Snow Storm Hits NY

Good morning to all my loved ones!

This week was  slow but very very great! As you know I went to the temple on Tuesday and that was great, and then Wednesday we went on exchanges with our zone leaders and the rest of the week Elder Shirts was really sick! He threw up like 20 times this week! I felt bad for the little guy.

But this week was filled with service. On Friday we went over to an investigators house and are pretty much fixing the whole thing up. She was having some people do it professionally but they were doing a bad job so she fired them. So now we go over there twice a week for like four hours at a time and help her. And we literally do everything! We have been sanding her would floors and all of her stairs and painting all of her walls! Next week we are going to start putting in kitchen cabinets so we've got our work cut out for us. But it's been a good
service opportunity.

And from Friday night to Saturday night we got over 2 1/2 feet of snow! It was nuts. It was so bad that they cancelled church yesterday. The only vehicles allowed on the road were emergency vehicles. So all day yesterday and Saturday we shoveled people's driveways. It was the most snow I have ever seen! I'll send some pictures. But that was a really great opportunity to serve as well. Service softens hearts so serve!

So with the temple, exchanges, elder shirts beings sick, and all the snow, we didn't get much of a chance to teach. But we were able to see John last night and on Wednesday night! And both of our meetings went really well! At first he didn't understand why we need a prophet, so we told him that he receives direct revelation from God and we need that to protect us from what's going on in the world today. So then it made sense to him and he was totally on board. So that was Wednesday night and last night we read out of the Book of Mormon with him. We read the introduction where it takes about the book being "the most correct book of any book on earth" and he thought that was very interesting. He told us that he was going to try it because if it is true then He will feel it from God! It was so cool to hear him say that. He even said the closing prayer and asked for him to understand the Book of Mormon and find the truth. Oh and he was going to come to church yesterday but it got cancelled. :( But he said he will be coming next week! We will be going back again next week and we'll be taking about baptism so we're pretty excited!

Also we met with a less active member named Bob! Bob is a solid human being. He is so pure in heart. We showed him another conference talk called " Faith is not by chance, but by choice". This talk is so solid! He told us it was just what he needed to hear. All three of us shared some personal experiences with each other that helped us grow our faith. The spirit was so strong in our little discussion. After he told us he wants to come back to church but he works on Sunday's. So he will be talking with his boss to not schedule him on Sunday's. So
he asked us to pray for him that he'll be able to get back to church soon so we're hoping for the best!

But anyways the personal experience I shared with Bob was this: So about in January of last year I really did not want to go on a mission. I felt to much anxiety about it and I wasn't even sure if I had a testimony. But I thought to myself if I am going to serve a mission I need to find out if these things are true for myself. So one night I was having a really hard night and I just so done with everything. But then I got this feeling to read over my patriarchal blessing. And in my Patriarchal blessing it said "you will find much happiness in your missionary service and you will form many life long relationships and friendships with the people you meet on your mission" and as I read this I was just overwhelmed with the spirit and I got the confirmation right there by the spirit that the church was true and I needed to go on a mission! That night was the most love I've ever felt from Heavenly Father! I knew he loved me and knows what is best for me. And as I've served I've seen that those things are coming true! I really love the people here and I know is was meant to be here in New York serving them!

But for any of you who are struggling with your testimony I would suggest reading over patriarchal blessing again or if you don't have it, think about getting it. I'm tell you it will change your life!

Look over your patriarchal blessing as often as you can. It will have a big impact on you.

I love you all! Have a spirit felt week


Elder Jeppson

Temple Trip

Good afternoon all,

This week for me wasn't too busy but it was still good. Let's see, well on Tuesday Elder Shirts and I had to go to the mission home in Queens to get a new phone because Elder Shirts climbed through the church window with the phone in his pocket and broke the screen. So after we went to the mission office and got the new phone we started our way back to Lynbrook and we accidentally missed our exit and almost ended up on the bridge to Manhattan. Luckily there was an exit right before the bridge otherwise we would've been stuck there. But instead we ended up stuck in Brooklyn in New York traffic for about 4 hours. We finally got home but it was too late to do anything so we didn't do much work that day.

Then on Thursday we had a mission leadership training by Lee Donaldson and Tracy Watson who are the head of the mission department at church head quarters. And this meeting lasted about 7 hours! It was very long, but very helpful. They were just sharing ideas with us on how we could better use our devices to hasten the work. So soon we will be able to do Facebook proselyting! They also came out with this new app where we can have a four way Skype! So now we can skype our investigators and skype the members into the lessons. It's going to help quite a bit. But the best thing about it is they made it so spiritually centered it on the doctrine of Christ some how. I can't explain how they did it but it was beautiful! We will be having a world wide mission conference on Wednesday so we will probably learn more of what we can do.

We also met with one of our recent converts and his name is Jimmy. We watched meet the Mormons with him. And this was the first time I actually paid attention while watching it and it is amazing! All of the stories are great and I felt the spirit very strong that day. On Sunday I had the opportunity to pass the sacrament with Jimmy and it was his first time. It is such a little experience but it was amazing to have the opportunity. He was so happy and he said he truly felt like he had Christ's authority. We will be taking Jimmy to the temple in the next few weeks to do baptisms for the died. He's really excited and so am I.

