Transfers and more exchanges!

Family and Friends,

This week has been amazing!

Monday
It all started out with a super solid preparation day! We went up to Gillette and met up with a bunch of the Elders from our zone. We did some shopping at Walmart there because the biggest store in Newcastle is a small Shopko. All of us then went to a nearby park and proceeded to play ulitmate frisbee and football for 3 hours. It was definitely some good cardio haha! I then left Gillette with a new companion, I was on exchanges once again but now with Elder Perez! He's definitely one of my favorite missionaries that I've ever met. He lived in Mexico city until he was 15 or 16 and then moved to Texas. He is hilarious and also a complete genius!

Tuesday
Studies today were fantastic! Elder Perez really knows how to study and to keep track of information. He loves learning and reading and he knows the Book of Mormon and Bible very well. Before I felt like I wasn't getting as much out of my studying as I could but I talked to him about it and he was able to give me a lot of pointers and help me understand more. Ever since then I've done a lot better at reading and studying! He also introduced me to a lot of different devotionals and talks that he transferred over to my USB drive so that I can listen to them in our truck. My favorite one that I've listened to so far is "Israel, Israel, God is Calling" by Elder Holland. It's a CES devotional from 2012 and if you want to get fired up I suggest you go watch it or listen to it or read it, or all three! It is so powerful!

Wednesday
We had a really awesome district meeting. Elder Burnham has been serving in the Gillette 1st ward and he just went home on Saturday. He was a great example to me and it was a very special last district meeting for him. We read in Alma about the title of liberty and then we tore up someone's old white shirts and all made our own title of liberty! It was a really cool activity! We made a big one that all of us added to for Elder Burnham to take home with him. Later that night we had another lesson with Mikey. He's really progressing and has lots of good questions and wants to continue learning more! We found out that he is on a special olympics team! He competes on a bowling team and is a power lifter as well! He showed us all of the medals and trophies that he's earned, and let me tell you there were a lot haha!

Thursday
We went to an appointment that ended up falling through, it was with someone that Elder Perez and I tracted into. When we were there before he had a little puppy with him, when we went again I saw a different puppy in the yard and walked on in thinking nothing about it. I got in and turned around to see Elder Hatton shutting me in the yard with the gate. I pointed out the 'very vicious' dog and told Elder Hatton to come on. Then I turn around and there are two considerably larger dogs running at me from behind the house. I froze. I don't think I've ever feared physically more than I did right then. Luckily these dogs were friendly and in their case the loud parking and gnashing of teeth really did mean they just wanted to play. They kept bringing branches over to us to throw for them so we stayed for a bit with them because no one was home. We had a good laugh later to say the least haha!

Friday
We had dinner with Dallas and his family. All 8 of his grandkids were there and they are crazy! They were running in and out of the rooms and house having half conversations with us and then leaving again before we could finish answer haha! But we did have a really good dinner and Dallas told us about how much he loves the temple. Dallas is the one that was baptized just under 2 years ago and washed our feet my first week here. He got to go through the temple and receive his endowments last Saturday!

Saturday
This morning was really hot. We went to a less active member's house and helped him and his wife and daughter and grandson stain the entire outside of his house. Needless to say it was quite a bit of work and we were at it for nearly 4 hours. But it was all worth it because in the end they bought us Pizza Hut! Just kidding, Pizza Hut isn't the best blessing that comes from service haha! We had a big ward dutch oven dinner Saturday night! The food was really good and then after we had a missionary presentation. Elder Hatton and I led a Q&A session about ourselves and missionary work. We're working on getting to know the members even better so we can work with them more! Then we passed out restoration pamphlets and did a big roleplay to help the members see that what we teach isn't big and complex, but that in most cases they already know it!

Sunday
Sunday is once again one of my favorite days of the week. Sacrament meeting was on Sabbath Day observance again! It's a hot topic right now and I'd encourage you to all pray and ask God how you can do better in your observance of the Sabbath. This week we also talked about fasting with the Sabbath. All of you should look up and study President Eyring's talk "Is Not This the Fast That I Have Chosen?" from this last conference. There are so many great blessings to be had if we actually fast. One of the speakers talked about your average noon to 3 fast. God still recognizes it but you don't get anywhere near the blessing you would if you properly fast for 2 meals with accompanied prayer! I also invite you all to do a self assessment and ask yourself and God how you are doing at observing the law of the fast. If you find a way to improve, do it! If you don't, keep looking and asking! I promise there are always ways for us to improve and the get better if you earnestly look and really intend to change!

