6-25-12 Patricks Bap Date/ Promptings=personal commandments/ Pray

On Mon, Jun 25, 2012 at 5:29 PM, Julia Jeppsen <julia.jeppsen@myldsmail.net> wrote:

DAD MOM RY RASH LIZA DONG and our trusty steed

I'm sooooo very happy! Life as a missionary is incredible and so rewarding.

So Patrick. He is simply incredible. Did I tell you that him, sister Rozsa and I had a secret handshake in heaven? Well we had a lesson at one of the members house and it was incredible! We talked about how repentance isn't something to look down upon but rather should be viewed as something exciting and marvelous. It is such a remarkable priveledge that we get to repent, to change, to progress!  Gosh, Patrick is wonderful. The Spirit was bursting, and in the closing prayer - Patrick said he had no more concerns and that he knew that this is the path that God wants him to take. :) I am so excited for him. His baptism date is 7/14 but he's going out of town this weekend and he has to make it to church 3 times... So we told him he had to go in North Carolina. We prayed sooo hard that he did. He still hasn't gotten back to us tho.. Gosh, I hope he did.

 

So this is something I've been thinking a lot about these past few weeks and I've been trying really hard to implement it in my life. The Holy Ghost has divine investiture to speak for our Heavenly Father. So the promptings we receive through the Spirit are from God. If the Spirit tells or commands us to do something, then God is commanding us. So basically, the spiritual promptings we receive are personal commandments from our Father in Heaven and we should treat them as such! No matter how ridiculous the prompting may sound, whether it be to turn around and talk to someone, to say something, to go somewhere, to do something, it is from God and we must act willingly, happily, and without hesitation! Living and following the commandments God has given us is such an incredible blessing! When we obey God, He pours down blessings! So really, following His commandments may seem overwhelming or difficult at times, but really its so easy and so simple! We receive sooooo much for the little we are asked to do. The more commandments we receive, the more blessings He can give us! I LOVE commandments!!!!! And as for the personal, spiritual promptings/commandments, we need to be asking for them! Don't forget to pray and don't forget to ASK!

Another really cool thing I've been thinking a lot about and doing is asking questions. As I prayed, I noticed I never really asked a direct question. I would always say "Please help me know what to do.." or "Please let me know how I should..." But never did I actually ASK a question!! It was really strange and uncomfortable at first to ask real questions like "How should I...?" or "What should I do to...?" etc. BUT - it has been absolutely INCREDIBLE!!! When you ask God real, sincere questions, it gets you to stop and listen, to think and ponder, and to ACT! Live your prayers. Don't just say them. But live them. When you ask a question - show God that you really want to know by studying the scriptures, pondering, stopping to listen and pay attention to your feelings and thoughts. When you are grateful - show God that you really appreciate what He has given you! Use the things He has given you with respect and love, treat the people He has blessed you with with appreciation and gentleness. LIVE YOUR PRAYERS!!! 

 

Something my MTC teacher taught me that I've absolutely loved is to go to church with a specific question. Write it at the top of a notebook page, and let the inspiration and revelation just down pour. Church is such a marvelous opportunity to be edified by the Spirit. Ask and ye shall receive! Its marvelous. And TAKE NOTES! When you receive an answer, when God talks to you - show Him that you appreciate and treasure His counsel and the revelation He gives you. Write it down! Thats what all the prophets in the scriptures did!

 

Miracles galore :) It is such a privilege to be His missionary. So Sunday, I was looking at all the investigators we have - and so many of them are wonderful, but not very many of them are keeping their commitments (reading the BOM, praying, coming to church). And its so sad! Only when our faith in the Savior moves us to act - to study the scriptures, to pray, to repent - then will we progress! It breaks my heart to see people choose not to progress, to remain empty and without. I poured my heart in prayer, asking to find those people who are willing to act, who are ready to progress. And then Sunday night - we teach Troy. Troy is GREAT!!!!!! He is dating a member and he not only is a beautiful airforce athlete, but he is "honest" and sincere in his desire to find and learn truth! His Dad committed suicide a year ago and he was an inactive member of the church. Troy said that he remembered that when he was active, he was so strong and so happy. Well we had the lesson at the Bishop's house and the Spirit was so powerful! It was elevating! God is so wonderful. Ask and ye shall receive. What a priveldge it is to be the instrument that God chose to use in bringing His priceless son, Troy, back into His arms.

