Elder Jepsen - Mission Entry 62 - Traffic Violations and a Lesson on Repentance

Once again we had quite the week! Our baptism last weekend went great! The people attending were overwhelmed by the good spirit there and it was an all together pleasant experience for all. Our meeting ended and then the event took a turn that I had never before imagined. The activity hall was right next to where we had the baptism and suddenly a basketball made its spontaneous appearance. Before long we were all busy having a round of hoops with the whole family. Soon a member of the bishopric showed up and joined us for a short while - it was like taken right out of a musical. We all had a great time and it was an unforgetable baptism.

Bicycle rules here in the States are quite different than home in Denmark. People bicycle on the sidewalk and this is all legal and an acceptable practice. Well aware that in Denmark such behaviour would make enemies of the police and become an expensive prank I have had to seriously redefine my boundaries and that almost always has the potential of trouble. If bicycling on the sidewalk is acceptable, then (it seemed) there is a lot less holding back our creativity when rushing to another appointment accross town and getting through congested downtown traffic.

Just the other day we met a police officer when stopping at a traffic light (also on a bicycle) who had tried to catch up to us for three whole blocks (Police bicycles are apparently not equipped with sirens). I should have known it was too good to be true that having this much fun on our bikes was legal. It turned out that bicycling on the sidewalk really wasn't a problem but, pretty much all the other stuff was. He soon began to list our many traffic violations within just three blocks and totalled it up to a ninety dollar fine!!! After having sufficiently scared us into repentance, he thankfully let us go and it WORKED. I have been repenting ever since and perpetually paranoid since that day. I can now say that I am and have been a good law-abiding citizen. No worries Mom... I learned my lesson! ;)

The weather has been impossibly hot and muggy the last few days, it's terrible and almost like Denmark at its worst (or best depending on point of view) and I'm quickly getting myself a good and healthy missionary tan!

Thank you for all your prayers. Love y'all

Elder Jepsen

Elder Jepsen - Mission Entry 61 - The Right Choice is Always at the End of an Uphill Road!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAD!!!! I don't know how old you are, but I am not sure it matters--you've been there for me as long as I have lived and we're still having that beard growing contest when I get home!

I really enjoyed my Mother's Day call on Skype and wish that I could have talked to you more, but it was after all Mother's Day and you have always taught me to love, honor and respect her. I did enjoy everyone's voices and news. Just seeing you was great, even if mostly in the background! It's actually rather difficult to express my feelings for you and I'm kind'a getting a lump in my throat thinking about it, but seeing you brought me a great deal of comfort. I want you to know that you give me a lot of strength just being my Dad. I am amazed at how long it took for life to tire you out. The experience of seeing you fight battle after battle for the family, while overcoming obstacles in your own path as I was growing up, has given me a lot of strength and I am feeling that now as a missionary. I have never known you to take the easy road and as I have learned over the years from you, the road to the best choice is ALWAYS UPHILL and if the road you are on is not uphill, you're going the wrong way! You've made me a better son, missionary--and man (once I finish my mission). I love you Dad and miss you so much. I almost can't wait to see you again! But, I also know that I would want to at least finish my mission before I do, so I'm not in a hurry. Phrasing it in a typical Danish west-coast farmer attitude... "It takes the time it takes." :)

I realized the other day that I haven't really gone "knocking on doors" for several months. We just have so many other things to do! Not that I really miss it. There are other much better ways to find people to teach and better things to do with our precious time. Missionary work here is great! I love it! The people we are teaching are doing great! They come out to church and they love it! We bring them to a fireside at our mission presidents house and they love it. We are doing a few baptisms this weekend, they are all progressing so much and it makes me so happy!

You can't possibly have all the miracles of seeing people discover and grow closer to God without paying the price of disappointment after disappointment. I naturally experience all the pains of missionary work. Appointments that fall through are common; People that you get super excited about teaching and then you never can get a hold of them again; Bike punctures in the middle of nowhere; Rain decides to start pouring on an otherwise sunny day and we get WET! We had a couple of rainy days this week and I had to laugh at my own stubbornness for not bringing and wearing one of Grandma's bright and cheery ponchos. But now the weather is both hot and humid, a lot like when in Denmark the weather goes from one extreme to another within hours. I have had so many interesting experiences that just complete the missionary picture and I wouldn't want to be without any of them.

