What an incredible, marvelous, and humbling miraculous week!! Why me, I am baffled, but I was asked to join all the leaders of our mission in attending a leadership training meeting where two members of the church mission headquarters, Brother Wade and Brother Donaldson, came to refocus, refine, and transform our mission. God is truly hastening His work. Oh how excited I am to repent, to change, to access the enabling, healing, and exalting power of the Atonement! As in D&C 84:54, my mind in times past have been darkened because I have treated lightly the things I have received. God has given us incredible tools through His prophet and apostles (Preach My Gospel, the pamphlets, the District videos, etc). These are our modern day liahonas, and I have chosen not to utilize them to their fullest capacity! But it has been absolutely remarkable to change! To BECOME! To be transformed by the grace of our Savior. My eyes have been opened and I will never look back. Our purpose is to help others access the powers of the Atonement!! Without the priesthood ordinances, they cannot be manifest (D&C 84:19-21). Our role as representatives of Jesus Christ is critical. There is nothing more important than what we are doing. Nothing. God, our Eternal Father in Heaven, and His Son Jesus Christ have restored the keys of the priesthood after having been lost for centuries. And now they are doing what has long been prophesied of. They are HASTENING the work. President Thomas S. Monson has turned the keys and slammed on the gas. And the Lord has chosen us, (ME!?!) to train these new missionaries. He is entrusting in our care the sacred responsibility of bringing these missionaries into the field, and setting the stage in this, the final hour preparatory to the second coming of the Messiah. How humbling. Without God. I am nothing. But it is He that will train them, it is He that will train me through them! I am prepared to be amazed by these new missionaries, rising to the call of these last days.
Among many other incredible changes the mission headquarters gave, when we plan each night, before anything else, we are to set our goals for the next day. "Goals reflect the desires of our hearts and our vision of what we can accomplish.. Goal setting and planning are acts of faith" (PMG 146). So we prayerfully did so - one day planning to find 3 new investigators, and another to find 5. Both days, as we acted in faith and fervently prayed - Heavenly Father exceeded our goals!! SO AWESOME! Here's a story: We went to an appointment accompanied with the wonderful Sister Garfield. Sadly he wasn't home and Sister Garfield had to run. So we decided we'd go check on Bishop Seneca's lovely wife's referral, their piano teacher. I love Heavenly Father - he put the same thought in Sister Garfield's mind and she drove back to tell us to visit the same woman Sister Seneca had referred to us. Inspired right? So we went! We knocked... and were quickly rejected. A little confused, we prayed, asking Heavenly Father to guide us to the person who needs us. The thought came to our minds to tract the adjacent street. We started knocking and a few houses in, we came to the home of a Korean woman, Sandy Kim. She had very little interest, but as we continued to teach her, she began to cry. I asked 'Are you sure we can't come in?' and she opened the door to us and beckoned us in. How perfectly prepared was she!! We arrived at just the right moment! She had recently been in a car accident and has been suffering nerve damage and severe pain in her left arm and shoulder nonstop. But yesterday she prayed (the first time in a long time) and she asked God to help. Immediately the pain was lifted. Shocked and amazed, all morning she's been anticipating the pain to return , but it hadn't. We knocked at the exact moment she hung up the phone from telling her sister what had happened. The Spirit was POWERFUL.She kept saying "This is so weird" in her cute asian way. She said the closing prayer and wept. It was her first vocal prayer and the Spirit was undeniable. How miraculous. This is only one of many incredible miracles. I love our Father and I love our Savior. And I am so grateful for the Spirit that we may truly communicate with heaven.
This is His work and His glory. I am in awe of His matchless power and everlasting love.
I love you guys. I feel so much strength and energy and love each time I think of you. How often and continually I thank our Father for you, my dear and precious family. Dad, Mom, Ryan, Rachelle, Eliza, and Emma. I love you with all my soul. You have never left my side as I've served. I've never felt so close.
LOVE SISTER JULIA JEPPSEN
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| APs Elder Norris and Makwenkwe |
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Misti and Chris (ill tell you about them next week. they are AWESOME!)
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| Brother Wade and Donaldson (these are INCREDIBLE men) |
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