 

Youth conference sounded wonderful! And those little miracles made my day. God is watching over us, and its wonderful to open our eyes and see just how active He is our lives.

So this week... I got no letters. WEEEEEP! But thats probably because its transfers. Rozsa says they hold all the letters for transfers so I'm going to say thats the reason why....

I love you!

 

6-18-12 Teaching Del Shaun Again! Lost Rhino

DAD MOM RYAN RACHELLE LIZA EMMA AND CHLOEDOG
Hello! So many great adventures you've had!! Emma dong's drivin?!?!
Wooohoo!! Emma, according to my calculations... if 50% of drivers are
boys... that means 50% of drivers MUST be girls!!!!

HAPPPPY FATHER'S DAYY!!! Did everyone spoil Dad? Dad, were you spoiled
sufficiently? Remeber kids - Dad is great, gives us the chocolate
cake! Really tho pappa, you have no idea how grateful I am for you,
for your incredible example. Through you, I have come to know my
Father in Heaven. Thank you. Your letter is on its way :)

The hardest part about being a missionary is the heart break that
comes with this work. While serving and teaching these people, I've
come to truly love them and I so badly want them to experience the
great and indescribable joy that comes from using the Atonement, from
making the covenant of baptism so that they can have the gift of the
Holy Ghost, from living this miraculous gospel that our Heavenly
Father has provided for each and every one of them so that they can
return home to Him!

Here's one of the many miracles of this week:
So we've been teaching this woman, Del Shaun, for a few weeks and she
is WONDERFUL! She's black, American, and great.  She's been preparing
to be baptized, but then all the sudden she stopped responding to us.
It was really hard to get ahold of her and she wasn't getting back to
us. So one night, Sister Rozsa and I felt really prompted to go to her
house. So at 8:15 we hopped on our bikes and pedalled all the way
across the world to go to her house. I'd do anything for her. We got
there, and she was home, and she told us that she'd been talking to
her friends and thought that she should stop learning from us. I can't
properly express just how I felt, but my heart was crushed. I know how
happy the gospel can make her, how much better her life will be, and
it broke my heart to see her reject it. But Christ hadn't given up on
her and neither did we. The Spirit was SOOO strong as we spoke and as
we testified of the Book of Mormon. The words weren't ours as we
pleaded in Christ's behalf for her to keep learning, to accept the
fullness so that He can pour blessings on her head. And she opened up
to the Spirit and it completely softened her heart.  After a prfound
silence, I asked her what she was thinking.  She quitely asked if we
could still teach her. AHHH!! Gosh, we see miracles EVERY DAY! no,
EVERY HOUR!!!!!! I love this work. I love these people.

SPIRITUAL THOUGHT: The scriptures talk about being "Born of God" and
in Mosiah 27:25-27, it talks about becoming a "New Creature" in
Christ. How incredible! Through the Atonement of our Savior, we can
start completely over, we can be cleanest from all our sin and be
spotless, we can change and become like Him! How marvelous a gift that
is! And in 2 Corinthians 5:17, 20 it says that once we become new
creatures in Christ... "Now then we are AMBASSADORS for Christ." In
the dictionary, ambassador means an authorized messanger or
representative. When we repent, when we use the Atonement and are
truly converted, we become representatives for Christ! That means, we
do that which He would be doing if He were here. So what would He be
doing? Well, lets look at what He did in His ministry on earth. He was
proclaiming the gospel!! He spent His time healing and comforting the
sick and afflicted, and He went about teaching and sharing the gospel,
pleading for us to repent and the be baptized, to accept His Atonement
and to experience the joy that comes from following Him! If Christ
were here, He would be sharing with every precious child of God the
way to eternal life! We have been so greatly blessed with this gospel!
We know the way! We have experienced the exquisite and incredible
peace that fills our souls as we repent! So don't be afraid, don't
hesitate, don't let Satan hold you back, but share! I wish I had
realized this sooner, but its ok because I've been made anew! Remeber
Alma the younger? Read Alma 36. Its such a remarkable chapter. What
did he do as soon as he repented?? He went about and shared the gospel
so that others could experience the exceedingly great joy that comes
from using the Atonement. Be an ambassador for Christ. Represent Him
and help His other precious children know how to recieve a fullness of
joy!