Yesterday we had the opportunity to meet with John our investigator. And let me tell you, John is solid. He had a really rough year last year. His mom and his son both died, his wife left him and took all of his things, and his car got stolen! Very hard but he told us he wasn't sorry at all. He told us he was thankful that he even had a mom and he was thankful to know his son for the short time he did. He said he was grateful for the opportunity he had to experience love even though his wife left. And he told us it was a good thing his car got stolen because now he can walk every where and be in better shape. And he said that God has been so good to him and now he's just looking for God's true church. I wish my faith was as strong as John's! He is happy even with all that stuff  happening to him and was still thankful for what he had. Now that is a Christ-like man. His sister is a member and she's going to be present next time we teach him so I'll let you know how it goes.

And my last experience was I had the opportunity to have my annual Temple trip Today and let me tell you it was Amazing!!! The spirit is so strong in the Temple! It is so good to get off the busy streets of
New York and enjoy the peaceful spirit of the Temple. And I went to the temple with a question in my heart. At first I wasn't sure if my prayer would get answered right then so I was thinking I would just have to be patient and wait awhile. But as I was sitting in the Celestial room I felt the spirit so strong and the answer to my prayer came through right then and the answer was so clear! It was a cool experience. So If any of you are having a rough time go to the temple with a prayer in your heart and I can promise you the Lord will answer it.

So yeah, that was my week! I can't complain but sometimes I still do haha. Have a great week all! 

Much love,

Elder Jeppson

New Area, New Companion

Good morning all! 

I hope that all of you had a great week because I sure did! My new area is so sweet! It's called lynbrook and I love it.I'm still on the island but it's good. Long beach is in our area so that's pretty sweet. It's only like 15 minutes away from our apartment so sometimes we will go running on the beach for morning workouts. Also The members are great, they are very involved in missionary work. They are all so accepting as well. The bishop has us over every Sunday night for dinner too! And my new companions name is Elder Shirts and he is a stud! He's really funny and is a hard worker. He's shorter then me so we get made fun of a lot but hey all we can do is keep our heads up about it.

So the work here is a little different from Huntington. We do a lot of less active and reactivation work here. We teach between like 10 and 20 less actives a week so it's pretty cool. When we visit them we usually read the Book of Mormon and listen to general conference with them. We actually watched a general conference with this one guy and the talk we watched was perfect from him. It pretty much talked about how we never should wait to come back to church and hold back from the blessings that comes from Church. So after he told us he knew it was time for him to come back. You could see a total change in his attitude after that talk. So that was my cool little experience for
the week.

We don't knock much here because I found out that it is illegal to knock in like three towns in our area. Elder Shirts told me they always had people yelling at them and always had cops following them around when they knocked. The cops said the next time they see us around in those areas there are going to be big fines. So yeah not much knocking.  But on the bright side we do a lot of service! We did like 10 hours of service this week so that was great. Service is really the best part of the mission. I love helping others.

Oh also yesterday in church there was a talk given about finding happiness now and living in the moment. And it made me think because sometimes it can be hard to be away from my family and sometimes I just count down the days until I go home. But I took a step back today and realized that the experiences I am having are making me the happiest that I have ever been. I've only been out 6 months and my life has changed so much because of this experience. So my new goal is to enjoy the time I am given to serve the lord and live in the moment. Because after my mission I know I am going to miss it so much! And I want to look back on this time with no regrets. So I challenge all of you to enjoy your lives. Don't hold yourself back from being happy today. And spend as much time as possible with your family. Now that I look back on it, those are my most cherished memories when I was with my family.

So yeah that was my week. Not to much happened but it was a great one. I hope that all of you have a good day and may this week a great one!

Love,

Elder Jeppson

My New Comp, Elder Shirts

Long Beach is in my Area!

I'm Getting Transferred!

Hello All--

This week wasn't very eventful so I don't have as much as usual to report. But it was still a great week!! This week we found 5 new investigators but one of them really stuck out to me. We were teaching her at the door but then she told us she was cooking, so we thought that she was just going to say to come back another time but instead she invited us in and offered us dinner! We got talking and found out that she doesn't go to church but believes in God and she wants to start going to church. So we taught her about the restoration and the Book of Mormon and explained that the fullness of the gospel is back on the earth and that it could bless her and her family so much. She committed to read the Book of Mormon and told us to come back once a week to discuss it! So that was amazing.

We also had the opportunity to meet with Henry a couple times this week. He has had a really rough week. We found out some guy followed him home a couple nights ago and threatened him with a knife. But Henry stayed calm and just gave the guy his money and the guy finally left after two hours. So Henry has been low on money and he is struggling emotionally. So yesterday we went over and showed him a Mormon message called "good things to come". If you haven't seen it you should check it out it's really good. But basically it talks about how everything will workout in the end. And after we showed him this He told us that he got the reassurance from God that everything will work out and that he felt at peace. It was so amazing to see the spirit work on him like that. He's still excited to be baptized! And that's going to be at the end of February.

And my final experience happened at church yesterday. I felt like this was going to be my last Sunday in Huntington so I felt like I needed to bare my testimony. But I was kinda scared because I had know idea what I was going to say if I went up there. But then I got this overwhelming feeling of peace and a thought came to my mind that said "just trust me". I knew that was Heavenly Father there to guide me. So I got up and bore my testimony and I don't even remember much of what I said. All I know is that I opened my mouth and the spirit did the rest. It's always the best feeling after you bare your testimony. I just felt the spirit so strong and I got the reassurance that I was in the right place.

But I also found out today that I will be leaving Huntington. I don't know where I'll be going until tomorrow. It's bittersweet though because I really loved Huntington, but I'm excited to see where I'll go next. I'll let you all know next week! Have a great week all!

With love and trust,

Elder Jeppson

This Cat

The Millers

Mary's Mother

What we do on New Year's Eve

Henry and Me