Last thing. Transfer calls came in! And the verdict is..........Elder Hatton and I will be staying in Newcastle for now! I can't believe that I've finished my first transfer! I can't wait to continue serving here in Newcastle, I love it here so much.

I love you all! I'll write next week! :)

Elder Tippetts

More Photos!

August 24th - Mission tour and more exchanges!

Family and friends,

Man this has been the best week ever! Like seriously best week of the
mission so far! Monday was just a normal preparation day so I won't
really get into it but the rest of the week was pretty awesome! And
apparently it looks like I'm not sending this out individually this
week haha, sorry!

Tuesday
We had dinner with the Clarks, they're a super solid family. Bro Clark
is the one that gave the really amazing talk about families last week!
Sister Clark is working with a friend that she thinks might need some
help from the missionaries, we're gonna keep working with her and show
her how to work with us to get that done. We taught a lesson to
Christene tonight finally! An RM from the Ward, Ramiee, that's
visiting home here while she's off track at BYU-I went with us to the
lesson and it turns out they were really good friends in high school
and played soccer together! It was a perfect example of how important
and successful member missionary work can be! When we were driving
home from the appointment we stopped by a gas station and they had
coonskin caps so we bought matching ones, regrettably we didn't get a
picture though, sorry...

Wednesday
We were walking down Main Street and Elder Clark wanted to go look at
some jerseys he saw in a wedding shop, we went in there and ended up
having a really good conversation about God and I came away with a
really good looking tie at a really good price! We taught Mikey
tonight and put him on date to be baptized! He's so awesome and I
can't wait to continue watching him progress, his parents are members
and he's really ready. He said, 'lots of other churches have tried to
make me join them and be baptized, but something in my heart is
pushing me to be baptized in this church.' Look at that! A
missionaries dream! Mikey is the one that we found at Pizza Hut.

Thursday
We drove into billings at 3 this morning to get here by 7:30. We have
MISSION TOUR today! A member of the 70, Elder Martino, came and spoke
to us in a mission conference! It was so powerful! I got to is the EFY
medley in a small missionary choir, the spirit was so strong and it
made me miss singing so much! Elder Martino and President Wadsworth
talked A LOT about member missionary work. At the end Elder Martino
taught us super in depth about the Atonement. My testimony was
strengthened so much and I know that our brother, Jesus Christ, chose
to suffer and sacrifice himself because of how much he loves us,
because there was no other way. I got to see my MTC roommates (except
for my companion....he's in the most northwest area and I'm in the
most southeast) Elder Potter and Schneider! Then I said goodbye to
Elder Clark, I'm going to miss him a lot. He's one of the funniest
people I know!

Friday
Today I went on Exchanges with one of our Zone Leaders, Elder
Partridge. He's super cool and I learned so much about missionary work
from him! He put someone on date on their porch with me, he's such a
good missionary! We talked a lot about what we learned from Mission
Tour and how we can apply it. He also taught me so much about the
sacredness and power of the priesthood.

Saturday
We met up with Elder Hatton and Mason in Moorcroft to switch back.
Elder Hatton and I stopped at Subway on the way home and had a really
good talk about what we've learned over the past few days and about
all the things we need to do to be better here. We're so excited to
work! When we got home we basically planned for the rest of the day
because we've been gone so not much has been happening, we know what
we're going to be doing now and can't wait to put it into practice!

Sunday
I sang in sacrament meeting today with Elder Hatton! We sang I Love To
See The Temple, it was super powerful and the spirit really testified
to me of the importance of temples! The teacher for the Sunday school
class we usually go to didn't show up and so we ended up teaching the
class last minute! And it went pretty well! We watched tv today! Just
kidding...we got the closest missionaries get to watching tv today! We
had an hour long marathon of preach my gospel district DVDs! We popped
popcorn and learned about planning and area books haha! It was a good
relaxing Sunday! We tracted for 3 hours and got so much done! Man it
was a great week

Also, right now I'm on exchanges again! I'm with Elder Perez! He's so
awesome! I'll tell you more about it next week! I love you all so
much! Thanks for the support!

