3-18-13 Children = the rubbing stone of perfection

DAD MOM RYAN RACHELLEY LIZA DONG "... and guests" (Edna Mode, The Incredibles)

 

This week has been remarkable! I love our Heavenly Father!! I love our Savior! I love this beautiful life! I love being a missionary! I thank Him, I praise Him, I glorify Him! Sister Bell is simply delightful in every way. She is 19 years old, and positively splendid. She is so sweet and so eager and excited to grow and to serve. Training is the most humbling and blessed opportunity. I am continually amazed.

 

Children are the rubbing stone of perfection. By divine design, he places us into families. He gives us the privilege, the opportunity, the blessing of bringing His children into the world. For us to have the patience they need, for us to have the knowledge and understanding they require, for us to provide the nourishment (both physical and spiritual), the experience, the love, the education, the environment they need to grow in truth and righteousness, we must become more reined in our obedience, more diligent in living the gospel. We must become "a greater follower of righteousness and possess a greater knowledge" of the mysteries of God" (Abraham 1:2). "To be A FATHER of many nations, a prince of peace," we must DESIRE to receive, and then actually RECEIVE instruction from the Lord that we may more fully keep His commandments with exactness. To lay claim on EVERY blessing available to you and your children, it requires CONTINUAL humility, CONTINUAL repentance and learning, CONTINUAL coming unto the Lord with a broken heart and contrite spirit. Surely it is by His design, our Father in Heaven, the Most High God, who has provided the way to become perfect, even as He is perfect.

 

Mom, Dad. How deep is my gratitude and my love for you. I have no better example of humility, of continual refinement, of selfless consecration and love. I love you and thank you for continually looking to our Savior. I love Him with all my soul.

 

I have been praying and talking with Heavenly Father, asking that I may be prepared to be His instrument in guiding a family to the waters of baptism and to the temple. We are teaching several families, and they are incredible. The Fenos, Gloria and her children, Michelle and hers. I love this work. I love these people. I am forever grateful that I can be with you, my precious and beloved family, forever. And it is only by His power that we can. We have been sealed in His holy temple and I so deeply wish the same for these people.

 

I pray for you. For each of you, I commune with our Father for you.  I'm far, but close.

Sister Julia Jeppsen

3-11-13 I'm Training Sister Bell!!! Still in Warrenton

DAD MOM RYAN RACHELLE LIZA EMMA and my dear dear friends

Lexi is officially out in the field!!! ..and I'm TRAINING?! AHH!!! In all honesty it's more like I'm being trained. I am so grateful Heavenly Father has blessed me with this precious opportunity to learn from and to grow with Sister Katie Bell. She's a darling girl from California who is so quick to serve and to offer help to those around her. She's incredible. To think that he is entrusting me with such a sacred responsibility, I am deeply humbled and amazed. I better understand how Helaman must have felt when his father placed in his care the sacred responsibility of maintaining the plates. "And now remember, my son, that God has entrusted you with these things which are sacred and also which he will keep and preserve for a wise purpose in him, that he may show forth his power unto future generations. And now my son, see that ye take care of these sacred things, yea, see that ye look to God and live. Go unto this people and declare the word, and be sober. My son, farewell." (Alma 37:14,47). Sister Bell has been placed into my care, His precious and beloved child. Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are trusting me. Sister Bell will be an incredible instrument in blessing and training future generations of missionaries and bringing generation and generations of people to the truth. I cannot and will not do this without His help. I have no idea what I'm doing, but He knows. I trust Him with all my heart. I'm so far from perfect, I make many, many mistakes. But He is with me and I'm doing all that is in my power to do as He does and be as He is. We are seeing MIRACLES!

I'm still serving in the beautiful Warrenton 1st ward, but with the increase of missionaries, we now have 2 sets of us! Elder Barney (an incredible and humble missionary) and his trainee Elder McLaughlin have joined us in the ward. We, sisters, were moved from our apartment and now live in the basement of the Lubeskies. We cover the more... civilized part of the boundaries while the Elders are out in the country and long dirt roads haha. I'm so happy.