Another thing that I've been enjoying is biking! I'm finally getting some of my bicycling muscles back that I had from before my mission. We have to meet with people when it suits them best and with "our convenience" not being one of our top priorities, many of our appointments end up across town from each other leaving us to put thirty to forty blocks behind us within ten to fifteen minutes. With a few of those appointments during a day and who needs a gym?

Love you all and hope you have a great week!

Elder Jepsen

Elder Jepsen - Mission Entry 60 - Blessed Beyond All Expectations

Happy birthday, Mom! Hope you had a wonderful day, I sure did. (I am just sitting down for the camera, for the remainder of the day we did real missionary work). I could essentially send you last weeks email again this week. Not that there was anything boring about this week, it was just AS GREAT AS LAST WEEK, like so may other weeks on my mission and that's a good thing. I am happy with what I doing and where I am at in my life. I am surrounded by people that feel the same way about missionary work as I do and I am constantly learning and growing. We work at becoming better missionaries, stay busy teaching people that we meet right in town and I feel blessed beyond all expectations. What more could I want in life right now?

I am enjoying my time out here and I feel privileged that I can focus just on the gospel and the Lord's message to all of us. I will never tire from seeing the change in people as they discover that God is real, He lives and hears our prayers. I am amazed that God's message to us, essentially a collection of rather simple truths still seems like one of the worlds greatest secrets. Drawing nearer to the Lord and learning His teachings has the potential of solving many of the big problems in the world, if only people were not so busy trying to prove themselves greater and smarter than God.

I have known and looked up to many missionaries in my time and I have been looking forward to this time, where I myself could have this experience most of my life. Now I am here and time is running faster than ever expected. I feel like I still have so much work to do, time just won't slow down and I am constantly trying to catch up.

Love you all,

Elder Jepsen

Elder Jepsen - Mission Entry 59 - Happy Mother's Day, Mom!

This is my new companion, Elder Harbor. GREAT missionary!

Happy Mother's Day, Mom! YOU'RE GREAT, thank you for still trying after all these years of our mischief. I hope you know and are reminded how much we children (and Dad, I know) appreciate you as just one lonely little day is scheduled to celebrate all your hard work over the years (I know, the balance is ridiculous) but, I love you for all you have done for me. In my calender EVERY day is Mother's day and Father's day.

This week was over the top! Once again I got one of the best Elders in the mission for a companion. I am blessed to be surrounded with the best missionaries and leaders that I can constantly look up to and learn from. My new companion is Elder Harbor (pictured with Minneapolis in the background and a bicycle helmet in the foreground) and he is an amazing and awesome missionary! It's his birthday today and he's from South Carolina. He goes home in six weeks, is a hardworking Elder, has a great sense of humor and would have been great fun to work with for longer than just the few weeks he has left.

I mentioned a family a while back... and they're all getting baptized, three generations worth! I am grateful just to be here, serving God and be a part of all this. I am being blessed beyond what I can contain or express. Everybody that we've been teaching in that family have shown great faith and an amazing willingness to change. So far, six people are scheduled for baptism and more are on the way. I don't really have a total number to give you, as it keeps growing and they have invited their friends as well but it seems that it might be around fifteen people. We can of course not take any credit, as this really happens between these people and God, who had prepared them to hear the truth. They love the gospel, their parents love the gospel and the grandparents love the gospel. When they all attended church last Sunday they summed up the experience to be unlike anything they had ever experienced before and they really felt God's Spirit there. They can't wait for the next Sunday and I keep expecting to wake up and find out that I was just dreaming it all!

I am so grateful for the wonderful opportunity I have to meet and get to know this family and see them change and grow as they begin to recognize God's Spirit in their lives. I am grateful and humbled as well to know that my Father in heaven has entrusted me with teaching the gospel to such a wonderful family.

