We were able to meet in person with the Pastor we are teaching and his wife this last Tuesday night. Before we started our lesson he wanted us to play a game of darts first which was super fun but I never realized how good someone could be at throwing a sharp pencil sized stick into a board haha. The lesson went really well. He is definitely progressing and his heart is softening which is awesome. We talked a little about the word of wisdom and he didn't really see the point in it, so we asked him to go without coffee for this week and to sincerely pray to see if anything changes. Well he accepted the invitation which was awesome! Also, he finally allowed us to pray with him and his wife. Before, he never let us pray, but when he told us we could say prayer before we left we were excited.

Our singing friend Delancey is doing great! We met with him at the boardwalk again this week. After our little lesson with him the coolest thing happened, we started singing songs when this young father with his son and his son's friend walked up asking if they could join us and of course we said yes. The father ran and got his guitar and we all started singing. Just imagine seeing two dudes dressed nicely singing with two 12 year old kids and two other younger guys in their twenties on a boardwalk. I have to say it was pretty awesome. I guess you could say we were one of those street bands that make money by leaving out a hat or something, but without the making money part. People would walk by, stop for a second, join in on a song, then keep walking. Now this is what you call missionary work. Before we left, Brian (the guy with the guitar) said that God brings people together in mysterious ways and was very happy to be able to meet us today. He asked us if we could say a prayer before we left which was so awesome to hear. We got his number so hopefully he will be interested in learning about the church.

Although it's easy to get caught up in focusing on the negative now a days, if take Hugh W. Pinnock's words which are " The good will ALWAYS outweigh the bad" we can reset our minds to be focused on the good. 

Remember to keep on smiling in every moment of the day!

I Tangiringkami ni Kabane!

Elda Jeppson

Boardwalk Singers from left to right Elder Young, Delancey, Me, Danny, Brian, Tyler

Selfies 

Who can get higher? - cool little nature walk 

Beach Volleyball cancelled haha 

Cool aquarium with our district 

What our Jewish friends wear on their Sabbath (Saturday) big fur hats 

Temple In Kiribati...Whaatt??!!

 Woaaahh how's it going everyone! It's October already!! That's crazy. General Conference was just amazing right!? I mean every talk was just so powerful. Let's just jump into the week shall we...

First off...Kiribati is getting a Temple!!! I was so happy when that was announced! I don't even have words to describe it. Here's why a temple getting announced for Kiribati is so cool. It's going to make getting married in the temple, going to the temple, and Family History work a whole lot easier because they no longer have to fly to Fiji. Also, the temple is literally going to stand out and be a beacon to the whole island because of its smallness. I mean you will probably be able to see it from almost every place on Tarawa. 

Here's a couple awesome quotes from Conference that I loved:

-"True disciples of Jesus Christ are willing to stand out, stand up, and be different from the world."  -Neil L. Andersen 

-"The Lord expects us not to do what we can, but to do all that we can."   - W. Christopher Waddell

-"One cannot be both Faith filled and stress free"  - Jeffery R. Holland

Hope you all enjoyed those quotes! 

Also earlier in the week we posted a new video that is pretty cool, so if you haven't seen it you should go check it out haha.

Well I hope y'all keep the awesome spirit of general conference with you all this week, and remember to keep on smiling!

I tangiringkami!

Elda Jeppson

Our Conference Setup.  We got to go to the church because our WiFi didn't work. 

Elder Young- and our candy! 

Book of Mormon Givin'...And Piano Movin'

 Mauri mauri ingkami ni kabane!

 I hope you all had a great week and I hope y'all remembered to smile at all times. This week was definitely one of the busiest weeks I've had since being here. We had a fair amount of appointments everyday, and we were even able to meet a couple new people. So with out further ado here's the highlights;

We met again with our friend D this past week and were able to teach him again and of course we sang with him again. He loves the lessons and can't wait to come to church. Since church is only twice a month here right now and since a person has to go to church at least 3 times in order to be baptized, they came up with something cool. We can host a zoom meeting where there are at least two members present with our friend. The members lead the discussion/give a talk so it feels kind of like a church service. Well we were able to do one of those last night with D and three other members. We were kind of nervous before it started because we didn't know if it was going to go well, but turns out, it went amazing! At the end of the call it felt and sounded like the members have been friends with D for years. That was definitely a huge blessing.