Liza, WHAT'S UP?! Half marathon, no big deal. And you beat Dad to the finish line. I blame Kyle.. haha :) Ok. I have no words for Mary Lake. I'm honored to call her my cousin. I'm trying to imagine her playing volleyball in my mind, and I'm sure that my vision is far less than what she really is capable of doing.

I wanted to share with you this week my grattitude for prayer. I looked up the definition for the word commune. It means to talk together with profound intesnsity and intimacy. We can commune with God! Our Father in Heaven talks WITH us. With profound intensity and intimacy, He talks with us. As I have poured out my heart to our dear Father in Heaven day by day, hour by hour, I have felt Him speaking with me, pouring out His love and wisdom to my soul. I know His voice. He "who laid the foundation of the earth, who made the heavens and all the hosts therof, and by whom all things were made which live, and move, and have a being" (D&C 45:1). He is our God, our Father. I love Him. I love His Son, my Lord, my Friend.

LOVE SISTER JULIA JEPPSEN

Sister Bell and Sister Jeppsen.. Companions!!!

 

Elder Earnshaw, Cousin to Julia's cousin!! 

3- 4-13 Lay Hold to EVERY Good Thing! I LOVE MORONI AND ABRAHAM!!

DAD MOM RYAN RACHELLE LIZA EMMA and my other dearly beloved friends

I talked to Elder TREVOR MONTGOMERY on the phone!! He's not in my zone, but maybe we'll see each other at transfers this Thursday.

 

I am so happy. I love Sister Smith. I love Warrenton 1st. I love all of the incredible people here. And oh how I love my Father and Friend. Without prayer, I would be lost. We truly can COMMUNE with God. [to commune: to converse or talk together, usually with profound intensity and intimacy].. I would ellaborate but I feel to share with you something else..

 

I cherish the words of the prophets. What joy and clarity, what peace and strength we receive as we search and study His words. Very seldom do I read the Book of Mormon from beginning to end, but I immerse myself in its words daily. I have such a deep respect for Moroni. He was the very last prophet to write in the Book of Mormon and was a man of many sorrows as he was the only one to remain faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ, surrounded by wickedness, cruelty, and darkness. How difficult it must have been for him and for all the humble men before him, to press forward in the work when they knew that their efforts would be lost to apostasy. But they could endure, for their faith was in the future, it was directed ahead of them. He and so many faithful followers of Christ could cheerfully and willingly move onward because they knew that in our dispensation, good would defeat evil, that light would cast out all darkness, that the Jesus Christ would return in majesty and great glory. We are preparing the world for Him. Our efforts will not be lost. These are the last days. We are fulfilling prophesy. 

 

Moroni, with his unwavering faith in that which was ahead, he so diligently and so lovingly exhorts us to "come unto Christ and lay hold upon every good gift" (Moroni 10:30-31). President Riggs truly lives his commitment: "I will come unto Christ and lay claim on EVERY blessing available to me and my family." His scriptures and his studies are centered on seeking the promised blessings from our Father in Heaven, and what he can do to lay claim on them. Moroni's father had asked "How is it possible that ye can lay hold upon EVERY good thing?"  To answer, if we "search diligently in the light of Christ... and by faith [we will] lay hold upon EVERY good thing... In Christ there should come EVERY good thing" (Moroni 7:19-25).