Grateful to be here. Love y'all,

Elder Jepsen

Elder Jepsen - Mission Entry 58 - Faith in God Will Make the Most Amazing Things Possible!

WOW, what a week! My birthday turned out to be quite the experience. It was a good day with a lot of good appointments and lot's of good work. I experienced a whole new angle on the concept of trials: Everyone wanted to feed us (not that people here in any way lack hospitality) but, this was all within the limitations of one day. I generally try to please the people around me and this was NOT what you could call a sacrifice! I suppose one could say that I surpassed my nutritional requirements on my birthday! It was great fun and the only way to repent was hard work and lots of crazy bicycling to work it all off! To top it all off I had received two nice packages in time for my birthday, one from Grandma and another from Ximena in Barcelona. My birthday couldn't have been better.

We got our transfer calls today. Elder Noffsinger is going home this week as was the plan, dismissing any element of surprise, or so I thought. Change was inevitable but, what I didn't expect was my president telling me... "Elder, you've done such a fine job with sending Elder Noffsinger home that we're going to have you send one more home! - My first thought was "AAAARGH!" as I seem to have no choice but to develop some form of immunity to getting "trunky" and the only antidote that I know of is hard work.

Now for the really awesome part of my conversation with our President: He said that I might get to train a new missionary after the next transfer if I do a good job in this upcoming transfer. I might get to train a Swedish Elder fresh from the MTC... Scandinavian power!

We've recently met this girl with five siblings that also showed an interest in the church. The whole family attended church last Sunday and they loved it! I hope and pray all goes well for them, learning and building on their relationship with God. They are great people and faith in God will make the most amazing things possible.

Our baptism last week went well. We're all very grateful that she finally was able to enter this new stage in her life and now she seems ready to begin reaching for new levels. I have faith that she will be a great asset to the church here.

The weather here is great and we're enjoying it a lot. We occasionally get some massive thunderstorms that just pour and pour, but that's no reason to abandon the bike. Most bikes over here come without fenders, as did mine. Being without a rear fender is particularly problematic in thunderstorms with heavy rain, as it it makes for an experience similar to what I might imagine to be spending a day seated on a bidet--fully clothed!!! Having pity on my now fully marinated body parts, my good companion bought me a fender as a birthday present, a near life-changing experience! I am going to miss Elder Noffsinger. He is an awesome missionary and it has truly been a pleasure serving with him.

I gotta go, there is more missionary work to be done!

Love y'all!

Elder Jepsen

Elder Jepsen - Mission Entry 57 - Testimony of the Book of Mormon and Blessings (well, Computers) Falling From Heaven!

Yes, it is my birthday and it's weird! I just don't feel my age, but then how am I to know what this age feels like--I have never been this age, before now!

Thanks Eric, for your awesome mail! It was nice to get updated.

I received Grandma's package today, with all kinds of good stuff! Thank you, Grandma--I will be sending you a thank-you letter as soon as possible.

Could you please send me Paul's address? He is ahead of me by two cards now and I need to reply, SOON.

We had a great experience this week. A native American that we teach, is a friend of the most fabulous member-missionary alive. He's been interested in the church for many years and when we met with him the first time we explained some things, showed him the video of the restoration, and bore testimony of and gave him a Book of Mormon. The Spirit was there and testified with such undeniable strength, that it was very nearly overwhelming. The truth of what we were teaching was verified, as fast as we could teach. Everyone there knew without a doubt that were teaching in accordance with what God wanted this man to know. It was an amazing experience!

If people are prepared to listen, read and apply the contents of the Book of Mormon together with the Bible, their lives are bound to change for the better. You almost don't have to teach if only people will read, pray and apply the principles learned through a study of the Book of Mormon, it's a GREAT teaching tool.

After sensing the immense power in the Spirit he began to think of the possibilities. With a grandnephew in the hospital, Sister Hill had been teaching him about blessings (behind our backs) and he soon saw the potential in this. After obtaining the appropriate permissions the very next day, we are off to St. Paul's Hospital with him and Sister Hill to administer a blessing. He found the experience beautiful and loved it. He felt the spirit strongly there as well and we are now teaching both him and his wife.