We got a call around 7:30 one night from a member this past week asking if we could move this piano they found by the dumpster into their house. Of course we said yes, cause who would pass up the opportunity to lift a crazy heavy piano up a couple stairs and into a house with only two people. But we didn't care because we were able to get out of the house. 

We were also able to give out a couple Books of Mormon this week which is always awesome. 

That's pretty much it folks for this week. We got some videos coming out here pretty soon so #StayTuned. If you haven't seen our other ones...well go check them out on our Facebook page.

Remember to keep on smiling even when you don't feel like it!

Tangiringkami ni kabane!

Elda Jeppson

Found the surfers 

Meet The Boardwalk Singin' Elders....

 Mauri Mauri Ingkami! I hope you all had a fantastic week, and I hope y'all smiled and laughed a lot. This past week was a good one! We had fun making a couple videos (if you haven't checked them out..go watch them and then come back to this email haha) and we also had some pretty awesome experiences. 

So here's the highlights:

On Wednesday we had an awesome experience with one of the referrals we got that morning. We started a conversation over text with him and he told us that he wanted us to start teaching him to change his and his families lives. He told us if we could "anoint him with oil and pray over him so they could have this new start," we were a little confused with this but instead of telling him that's not how it works, we asked him, "You mean Baptism?" He responded with a very quick yes! We were able to teach him a little about it over text and he was super excited. He told us he would do whatever it takes to become baptized, which was amazing! We plan on meeting with him and his family this upcoming week. 

Now some of you are probably confused about the title, well let me explain. There is this guy that had been calling us at least once a week for the past couple months named D. The reason why he calls is because he loves to sing to us. He has read a couple chapters from the Book of Mormon but doesn't really understand it, so we finally got an appointment set up with him to finally meet him in person down at the boardwalk (that's where he wanted to meet). When we finally got down to the boardwalk, we met up with him, sat down on a bench, and he started singing to us. We might have even joined in with him on a couple of the songs. We were able to teach him a little lesson right there, and he loved it! That was on Friday. On Saturday we met up with him again in the same spot to teach him another lesson, only this time we brought our ukuleles so we could play and sing with him. People would stop every now and then to watch us sing and probably thought we were strange, but hey, that doesn't bother us. In fact, we made the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ lesson into a song so it would be easier for our friend to remember, and the perk of that was that everyone listening would get to hear our message without us even talking to them. It was kind of funny because he we are (two missionaries) sitting on the boardwalk with this guy, playing the ukulele and singing over the ocean. He wants to make a video with us, so stay tuned for that one....

Here's a little quote from L. Tom Perry back in 2005 at general conference, it says, "Now it is up to us to study the Book of Mormon and learn of its principles and apply them in our lives."

This applies as much now as it did back in 2005. I encourage you all to read it daily!!

Well hope you all have a great week, and don't forget to smile!

Tangiringkami ni kabane!

Elda Jeppson

Rain Pickleball

Quarantine Life

Next to the boardwalk where we were singing 

Elder Young "ran" into some friends who bought us dinner

Dance Party = Happiness

 Mauri Mauri ingkami kain taabo aika a mena nte Ai! I've heard that basically the whole west coast is on fire!? That's not to good. I hope all is well with all of you and with everyone else. This week wasn't to eventful but there were some awesome moments. Here's a couple highlights:

So right now since we still are in quarantine, when we have exchanges they are usually just over the phone for like an hour. But since our internet was way bad this past week we got the O.K. to just do an exchange in person for a couple hours of the day. That was pretty sweet not going to lie. Elder Jorgensen (From Colorado) is a dope dude. One cool thing that happened while I was with him was, we were out playing basketball when this random dude came up to us and asked to play. Of course we said yes because who doesn't like a good teaching opportunity and a game of 21! He told us he just got done serving 11 years in prison (which was insane) and that he didnt want to he preached to, but I slipped in a message anyways while we were playing. I forgot how fun it was to talk to random people outside. We also were able to hand out a couple Books of Mormon to people which was sweet.

