Happy Thanksgiving

This week has just flown by!! When I look back on this week I honestly don't feel like we did anything ¨share worthy¨ we just had classes and lessons. 

But I am so excited to go to Rancagua on Tuesday! I cannot wait to see how things are there, because I know it will be completely different from the CCM. I am just a little nervous because my Spanish is not great.  However, I know with my whole heart that the gift of tongues is real. Every day here in the CCM we witness miracles, it is a miracle that I can say a grammatically correct prayer, or bare my testimony in Spanish. I know that the Spanish will come and I need to humble myself and know that it will come in Gods time and not mine. No one has ever come home not knowing their mission language!

Just a few spiritual things I loved from this week-

- Become like Christ and always Turn Out! Do not be like the cookie monster.

-The church never changes even when the world does. God is the same Ayer, Hoy, Para Siempre

-Missionaries are like invitation cards and we need to personally invite ourselves into others hearts.

So, this week is Thanksgiving and I have thought a lot about all of the small things I am grateful for. There are so many! I hope each of you take a moment to think about all the great things we have been given. Sister Brady told all of the North Americans to explain to the Latinos what Thanksgiving is all about because we are going to celebrate it here in the CCM tomorrow. As we were explaining it I realized how little Spanish I know and also how little I actually know about the real reason we celebrate Thanksgiving haha. Eventually we got our point across to them and they were able to understand and really liked that we have a day to just eat food and be with family! 

I hope you all have a great thanksgiving and remember all the small things we should be thankful for daily! 

These are the Hermanas going to Rancagua with me, minus Hermana Collins

Love Hermana Jepsen

I don't like speaking in English, let alone in Spanish!

Hola,

This week went by so fast! It was a really good week though. We got new missionaries here in the CCM and they are really nice and full of energy haha.

On p-day we went to the temple in the morning and then went shopping after lunch. We went to this huge mall called Paris and they have so many stores! Like Nike, who knew?!

On Thursday evening we got to go contacting out in a park. I was so nervous because my spanish is a little rough, but it went really well. We talked to this guy and he seemed really interested. We gave him a Book of Mormon and got his contact information so the missionaries in that area could visit him. Then we met a lady who spoke better english than spanish and she said she doesn't go to church because she can't understand anything but we got her information for the missionaries. Then everyone else we talked to didn't seem interested but it was a good time and gave us a taste of how it will be in the field.

On Friday we got  to go proselyting on splits with the sisters from the east mission. I was with  Hermana Flory and she had just gotten out of the MTC 4 days before so we only went contacting and door knocking.  They don't knock because there are gates so they just say ¨Hola¨ and the people come outside. Most people weren't home but we talked to this lady who was outside and she seemed interested so we got her information and they were going to go back and have a lesson with her. We also talked to this man who said he only believed in the Old Testament which was weird, but it was still fun and So Hot!  Haha

On Sunday, I had to give a talk in sacrament!! Every week we get a topic and we all have to prepare a talk and President randomly picks people so I had to talk on baptism. It was rough, not gonna lie,  but everyone was saying how good my spanish was after so I guess I'm going somewhere. Then my whole district sang in sacrament ¨I know my redeemer lives¨ verses 1,4 in english and 2,3 in spanish. The spirit was so strong and some of the latinas were crying!

Funny story from sunday:

We were in a pretty serious discussion with President Brady and all of the Americans talking about the temple and what we can say to our investigators about the temple and stuff and then one of the new American Elders raises his hand and says 

¨I'm sorry to interrupt, but I really have to go to the bathroom¨

President says, very seriously, ¨Thanks for letting us all know, but that is probably something you should do before a meeting¨

Sister Brady says calmly¨It's okay your bodies are adjusting to the food¨

So then his companions all had to go to the bathroom with him.

Then in the same meeting, a little later, President was talking about how he met a lady and this was her last time coming to the temple because she lives in Concepcion, which is far away, and he asked us why it would be her last and one of the new American Sisters said ¨Because she's dying!¨

President says ¨Oh you met her too?"

she says ¨No....¨

We all start laughing so hard because the reason it's the ladies last time is because they are building a temple in Concepcion and the next time she would have the chance to come back it will already be built.  Crazy times here in the CCM.

Hope you all have a good week! 

Love Hermana Jepsen

You Win Some, You Lose Some

My testimony in spanish 

Hermana Sandall, Stanley, DJ, Hancock, Annie, Hermana brady, Pugmire, Collins, Ricks, me

Yo sé que Jesucristo es el salvador. Yo sé que mediante la fe podemos regresar a Dios. Yo testifico que a causa de jesucristo puedo tener vida eterna. Yo sé que el libro de mormón es verdadero. Yo testifico que la expiación de jesucristo es muy importante en mi vida. Yo sé que el evangelio ha sido una bendición para mí. Yo sé que a causa del evangelio podemos sentir felicidad. En el nombre de Jesucristo, Amen.

Pday last week was great!! I'll just drop some bullet points of what we did.

- Went to lider (like walmart) to get some candy because it was halloween of course!

- Went to an art store to get some notebooks and a pencil.  It was super awesome

-We went to a mall to get some stamps for H. Ricks and it was rather stressful because we couldn't understand the lady.  BUT a gift from God rained down upon us and the lady behind us spoke english!! What a sweet assurance that the Lord is always providing for us in times of need.

-There is the cutest little outside truck restaurant we went to to get waffles and icecream. It was very delicious! The guy who worked there spoke english and said he learned from the movies! Crazy, but he said that If we could convince him to follow God he would go to the states, not really sure what he meant but it was kind of funny!

-We went to the temple which is always amazing!

We then went to the store with our roommates H. Bustos H.  Villegas and then 2 other Hermanas H. Oliva, and H Megellen. We got coke and chips and oreos and sat in what they call the weed park because it smells like weed and that is where everyone goes to smoke. Haha good times had by all..

- We had a devotional where we watched a broadcast from the Provo MTC and Elder Gary E. Stevenson talked about how lucky we are to have preach my gospel to teach with. It is such a blessing.

On Wednesday we ran into a girl on the temple grounds who told us that she was coming the next week to the CCM because she is serving in Rancagua and now it is the next week and the old missionaries left and the new ones came and guess what? She is in our room!! The same girl!! She is so nice we got to talk to her a little bit today.

Thursday morning we talked about how we cant describe the feelings of the holy ghost its just so amazing and that is so true. it is so hard to describe to an investigator how they will feel it is just amazing

Our District's motto is  You Win Some You Lose Some. Being on a mission is SO hard and learning a new language just adds to the struggles we have. So sometimes we are going to lose and that is OKAY because in the end we are going to win. 

SUNDAYS ARE FOR ENGLISH

I love sundays they are the best. We are all together not just with our districts and we feel the spirit so much.  My favorite things from sunday 

1. No force in the world can stop the word of God

2. Look through Missionary Purpose glasses

3. In order to recive the gift of tongues we must be patient and be humble. 

All of the north americans and latinos left Tuesday to go to their missions and it was a very very sad day having to say goodbye to our roomies.  It was also a good day because there was only the 8 girls in my district here all day, it was quiet and peaceful.  Saying goodbye to them was hard because I will probably never see them again.

Until Next Week!! Party hard my friends! 

Mucho Amor!!! 

Love Hermana Jepsen