Heavenly Father opened my eyes this week as I was studying the incredible man and humble prophet Abraham. Read with me from Abraham 1:1-2. "I, Abraham,saw.. and finding there was greater happiness and peace and rest for me, I sought for the blessings of the fathers... having been myself a follower of righteousness, desiring also to be one who possessed great knowledge, and to be a greater follower of righteousness, and to possess a greater knowledge, and to be a father of many nations, a prince of peace, and desiring to recieve instructions and to keep the commandments of God.. I became a rightful heir, a High Priest, holding the right belonging to the fathers." Abraham saw that Heavenly Father had greater happiness, peace, and rest for him. He looked and his vision was expanded, his understanding enlightened. He beheld that there was far more he could enjoy, far more he could become. He studied and he realized there were greater blessings he could enjoy. Abraham was already a "follower of righteousness" but he wanted to be better. As we come unto Christ, God will show unto us our weakness (Ether 12:27). Abraham desired to be better, to be a greater follower of righteousness, to possess a greater knowledge. He wanted all that God had in store for him. He desired to be a father of many nations, a prince of peace. He humbly saught for instruction, to know what he could do to improve, to grow, to learn. He desired to keep all of the commandments, for he understood that it is ONLY by obedience to the commandments of God that we obtain His blessings (D&C 130:20-21). As Abraham actively sought, he BECAME. He received. He entered into a covenant with Him and took upon him the name of Christ. I've started doing as I have seen President Riggs do. I seek for the promised blessings from our Father in the words of His prophets, living and dead. I saw in his scriptures that he circles every "IF" and underlines every "WILL" or "SHALL." President Riggs is an incredible man, for he is humble and diligently follows Jesus Christ.

 

LOVE SISTER JULIA JEPPSEN

 

The Howards!

We volunteer at a food bank every week with some incredible people. This is Andy. He's great

 

 

2-25-13 Trust in Things to Come- Love Warrenton!

DAD MOM RYAN RASH LIZA EMMA and my dear dear friends

 

OOODALLALEY!!!! LIZA'S GOIN TO BYU!!!! WOOOHOOOO HOORAH! Well done, thou good and faithful servant. And WHAT?!?! Trevor's comin to DC??! AHHH! Thats so crazy. Oh I'm so excited. How glorious.

We had a tender little moment at the Whitesides this week. We were having dinner at their house Friday night, when Alexandra opened her email and found that she was accepted to BYU!! I was so excited. I just knew you were finding out too, Liza. Heavenly Father is so good. It is good to "remember Lot's wife" as Jesus taught us in Luke 17:32. Having been asked to leave the comfort of home in Sodom and Gomorrah, she looked back. Elder Holland teaches us that "she wasn't just looking back; in her heart she wanted to go back... she looked back longingly. In short, her attachment to the past outweighed her confidence in the future... The past is to be learned from, but not lived in... Faith is always pointed toward the future." How blessed are we! There is no need to wish to be where you once were, to enjoy the life you once had. If our dear Father in Heaven so graciously gave to us then, then why would He stop? Trust in good things to come.

 

Incredible lesson with Libby this week. She's what we call an eternal investigator, but we had a remarkable lesson at the church with the Norths (who I love dearly). I love Heavenly Father. Everything happens at the right time. They had been trying to set up a lesson with them for weeks, but it never would work. Surely it was Heavenly Father's hand. He is in every detail of our lives. He loves us. And oh how I love Him.

 

LOVE SISTER JULIA JEPPSEN

 

The Whitesides :) I love them dearly. Alexandra got into BYU too! Liza - you should be friends!

Sister Anderson exchange

Beautiful beautiful Warrenton with my beautiful beautiful Sister Smith

2-18-13 I Love This Work!!! - "Love Her Mother"

DAD MOM RYAN RACHELLEY LIZA EMMA and my dear friends

Hello! I love this work. And I love TO work. How forever grateful I am that Heavenly Father has permitted me to represent His Son, my greatest Friend. I feel as Mormon did when he said "And now I, Mormon, speak unto you, my beloved brethren; and it is by the grace of God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, and his holy will, because of the gift of his calling unto me, that I am permitted to speak unto you at this time." This calling that I am so priviledged to bear is a true gift from the Lord. I do not deserve it! But how I rejoice and praise Him for allowing me to be here. I am so grateful to be companions with Sister Smith, I love her so much. And I am so grateful for the Restoration of His gospel. We have the fulness. We have living prophets and apostles! I love our dear prophet, Thomas S Monson.  