Elder Tippetts

August 17th - Devil's Tower, Exchanges, and Transfers

Family and Friends,

Hola! It's been another great week. I think I'm going to start to try to organize my emails a bit more by day instead of just a couple of big things that happen. Then I'll maybe not miss out on stuff that happened throughout the week. Also, next week I'm going to start sending out this weekly email myself instead of having my parents do it. They're going to send me a list of everyone they send it to right now and I'll make sure it gets sent. If you know anyone that wants to get my emails feel free to send me their emails, have them email me or contact my parents. Well...here we go!

Monday:

We drove from Newcastle to Moorcroft, where we have our District Meetings, it's about 40 minutes away. There we met up with Elder Johnson and Elder Burnham and the DeGraw family. We drove to Devil's Tower! It's the first declared National Monument in America. It's the only land mass in the entire state of Wyoming that's classified as a mountain haha! So that's just a little different than living on the Wasatch front. It was super fun and we got some cool pictures! When we were done we went on exchanges, leaving Elder Clark with Elder Burnham and taking Elder Johnson with us back down to Newcastle.

Tuesday:

Today was fun! We spent a lot of time today proselyting on Facebook. While you're on Facebook messenger there isn't much to do while you wait for people to respond, so I've started practicing piano. I took piano lessons forever ago and definitely don't consider myself skilled on it. But I've been spending a lot of down time learning, very slowly, the hymns! On Facebook I met a girl named Courtnie. At first it was a little awkward talking to her and I wanted to stop because there's a point where you don't think you're going to get much further, but I kept going and I felt I needed to talk to her, eventually she mentioned that she's actually Mormon! She's been inactive for quite a while and was a convert baptism just over a year ago. The ward council has been trying to get in touch with her for a while but they haven't been able to, hopefully now we'll be able to find time to meet with her and help her come back to church. We also taught a lesson to Mikey, about a week ago we were having dinner with his parents and he was there and out of the blue he says "you're mormons, right? I've been thinking about joining your church for a while and I think I want to get baptized." WHAT?! That was our reaction, that's a missionaries dream! He's been going to church for 8-11 years he says, both of his parents are members and he's just never been baptized or met with missionaries. We're now teaching him and he's doing great! We also taught Cooper, he's the Senior from Newcastle High that I met over Facebook. He has so much faith in Christ and actively participates in the Lutheran Church. We're not entirely sure yet if he's wanting to possible join the church but he has a lot of questions and wants to learn more about Mormonism. We hope that the spirit works on him over time!

Wednesday:

Less happened today because we spent most of the day at District Meeting. I was able to contact Connor's brother through Facebook because Connor hasn't been answering me, so hopefully we'll be able to meet with them soon. Elder Clark really likes to skateboard and was sponsored before his mission and he definitely uses that skill to his advantage out here. There's a group of kids that are always out skating and we'll usually stop and talk with them and sometimes Elder Clark borrows a board and skates with them. We were skating with one of them and his mom came out and we talked with her about what a mission is and what we do as missionaries and she seemed very accepting and was very nice.

Thursday:

This morning we went and got wood. Bro Erickson and Bro Moody came and picked us up and we drove out to a wood pile in the forest nearby. The two of them chopped of logs with chainsaws and the 3 of us stacked them into the trailer. 3-4 hours of lifting big logs later I had a pretty nice burn on my neck and was sufficiently sore haha! We had dinner with them and got to know Bro Moody better. He's the older one with the chainsaw in the pictures I'll send. He's been a member for most of his life and didn't really have religious beliefs as a child. Then he joined the church and he told us about when he was called to be a member of the seventy! We was a seventy for a couple of months but then he was called into the Bishopric in his home ward. He's super cool and knows so much about the Gospel! After dinner we drove about an hour to a different part of our area, Sundance, where they have another department. We took a wrong turn and almost ended up in South Dakota haha! So we stopped at the state sign and took pictures and Elder Clark accidentally found a well hidden Geocache and he's never even heard of Geocaching before haha!

Friday:

Not much happened today. We were able to get hold of an investigator that they haven't seen since before I got here and we set up an appointment that will work.We also stayed in Sundance and all day and met some of the members. Sundance is a small branch.

Saturday:

Today was slow starting because Elder Clark was pretty sick again. We spent a lot of time practicing tracting in our apartment and studying. We met a kid that works at the gas station, he's a mormon and he has a bunch of tattoos and piercings. He was super nice and he's an Art major at a college nearby. He said that next time we were in Sundance we should stop by and say hi!