Here's something funny for you guys...So we had our apartment inspection on Thursday, so that meant Wednesday was a deep cleaning day. Here's a little tip: If you want it really get into cleaning, just blast the Greatest Showman track and clean while singing and dancing haha. Its works real well because our apartment is the cleanest on this side of the Mississippi.

If you haven't read Elder Holland's last general conference talk titled ,"A Perfect Brightness of Hope" I encourage you all to read and study that. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2020/04/43holland?lang=eng

Recently we have been discussing general conference talks with a lot of members of our church and those that don't come as often, and this talk was the one we talked about this past week. I don't even want to paraphrase it because Elder Holland says it a lot better haha, but please go and read it!

Well I hope y'all keep safe from the smoke and remember to keep on smiling! If your feeling down just remember... blast the Greatest Showman and dance to it haha.

I Tangiringkami!

Elda Jeppson

The District 

My bowling outfit 

Had some great coconut ice cream 

Chalk Art...The Trade of a true Craftsman

 Mauri Mauri Ingkami! I hope you all had a wonderful week full of smiles and laughing. It's getting a lot chillier here in the mornings and evenings and is staying very cool throughout the day, so while that is nice and all, people have been saying this winter is going to be very very rough here because of how cool the summer has been. On another note, this week was pretty good so here are a few highlights;

All lot of our work recently has been focused on helping the ward. We have set up weekly appointments with a handful of member and less actives to discuss general conference talks with them, and they all love it. It has been an awesome way to get to know people and teach people through something everyone loves. The active members in our ward are about 50ish and the less active are about 180 something, so we are really trying to strengthen the ward right now. We have had some good success! A handful of less active are now starting to come to church again, and others are wanting to have weekly discussions with us which is awesome!

We also have had a good time this past week with the wonderful art of sidewalk chalk. We really had to pull out our inner toddler(which wasn't to hard to find) to be able to do this. If your haven't visited Facebook in a while, then you probably have missed our wonderful chalk creation. We drew a pretty big plan of Salvation diagram and left our number as well as the link to the churches website next to it. We also left little messages around our area on like sidewalk or at parks. We also had a fun time leaving Books of Mormons and Bibles around our area in hope of someone reaching out to us 

Well that's pretty much the update for this past week! Keep on smiling and make this week better than the last!

I tangiringkami ni kabane!

Elda Jeppson

Companionship inventory

Pickleball 

The dentist giving me a nice shot 

A huge beach house

Elder Young and I 

Strep Throat and Mask Forgetting..

 Mauri Mauri Ngkami! I hope everything is going great over there on the other side of the country. This week was pretty normal except for the fact that my companion got strep throat. That's definitely a bummer cause one strep throat is the worst and two well he has is pretty bad so we are house bound for a couple of days. Luckily were used to it and have ways to still work! Anyways, here are some highlights from the week;

So here's a funny story. We went to Target on Saturday to get some lemons and honey so my companion could have hot lemon honey water for his throat, well it was also dumping rain at this time. So when we pulled in, we got out fast and quickly ran into the store trying not to get wet. Well we were to focused on the rain that it didn't even cross our minds to grab a mask. Now the rule here in New Jersey is that you have to be wearing a mask, especially in stores. So here we are walking around Target without a mask on (we didn't even realize it wasn't on our faces). Lots of people were looking at us weird but I didn't really think anything of it because people look at us weird all the time. Elder Young finally turned to me and said, "We don't have masks on!" We had a good laugh about that haha. So we just pulled up our jackets we had on to cover our face a little bit. I was like great people were probably thinking, "Wow, look at these nicely dressed people who think there to good for the law haha." I thought that was pretty funny.

We had a cool in person lesson on Tuesday with some people we have been teaching.  

Here's a cool little quote by Patrick Kearon from his most recent BYU talk, he said, 

"Your Father, your Heavenly Father, will do anything for you. He wants nothing but your eternal happiness and success" 

That's pretty cool if you think about it!

Well keep on smiling everyone! 

I tangiringkami ni kabane!

Elda Jeppson

Right to left: Elder Jorgensen, Elder Fowler, Elder Young and me

This was from the video we made