Todd, my dear friend, is so great! He's away on a work trip this week but keeps in contact through the divine gift of cellular communication. With his righteous concerns regarding his family, he's having to stand alone in his decision. But how wonderful it is to know that we are never alone.

The gospel of Jesus Christ blesses our families. Heavenly Father, so graciously and so mercifully placed us here in our families. I was reading Elaine S. Dalton's talk "Love Her Mother" this week as I prayerfully considered the needs of my dear friends here in Warrenton. She says, "The most important thing a father can do for his daughter is to love her mother." Fathers are to love and respect their wives. To cherish and protect her and their children is of greatest importance. And the way to do so is through guiding them to a celestial and eternal, temple marriage. The Family: A Proclamation to the World says, "Sacred ordinances and covenants available in holy temples make it possible for individuals to return to the presence of God and for families to be united eternally." It is in the temple where we can be sealed together forever. Sister Dalton says "Love her mother so much that your marriage is celestial. A temple marriage for time and all eternity is worthy of your GREATEST efforts and HIGHEST priority." The greatest way to love, guide, and protect the family is by following our Savior and guiding them to the temple. For some, their families may not follow right away. They may have to stand alone in taking the first steps toward the fulness of His gospel. But really, they are never alone. "Some blessings come soon, some come late, and some don't come until heaven. But for those who embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ they come. It will be all right in the end. Trust God and believe in good things to come." -Elder Holland

To my dearly beloved family, I love you. I could not imagine life without you, and how glorious it is that there really is no need to imagine such a lonely and empty life. Because of our Lord Jesus Christ, because of His and our Father's perfect and all encompassing love for us, we can and we WILL be together forever. We have been sealed in His holy temple, by His holy priesthood. Forever. For ALL time and eternity.

How magnificent is our Father!

LOVE SISTER JULIA JEPPSEN

2-11-13 Trials.. that we gain the education that we come here to acquire!

DAD MOM RYAN RACHELLE LIZA EMMA and my dear friends

What a tender mercy of our Lord! Lexi was able to escort Melissa into the MTC?! Heavenly Father is so good. That warms my heart. And Chloe and Ashboy are great!

This week has been hard but incredible. I don't even know really where to begin except that I am so grateful. I love our Heavenly Father. I am so grateful for this precious opportunity to grow and to love, to endure and to become. I love trials. I am so grateful for them! Elder Orson F Whitney said "No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted... All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable... it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we come here to acquire." I am so very blessed, far more than I ever will deserve. I have felt angels round about me, I have felt my Savior walking beside me, and I have felt the love of our Father in Heaven.  

Through the grace of our Savior, our Father has performed miracles in this area. Warrenton 1st is incredible! I love the members here, I love the people. This land is beautiful, even with the dead of winter. From 1 new investigator in 4 weeks, to 6 new in 1 week, Heavenly Father is so graciously allowing Sister Smith and I to find and teach some of His remarkable and perfectly prepared children. It has been marvelous to witness, to experience, and to be a part of. 

Steven is this incredible 17 year old boy, who has endured through many awful and devastating trials. He has lost his brother, father, and uncle to death in 3 months time and has struggled with many other heartbreaks and tragedies. I am in awe of his strength and his faith. When he heard about early morning seminary, he decided to take the initiative and showed up on his own. For 4 weeks, he has attended every day. And not only does he attend, but he is actively involved in the lessons. The Whitesides, this incredible family, have taken him into their arms and we've had the privilege to meet him and to share with him the precious and merciful plan of our loving Father in Heaven. What a privilege it is to know him and to grow with him.

I love you dearly!

SISTER JULIA JEPPSEN

Sister Smith

Todd is incredible. He's the man we found my first day, walking down the long dirt road

Marshall :) Guess where we found him - MACOODODONALDOS!!! Eating our most delcious ice cream cones

Storybook chairs + my inheritance from Sister Rozsa, the dictionary of life

Steven and the Whitesides! 