Sunday:

Sundays are always great! The topic for sacrament was about strengthening families. Families are so important, take the time to pray for each other. Have family scripture study and prayer, study the Family Proclamation together. Have regular FHE. All of that really helps build the most sacred institution that God has established. We taught primary as well! The 3 of us pretended that we lived back when Christ was alive and told the stories of some of his miracles as if we were there! It was so much fun but the kids were a tough crowd haha! They wouldn't believe that I was 2018 years old!!! Hahaha it was a great time! Also Elder Clark said goodbye to a lot of people because he's getting mid-transferred on Thursday. So as of Thursday it's going to be just Elder Hatton and I! Then on the 30th we'll find out if either of us get transferred as well. Bro Willadson, the recent convert with the really awesome motorcycle, got in a pretty big crash on Saturday. He's doing really well and had a blessing, he said he's never felt the spirit as strongly as he did during the blessing, not even when he was baptized in December! Priesthood blessings have very real power. We got to visit him in the Hospital and I've never seen someone with an attitude as positive as his! Ever since he joined the church he goes to the church almost every single day to clean it. No one really asks him to, it's just a way he tries to help out. He was in the Hospital and didn't complain at all, he just asked us to stop by the church and make sure the diapers are taken out and that nothing was too dirty. He's a trooper.

Hopefully this wasn't too long, I'll get a hold of the whole emailing thing sooner or later!

Elder Tippetts

August 10th - More than a month!

Family and friends,

Wow! Saturday was officially one month since I left on my mission!
It's crazy to think that much time has already gone by! I've got 23
months to go! But don't worry, I'm not counting down, I'm counting up!
I think there is so much potential and so much the Lord has in store
for me and I know that as I'm obedient and work hard I'll keep
learning and growing the whole time! I know that even if times get
hard I have access to an infinite amount of strength through the
atonement!

This week has been different than others, it's really interesting.
Like I said last week, we've either baptized all of our investigators,
dropped them because they weren't progressing for too long or they
moved away. So we don't have a really big teaching pool. Because of
that we're obviously workin in finding new investigators. Tracting is
the #1 place to go in general to find people, but that's getting hard
because Newcastle is so small and Elder Clark has been here for almost
3 months now and has knocked on most doors at least 2-3 times already.

It's not uncommon for people to answer the door and say 'Weren't you
here like 2 weeks ago? I already took your pamphlet and watched your
video, I'm still not interested.' So obviously we keep doing it and
hope people change their minds, and we do see that happen, but thanks
to technology we have other ways of contacting people! When you get to
a new area you go through and friend as many people as live in that
town as possible basically. And then we are supposed to post 2-3 times
a week so that people see good things on their timeline and get the
gospel out there and more available. Then we just message random
people. Yup! We'll go through our friends list and just start
messaging people! Then some people respond and we get to know them and
teach gospel principles and try to find a time when we can teach them
in person. It's great because most people seem to be a lot more open
online. I found a kid from the high school that we're going to teach
tomorrow night, his name is Cooper and he's a senior I think. I think
it's a miracle we were able to meet him because as I was talking with
him he said basically if we had knocked on his door his parents would
just send the Mormons packing and he never would get the opportunity
to talk to us. But now we're going to teach him because of Facebook!
We wouldn't have been able to meet him through a door! He has so many
questions about Mormons and already has a strong belief and faith in
Jesus Christ! I shared a pamphlet with him through Facebook messenger
and he read it and asked lots of questions about it and really liked
it! I'm super excited to see where this goes!

One more thing about Facebook! I got my privacy setting fixed so you
should all be able to see all my posts, go press the follow button if
you want them to show up on your timeline everything I post! You can
go to my page just by typing in facebook.com/ElderGarianTippetts!

Another cool thing is I'm learning Jujitsu haha! On Wednesday the 5th
for mutual one of the young men learns jujitsu so he brought his
teacher and one of his friends that does it too! So we showed up
because a lot of the young men that were there were less active. So we
talked with them and learned some jujitsu! Then at the end we were
talking to the two teachers and found out both of them used to be
active members as well! One of them had been preparing to go on a
mission with his best friend but then they both ended up not going.
And guess what! His best friend from back then is in our ward and a
strong member again! So we're going to start working with him and his
friend to help bring him back! It's so cool how wherever you are you
can find people to help come closer to Christ! I've got a challenge
for you all along with that! Pray everyday for missionary
opportunities and to see everyone like God sees them! Then, wherever
you go, always look for people that you can help. You don't have to
teach a lesson from Preach My Gospel, you don't have to baptize them,
but you could say something that brightens their day and let's them
see God's love a little more. It's small actions like those that will
help people's hearts be softened and make them more accepting to the
gospel in the future. You may not see the immediate effects but try to
trust God that he'll use you as an instrument in his hands.

