Tornadoes and Christmas party

 Ok where do I start this last week was unbelievable long😅 Very good but very packed. 

So transfers was a week ago today, said bye to my dad Elder Kreimeyer and my new companion is an elder from Eagle ID named Elder Godfrey. We are actually very similar, it's been super fun serving with him so far. Also he speaks Spanish so that's a huge plus!

Day after transfers 22 Tornadoes hit the surrounding areas. Like, literally if you look at a map of the mission Hopkinsville is just a donut of safety surrounded by destruction, I feel very blessed and fortunate to have not been in danger. All of the missionaries ended up being safe, even the Hermanas in Mayfield, the city the got absolutely leveled. Angels definitely In action there. There will probably be lots of service in the future, but for now we are letting the emergency response check it out. 

After that insane night, (which Elder Jeppson completely slept through,) we got back to work! We had a massive Christmas zone conference/devotional with the entire mission, it was super good to see missionaries and hear stories from them. The Nashville tribute band and Cardin McKinney sang for us, it was super fun. Lowkey felt like a Baptist church for a sec but it was super fun🤣

Something I've studied a lot this week is the brother of Jared's experience with the Savior prior to his departure to the America's. I would love to encourage everyone to read ether 2 and 3, and focus on how nothing the brother of Jared did or prepared in his own strength would have made his journey less impossible or easier. Love yall!

Whole mission Christmas party

Official training is over. Tranfers!

 Mom note: I got a text from my high school friend, Tricia Godfrey, yesterday telling me that her son will be Ethan's new companion! Such a small world 

So tomorrow is transfers! My companion will be leaving me to become a zone leader over in Goodletsville, and I'll be staying in Kirkwood with an elder named Elder Godfrey! I am stoked to stay here, we've been working hard and it would be a huge bummer to say bye to the folks God's put in our path. This last week we had this really cool member referral, the second referral I've received. She's this members Catholic friend who feels like her church is missing something. Pray for Sharon! She went to church and loved it so that's hype. 

Cool HOTL from the week: We felt like we should visit this lady in a trailer park, which was wierd for two reasons: it would use up the miles we had for the day, and it was still in the morning so she probably would not be home/ be busy. We pray to know whether or not we should, and we ended up heading over. 21 miles later, we show up and she's not home😂 huge surprise there but then we turn around and her neighbor is outside across the street. We ask her if she can share a message and she welcomes us into her home. Turns out she had had a miscarriage THE DAY BEFORE and had lost her job THE DAY BEFORE THAT. On top of that, she was a single mom with a 9-year-old special needs daughter that requires attention all day every day, and a 7 year old and 5 year old son. Long story short she needs Jesus😁 She loved the message of the restoration, and also gave us another referral for her non Christian friend. 

Something I've studied a lot lately is self sacrifice. As I've been out, I've realized that you literally cannot be a consecrated missionary without being completely and totally willing to give 100% of yourself to the lord. Maybe a decent missionary, but not an amazing one. If you haven't, read the talk "becoming a consecrated missionary." if you can't access it, contact me and I'll get it to you👍

Setting up for the "Nativity" event

Dan and Marci's Brother in law is a stake President in Kentucky which is in Ethan's area and he was finally able to meet him. Such a small world 

Cockroaches and Nativities

 Hey y'all it's been a minute👋 Work here in Clarksville has been very good, a lot of the people we have had progressing have been out of town so its been a bit of a switch up. something kinda funny that happened last week was we helped this lady named Laida who the sisters have been teaching clean up her house. ok to start out her house is completely infested with roaches. literally roach corpses covering the ground everywhere. Move a table? bam roaches. Move a chair? bam roaches.  Move a couch? bam roaches out the wazoo. Anyways, she also let her daughter have a dog. her daughter had this tiny unventilated 10 ft by 10 ft room, and I kid you not we counted over 50 piles of poop and pee was everywhere. we ended up just soaking the room in a few gallons of bleach and an hour later we made almost no progress and we were dizzy from the bleach. Still though, so good being able to do service!

Something else we've been preparing for is this huge nativity the local stake does. We carried in like 30 Christmas trees and there going to be hundreds of nativities set up, kind of a cool thing we've been able to participate in! 

Something I've thought a lot about is sacrifice and humility. We need to be humble enough to realize that there is always something we can do better, something we can sacrifice or commit to the lord. I love the verse ether 12:27, you all have probably studied it by I encourage y'all to dive deeper into it. Love y'all!

Happy Thanksgiving

 P day is Thursday this week. Happy Thanksgiving! Don't have a lot of time but something I've thought a lot about lately is being grateful for what we have. A quote that I grew up with in my living room back home that has been powerful for me to think about is "sometimes it's good to stop in the pursuit of happiness and just be happy!" Because of the Savior, we can just be happy because there is a way prepared for us, and all of us can become better! 

Grateful for all y'all!

Elder Jeppson and Elder Kreimeyer having Thanksgiving dinner with the Kuroiwa family