Sister Rozsa and I lost Rhino (her bike) in the elevator this week..
haha! It was quite the adventure. We were locking up the apartment and
the elevator closed with her bike in it lol. So we hopped in the other
elevator with my trusty Cow and booked it down stairs to find the
other elevator closed and now taking some random resident and our bike
to a distant floor. It was great! haha. I love life!

LOVE SISTER JEW JEPPSEN

6-11-12 Olia (Afghanastan)-Prayed to come now! & Yitsagesu (Ethiopia)

DAD MOM RY RASH LIZA EMMA EDNA MOLD... and guest

FAMBLY ASSEMBLE!!!!!! Hello dearest loved ones :) I love you so so so so very much. With all my heart. K you guys ready for some miracles?!?! They just keep coming. Non stop. I love this gospel. I love my Savior. Oh the Atonment is just so incredible!! Because of Him, because of His great and inconceivable love He has for us, we can and we will return back to our Father in Heaven, and we will get to live together FOREVER!!! Gosh. He loves each and every one of His precious children so much, and it is incredible to be able to go out and share with His precious ones the way they can return home to Him. I LOVE MISSIONARY WORK!!!!!!!!

So, let me tell you about Olia Furmully. She is from Afghanastan, she's about 60 years old or so, and she is incredible. She lives in our apartment building and we would see her every once and a while and she would always invite us to come over to her house for lunch. Well one day we were our working, and we passed out all our BOMs, so we came back to the apartment on our way to an appointment. We were about to leave, but I had this feeling that we should stop by her room and say hello. The spirit is amazing. Well we go, and she was sooo grateful we had come. She said she was praying that we would come visit her, and at that time specifically, because her daughter was out. She told us that she's a Christian convert from her Muslim religion. And let me interject and say that converting to Christianity is a big deal for people from the Middle East because if they return home, they most likely will be killed. We aren't even allowed to baptize people from the Middle east if they are intending on moving back because of it. So super big deal. Well, Olia's faith in Christ is absolutlely incredible!! She told us how she is the only convert in her family, and that her family hates her for it. She never feels safe being around them, but that doesn't keep her from reading and praying. She's read the whole Bible in Farsi, but she so badly wants to study it in English. And she was just so filled with thanks to God for sending us to her so we could help her. So, she told us that we have to meet in secret, in the apartment building computer lounge instead of her apartment, so that her daughter doesn't find out. She says she goes out every morning from 6-8am, and tells her daughter she's going for a walk. But instead she goes out to read the Bible. So we started meeting her at 7am during our get ready time so we could teach her! SOOO incredible! She is absolutely phenomoenal. Meeting with her was so powerful. We taught her about the BOM, about the restoration of the priesthood, about how our church is led by a living prophet - called of God. And she was soo excited! She is so sensitive to the spirit. She kept calling us her angels. Goodness, I love her so much. And we had a BOM in Persian for her (which is a miracle in itself) and read from it with her. But she was only here til Sunday, and now she's gone. She lives in Nebraska tho, and she have all her info and she wants us to get missionaries sent to her at her home there. And we'll be able to call her and stuff to see how she's doing. She is going to get baptized. I just know it!

So guess what. Next year sometime, our mission is getting I PADS!!!! So sweet!! The church is making this super extreme and high tech program for missionary work. What's up?! So stoked.