Apropos St. Paul's Hospital, now for something completely different: The sky is not falling, but a little boy was nevertheless nearly nailed by a fly-by-laptop computer here in Minneapolis this last week. A nice laptop computer dropped from the sky and was in perfect working order until it blew to pieces on the asphalt one foot ahead of a young boy, that suddenly had something for next day's show-and-tell in school. A hospital helicopter had accidentally dropped the computer on the way back to the hospital. The boy lived to tell the tale, the hospital apologized and everyone went back to just another day in Minneapolis.

Last weekend we were supposed to baptize one of the people we have teaching, but through some hard effort and praying we ended up correlating our plans with God first. Our planned baptism (prospective member) is an amazing person and has changed immensely since we met her the first time. Embracing the gospel has brought her so much happiness and she is now going to be baptized in the Singles Congregation and attend there. Initially she didn't seem to feel comfortable with the idea, but I think the Spirit has helped her to make a good choice.

I had the privilege to baptize a young boy from the congregation this last weekend. He was the last in the family to be baptized and it was a very special and beautiful experience to be able to assist the family in performing this sacred ordinance. We were also able to bring one of the people we teach to the baptism. She was happy to see how a baptism is performed and enjoyed the beauty of it as well. Baptisms always bring back the memories of my own baptism, back when I was eight--in the cold waters of Lillebelt (Little Belt Sound) ... ah, good times.

So we've been biking around alot, and my rosy cheeks are getting all kinds of comments and compliments. Most people see it as sunburn, but you know--my cheeks love any weather and that's just how they weather when I bicycle a lot.

I have to be going. Missionary life is calling, and so is a spring cleaning of our apartment.

Love you all!

Elder Jepsen

Elder Jepsen - Mission Entry 56 - Amazing Strength and Empowerment of Faith

It was good to hear from you. I look forward to my news from home every week. But this week especially, Eric's mail made me laugh and brightened my whole day. I love you kiddo, you're a my best little brother!

So biking around has been a blast. We've been enjoying the beautiful weather. I'm told summers here can get HOT, being of Viking blood this has me a little worried as heat, humidity and I don't work that well together.

The other day we were out teaching with one of my favorite members. He's blind and has a great sense of humor. He has taught me a great deal of appreciation for the blessing of sight and allowed me some insight into the "blind" world or helped "Open my eyes" towards blind people (sorry 'bout the puns, but I am amazed at how much we rely on seeing). We worked out a challenge for me doing my whole morning routine without turning on the lights and just relying on the other senses... I tried and found it very interesting, although it never totally allows me understand the life of a blind person, being able to open my eyes or turn on the light and see at any time. I totally appreciate my gift of sight but, to walk a step or two in another persons shoes does help me gain a different point of view and I appreciate that.

One could expect there to be a saturation point in these weekly e-mails. Always more baptisms, more faith, more miracles and more happiness but, it doesn't bother me one bit. I love it here and the more, the merrier. Just keep it coming and yes, we have another baptism coming up and it's great!

Sometimes I feel as if I am sitting on the sideline watching all these miracles happen in front of my eyes, as people discover and develop their potential in faith. The empowerment and strength available though faith comes as a surprise to most people. It is great to see the progression from when we first meet someone and to when they realize that no matter how fast they decide to move, God's ahead of them awaiting and accompanying their arrival at this new point in life. I enjoy how even the newest members in the church has something to offer the rest of us, they contribute a great strength to the church.

Yet another baptism is scheduled for the beginning of May and is a miracle in itself. We taught an object lesson for the "Plan of Salvation" in the chapel for a mom and her daughter. The spirit was very strong and both of them committed to be baptized together. The husband and father will be released from prison on the day of the baptism and will be able to see his family get baptized (he's already a member).

I hope that you are all doing great... I really do miss you, and can't wait to see you all again one day. A letter should be coming your way Mom and Dad, within the next couple of weeks.

Love you all,

Elder Lee Jepsen