I hope you all have a great week!

Elder Tippetts

First photos from Wyoming

Brother Willardson's Harley

Funny sign

Roasting Marshmallows at Dallas' house

August 3 Sorry...this one's pretty long!

Family and friends,

This week has been pretty awesome! Crazy, sad, happy, hot. So many different emotions and temperatures haha! I'll get the sad stuff out of the way really quick. Remember last week how I was super excited about the convert baptism that was happening? He ended up canceling due to some second thoughts about it. It was really sad but I guess it's just not the time for him and we're just praying that the right time comes soon, the work just keeps moving forward! The other bad thing was a little less sad, but maybe a bit harder. When I got to Montana I got hit with what I thought was really bad allergies, they didn't go away for a while and my companions ended up getting sick too. So we ended up having a couple of really long days with really stuffed noses and really bad coughs. But we still got quite a bit of work done! We just had to go to the bathroom to blow our noses a lot haha! But don't worry! Even when hard things happen, the Lord provides amazing things to make up for it! It's up to us to look for the silver lining in all things and to 'press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men' (2 Nephi 31:20) I know that trusting in God and having hope through the Atonement softens all sorrows and lifts all burdens!

I'll explain a bit more about Newcastle. It's a small town in east Wyoming. The population sign out front says ~3500 people live here. It's a really cool town! We also take in the nearby towns of Upton and Sundance, which are even smaller than Newcastle. We have a church building and it's beautiful but small, the chapel is about half the size of our chapel in my home ward. It's amazing to see even in a small town that God loves everyone so much. There are so many amazing and righteous members here that are so cool! So many people are so nice! On Sunday I got up and bore my testimony how God loves all of his children so much. Even though I don't know most of these people I have been working in seeing them like our Heavenly Father does. As I've prayed for help with that I've seen some pretty immediate results and have a strong desire to help everyone here to the best of my abilities! Man, I just love it here so much! Another thing about Newcastle, for just more than the past week they've had a big fair going on! It's so great. They have a bunch of rodeo events from a horse trailer relays to mud bogging to truck pulls to steer wrestling! Sadly we weren't there the day the chased greased pigs, that would have been really entertaining to see! It's so fun to watch and it's been a great way for us to get out in the public and meet people!

Something else cool that's been happening over the last week is Sturgis! In case you don't know, it's the biggest motorcycle rally and I think it's held up in North Dakota. It's a really horrible place, very immoral and just a bunch of not good things happen there. We're not particularly close to Sturgis at all but we're on the route to get there! We see HUNDREDS of people driving motorcycles through town on their way to Sturgis EVERY day! I've never really been one for motorcycles but it's quite the sight! There are so many sick bikes and we've met a couple of the bikers and it's just really cool haha! Bro Willardson in the ward is a convert of ~8 months and used to go to Sturgis when he was younger. He has a limited edition Harley Davidson from their 110th anniversary I think. It's so nice and we got to sit on it! Haha it was cool!

Facebook. We are an iPad and Facebook mission. It's so amazing how technology can be utilized in missionary work now! You can find me on Facebook under Elder Garian Tippetts, just make sure it's not my normal Facebook account! My parents will be disabling my 'civilian' account soon. If you go to my page click the follow button. I'm not allowed to be Facebook friends with anyone outside of the immediate area I'm serving but you are allowed to 'follow' me and then you'll get whatever I post on your feed. Also, my address is 351 East Wentworth Newcastle, WY 82701. So feel free to send letters! I love hearing from my friends and family! Hopefully I'll respond as soon as possible haha!