2-4-13 Transferred to Warrenton 1st... the Country!!!

DAD MOM RYAN RACHELLE LIZA DONG and my beloved friends

 

President Riggs reads to us from Alma 22, verse 4 every transfer meeting. The king is asking Aaron why Ammon is not the one to come teach him. Aaron's response: "Behold the Spirit of the Lord has called [Sister Jeppsen] another way; she has gone to the land of [WARRENTON 1st] to teach the people [there with her newest companion SISTER SMITH]."

 

Oh how excited I am!! I praise and honor my Lord and King and I thank and rejoice in my God and Father! I absolutely love my new ward, Warrenton 1st. Warrenton is all sorts of country. The area ranges from the most rural to the most wealthy and it covers a HUGE amount of land. While our area is ginormous, our car miles are few, so I'm happy to report that there is a need to bike every so often. The ward was only recently opened to proselyting missionaries and Sister Smith has been serving here for the past 6 months. She claims to be the designated "assessment and preparatory missionary." I love her. We are opposite in so many ways. She is practical, I am hopeful. She has mastered the mechanics, I run on faith. She's sarcastic, I'm cheerful. We balance one another and I am very excited and grateful to learn from her. I'm pretty sure Heavenly Father knew I would struggle with the very limited amount of miles we are alotted, and I am so very blessed to have Sister Smith who is master at it. President has informed us that the area will be divided next transfer and we will be bringing Elders in so I will not have to worry about miles when she leaves.

 

I thought I would be training this transfer (which is only 5 weeks due to the shortened length of MTC training time), but I am so grateful that I am not! I only want to do what the Lord would have me do. And I trust Him with all my heart. At the pulpit, President told me though that I would be training next transfer. But we'll see if God thinks so when next transfer rolls around haha.

 

I have prayed and fasted to know how I can help this ward.  For in the entire month of January, only one new investigator was found and in the entire year of 2013, only one was converted and baptized. And oh how Father in Heaven has truly opened the eyes of my understanding!

 

In my first day here, we found an incredible man named Todd. As we only had enough time to knock on one door after walking down a long dirt road, we prayed and asked Father whether to go to the house on the right or the left. We both felt the left so we went to house on the left. Todd answered the door, and because of our rule of having another woman in the home, he stood outside in the 20 degree weather with us. He has been so prepared! We taught him at his doorstep and left him with the Restoration pamphlet and the Book of Mormon. That evening he informed us that he had read through the entire pamphlet and was working on the Book of Mormon. I know, with every fiber of my being, with all the energy of my soul, that God will direct us to find his children who are ready to receive the fulness of the gospel at this time. Though Sister Smith and our ward mission leader, Brother Howard are skeptical, I know in whom I trust. God has blessed Centreville 2nd ward with an abundance of new people, searching for the truth and with an increased involvement of the ward members becoming anxiously engaged in His work. I know that God will do the same in the Warrenton 1st ward.

 

Its interesting to see that both Centreville 2nd and Warrenton 1st started in very similar states when I first arrived. The missionaries before me have truly been instruments in preparing the members and the area, then it seems as though Father uses me to ignite the fire. My first Sunday here, Bishop had the Relief Society and Priesthood meetings combine to discuss the vision he had received for missionary work in our ward. How incredible!! And through me, the Spirit opened with them to 1 Nephi 10:17, exhorting them with all the energy and love of my heart to do as Nephi did and to desire to see, hear, and know of the vision their Bishop, their stake president, their mission president, their apostles, their prophet, and their God have of what they can become. We must each diligently seek to gain His vision. "One progresses only as fast as he gains knowledge" (Bible Dictionary, 721). May we all progress towards life eternal, even to know Him, our Lord and our God.

 

As David stood before Goliath, trusting that the God who delivered him in times past would deliver him even now, I stand before Warrenton, trusting that the God who transformed Centreville 2nd in times past would do so even now for Warrenton 1st. I love Him. And I will trust in Him forever

 

LOVE SISTER JEPPSEN