Sister Rozsa is the greatest. I love her so much. I can't even explain to you how incredible a missionary she is. I really look up to her. And we swear, we must have had a secret handshake up in heaven cuz we are the best of friends. Did I tell you she cuts her carrots like I do?? What are the odds?!

So we met this guy, Yitsagesu (from Ethiopia), bikin along the street, and the Spirit was just so eager for us to talk to him. And man he has been SOOO prepared! Its so exciting. He was so pumped about everything. He is so ready, so eager to learn more about Christ. He said something so inspiring, I have to share it. He said "The key to wisdom is knowledge. The key to knowledge is truth. The key to truth is Christ." So profound, so cool! It is through our Savior that we can learn the truth, and it is by the Spirit He makes the truth known to us.

Ok. I've got to run! I'm sending letters today. Everyone, expect your own personally written letter. And everyone, give each other a BIG HUG and tell eachother how much they mean to you for me. Ready? GO!

Sister Jewb Jeppsen

1/2 This darling Ghanaian family we are teaching.  I love them!!

3: Olia from Afghanistan (Muslin/Christian)

4: My Trusty Cow

5: Sister Rozsa

6: We make a gazillion phone calls every Sunday to get everyone at church haha

6-4-12 Dream- two girls would stop them on the road and teach them

DAD MOM RYAN RASH LIZA EMMA and my trusty steed

Hello dearest fambly! I can't even explain to you how incredible it is to be a missionary for the Lord. I swear, He is just pouring down miracle after miracle! So many tender mercies, so many miracles! I am so happy you guys - I love the people so very much! I love Virginia and I love Sister Rozsa!

So Elder Anderson (one of my amazing zone leaders) is just wonderful and is letting me borrow his bike. Its a trusty ol' cow and its served me well. And since we're talking about bikes, I'll tell you a little story! We were having all sorts of bike problems one morning when we were about to bike all the way to Alexandria for some appointments. My front tire was completely flat! So we figured out where the closest bike shop was and got it fixed. But the few hour delay was definitely heaven sent because on our way to someone's house, there was this darling little half chinese 7 year old girl (Maya) playing outside with her Dad (Chester). We started talking and she was the sweetest thing. So cute, and she ended up begging for us to come inside and watch her play piano. So she got us the in, and we met her mother (Sophia) from China and it was incredible. Ended up teaching her and the Spirit was sooo strong!

I need to tell you about Patrick. He is GOLDEN!! He was so prepared. Every lesson is extreme and the Spirit is just all over the place, its so thick - its incredible! So we met him, his brother and his momma one day bikin down the street. (Oh ya, and it turns out, his mom had had a dream that two girls would stop them on the road and teach them!) After our first lesson, Sis Rozsa and I were speechless. He was practically teaching us. He says he knows and believes in the teachings of Christ, but that he wants to develop a relationship with Christ. He says he sees us and admires us for we truly seem to love Him and have such a firm relationship with our Savior, and he wants it. And he is so willing to do whatever is necessary to do so! He is so open to learn, and he truly ponders and thinks about the things we teach. Sister Rozsa and I are so humbled and so excited to be the mouthpiece for God in teaching him! He is so incredible and so very much prepared.

The Spirit does absolutely EVERYTHING!! Really, Sister Rozsa and I, we do absolutely nothing. The Spirit directs us where to go, when to do it, who to talk to, what to say, how to say it. God gives us the strength and He provides the way. In all reality - we do nothing. This surely is His work.

My Zone is absolutely INCREDIBLE!!!!! I love them all so much. Goodness gracious. God blesses me sooo very much!

Package ideas (just in case you wanted to send me one.. haha): GOO!!! And blocks since we're just bikin all the time :) yes? oh and mints and popcorn?

LOVE YOU SOOOO VERY MUCH!!

 Sister Julia Jeppsen

Elder Earnshaw!!! His whole house is great
(He is Julia's Aunt Madelyn's nephew)

Beautiful view at one of the members houses

Sister Rozsa and I in our story telling grandma chair

Elder Westover and Anderson (Zone Leaders) at Zone games on PDay

Masonic Temple for Ry