Last thing. We came to a roadblock in the work, basically that all of the investigators that Newcastle has had over the last couple of weeks have all been baptized or moved out of town and are meeting with other missionaries. Sounds like a good problem to have right? So we didn't really have any one to teach so we've been tracting a lot and teaching less active members a lot. Now we're trying to get more new investigators in different ways, because tracting isn't always the most efficient way, but it still is necessary. We found 2 new investigators yesterday and met with a lady that's interested in our church! Now we're trying to do a lot more member missionary work in addition to tracting. We're going to start meeting with members in the ward as often as possible and show them the great blessings that come from missionary work. The idea is that when they see that missionary work isn't actually as scary as it seems people will feel more comfortable and even excited to invite their friends and family to meet with us. It seems like people are a lot more accepting of their friends inviting them than a couple of missionaries knocking on their doors. So we're going to be coordinating a lot more of our efforts through the Bishop and ward mission leader (our ward mission leader, bro. Erickson, sings barbershop and plays the piano. I love him SO much!) and the ward council! I can't wait to see what miracles the Lord has in store for us! All of you should invite the missionaries into your homes and invite friends and family over to hear their message. Members are so very important in this work! I know all of you can receive so many blessings from helping out in this great work that our God has for us!

Elder Tippetts

July 27...Welcome to the mission field!

Family and friends,

We flew into Montana Billings on Tuesday and we stayed at the mission
home all Tuesday and most of Wednesday for orientation and such.
Wednesday morning we went to the Billings Temple and it is by far the
most beautiful temple I have ever seen. Everything inside is so
gorgeous and the surrounding are is gorgeous and the grounds are
gorgeous. I seriously love this temple SO much!!!!! Then after lunch
we got assigned to our areas! They pulled out a big spinner like Wheel
of Fortune with all the different areas of the mission on it. At first
I just laughed like 'haha nice one, there's no way that's how they're
picking where we go!' And then the first sister goes up and spins it
and lands on Missoula and President Wadsworth says congratulations
you're going to Missoula! I thought 'there's no way this is actually
how they're doing it...' The next sister goes up and BOOM it happens
again!!!!! I'm freaking out now haha because a wooden spinner is
deciding the next at least 6 weeks of my life! But then the next
sister goes up and hers doesn't work for three spins. So I promise
that President Wadsworth did pray about them and have them prepared
before haha! They just like to joke around a bit and see if they can
get the spinner to land on the right place! Man that was stressful! Wednesday

night we drove all the way from Billings to Gillette Wyoming, about 6 hours..

The next morning we drove another 2 hours to my first area! NEWCASTLE AND SUNDANCE WYOMING!!!!! I love this place so much! It's approximately a

9 hour drive from home, we're almost directly on the border of South Dakota

and just right across from Rapid City basically. This area is great!

I have two companions! We're in a trio here in Newcastle right now!
Elder Clark is my trainer, he's from Ephraim and Eagle Mountain Utah!
He's seriously the funniest person I have ever met and he's been so
good to me and I've learned a lot! He's been out for ~20 months so I'm
glad I get someone with lots of experience! My other companion is
Elder Hatton from right next to Parowan Utah! He's so solid and looks
like a cross between Dave Franco and Zac Efron haha! He plays
saxophone and took 1st in state x-country 3 years ago I think. He's
been out for like 8 months and he's so confident! He's our district
leader so I'm learning a lot from him too!

Now about that subject header...we slept in our apartment for the
first time Thursday night. The next morning Elder Clark (who's been

in Newcastle for the last transfer or two) told us about Dallas. Dallas
is a convert and he is such a stud. He's an old man with a really
strong catholic background. He said that Dallas cooks the best
pancakes ever and that when new missionaries come into the area he
loves too cook breakfast for them as soon as possible! But along with
that, he washes their feet. He said that it happens to all the new

Missionaries so I guess I have to! So we went to breakfast and let me tell

you they were amazing pancakes! Then he pulls out a bucket of warm water,

a washcloth, lotion, and tells us to take off a sock and shoe. We did and he

washed our feet and then put lotion on them. Who knew your feet could feel
like a million bucks!?  While he did it he told us why he does it. Washing

someone's feet is an extreme sign of respect and he loves the story of Christ

washing his apostle's feet. It says that he loves us and that we are always

welcome in his house no matter what. He cares about the missionaries so

much and I can't wait to get to know him better!

Also… baptism! Yes, after two days of being in the field I had my
first baptism! Her name is Kendall and she's 11, she comes from a part
member less-active family. I think she's so great and I'm glad I was
able to be here to see her baptism! This Saturday we have another
investigator with a baptismal date as well! He's probably in his 30's
at least and his name is Lance. The missionaries have been working
with him for a while and he is such a spiritual giant! We've met so
him twice since I've been here and I just love his so much! He's had
some really cool experiences with the Holy Ghost that are pretty
miraculous!

Last thing I promise! I went tracting for the first time! Knocking on
doors was a bit scary but my companions are really confident and
showed me how to do it! During the 1 hour that we tracted 1 street we
found 2 new investigators that we have return appointments with! We
also met a Lutheran pastor that has a bunch of Mormon friends and
loves that we love Jesus too, but he wasn't interested in talking. One
of the doors I knocked on was answered by a shirtless old man that
just said 'not interested' and then just looked at me for a second and
it was my first time with someone like that and my companions didn't
say anything so I just was like 'ummmmmm...ok, thanks?' And then he
shut the door and my companions started laughing so hard! We laugh
about that pretty often haha! I can't wait to try again! Also we got yelled

at by some punk teenager 'CHURCH FREAKS!' But then we ended
up talking to him anyways and he was really nice, he just doesn't like
church so it's all chill.

Sorry for the long email! I promise to try to keepfuture emails shorter,

just so much happened this week! The church is true! Pray and read

the scriptures! It's the best thing you can do!

Elder Tippetts :)

Photos

Welcome to Wyoming!

First Companions and First Baptism

Last Day at the MTC! July 20

Dear Family and Friends,

Today is my last day in the MTC and that is so crazy to me! I have seriously learned so much over the past 12 days and I almost don't want to leave but I know they need me in Montana more than I'm needed here! Like I said last week, prayer is so important. NEVER take it for granted. Prayer causes miracles and lets us feel God's love. Over the past week I've seen that even more and besides that, I've seen how powerful reading the Book of Mormon can be when you pray for help while reading and listen to the Spirit. Any and ALL questions can be answered when you read the Book of Mormon with the spirit. Another thing I've learned is how powerful the sacrament really is. It's so easy to take for granted because you do it every single week, but every single week it can cause and seal so many miraculous changes. Repentance isn't just stopping bad behavior, it's improving good behavior as well and also just changing and turning towards God in general. When you pray and ask God how you can change, he will tell you. When you take God's advice and change and then you take the sacrament feel so much better and full and whole. Then you're able to make other changes and keep on moving forward always praying, repenting and taking the sacrament! It's amazing and I'm so thankful that God has given us such a simple way to change :)

This week has also had some really hard things happen. Two Elder's in our district decided to go home. It had nothing to do with worthiness, and neither were sent home. They both felt that that was where they were needed more. It was hard on both of their companions and the district as a whole. They were both so amazing and were such a light and example to us all. I can't wait to see them later because I know that the Lord still has a work to do with them whether that's them coming back in a couple of weeks or if it's later in their lives. It didn't make me doubt my willingness to serve at all though, it made me more concrete in my decision actually. I can't wait to serve the Lord with all my heart might mind and strength because I know and Satan knows that God has two less powerful missionaries out there. It's time for missionaries and members to pick up the slack. Our God is marching on, don't get left behind

I'm don't have much left to say and I don't have any more time so I'll say hi to y'all again next week from Montana! Keep praying for missionaries!

Photos from MTC

July 13th

Friends and Family!

These first few days have been so amazing and I have spent most of my computer time today trying to figure out how to use the computers. I don't have much time left but I'll try to write fast and fit as much in as possible!

The MTC is seriously my favorite place I've ever been! The spirit here is so strong and you learn so much! You all need to pray, like all the time! Prayer is such a big help and no matter how much you pray you can always pray more and you will always be blessed more! Always pray to feel Christ's love and appreciation for everyone! EVERYONE! You can grow so much just by loving everyone you come in contact with! Prayer can strengthen you so much when you couple it with regular scripture study! PMG says that prayer and book of mormon study are the biggest tools for conversion. It's true! I know this.

The rumors are true, the cafeteria is amazing and there is always so much to eat! It's all good! They have so many different ways they serve chicken haha and even after chick fil a I'm still not sick of that meat! They also have unlimited BYU chocolate milk so if you're looking for a reason to serve a mission, there it is! Chocolate Milk! JK that probably wasn't the best thing for me to encourage, I promise there are plenty of better reasons to serve a mission :)

My companion is Elder Hoschouer from Santaquin. He's amazing and super solid! And I literally mean SOLID!!! As in he's a 6'2" 300lbs heavyweight wrestling state champ! He's such a teddy bear and has a strong testimony and I love being with him and teaching with him!

I've got to go get changed and get to dinner then class so see ya next week!

Elder Tippetts