Week 2 of Training

Family and friends

Good week! Sorry this is late this week. I feel pretty dead right now,
just finished an hour long game of pod ball and a couple grueling
rounds of lightning basketball. We've been in Gillette today so far
for preparation day and now we're in Sheridan to stay the night and
tomorrow we're driving to Worland Wyoming for Zone Leader Training.
The two Wyoming zones (Wyoming east and west) are meeting there for a
big conference. I'm excited! So we spent most of today in Gillette
with some other elders and sisters in our zone. It was fun! One of our
Zone Leaders used to play college football and it was no fun getting
hit by him. Pod ball is basically an insane game of dodgeball. He can
throw hard haha.

This was my first full proselyting week with Elder Bills and it was
awesome! He's getting a hold of things and we're loving being
together. We've been working together well and really focusing on
teaching as a companionship in unity! When you teach with a companion
well miracles happen. I love it.

On Tuesday I became a real member of the Montana Billings Mission. Now
I truly fit in with the people of Wyoming. I RAN OVER A RACOON ON
TUESDAY! That seriously makes me so happy. I feel like I belong here
now haha! Tuesday we also taught a lesson to Jennifer. She's the
baptism we got to go to in Moorcroft! We taught her and her mother
with the branch mission leader there and it was one of the most
spiritually uplifting lessons I've ever been a part of. She is so
confident in her testimony and it was so inspiring to see her simple
and pure love for the gospel.

Wednesday was pretty rad as well! We had our first district meeting of
the transfer with our new companions. Our district is now Elder
Hatton, Perez and me with our companions Elder Thomas (from American
Fork), Elder Angle (from somewhere in California) and my companion
Elder Bills. I love this district so much. It's probably my favorite
yet! The three of us that were here before are all training new
missionaries so it's a really young district! It's grand. I led a
really fun Roleplay on finding people's needs. It was cool and caught
the new missionaries off guard but they got better at it pretty fast
so it worked out! That night I was invited by someone in Moorcroft to
attend church with them! Hopefully next week I'll be going to a
Christian church somewhere in Moorcroft, the guy said he'd come to
ours if we went with him! I'm super excited!

We had interviews with a member of the mission presidency in Gillette
on Friday. While we were up there we had lunch at McDonalds and saw
Brother Erickson! The Ward mission leader from Newcastle! We were
there with Elder Hatton and his companion so it was fun seeing him. We
also met a sketchy man named Mark. He was pretty sketchy and if we go
back then we'll bring our branch mission leader who's a cop. Haha it's
alright because one of his neighbors was super interested!

On Saturday we spent 7 hours helping a family in Moorcroft move and we
were there the whole time and not too many other people showed up. My
back was pretty tweaked until today when Elder Kimball popped my back!
It feels awesome! They were all hilarious while we were helping out
though. A bunch of them were totally redneck it was awesome! They just
talked about hunting the entire time! Sunday was also amazing! We went
on visits with President booth and we found a family who's daughter is
dating a member from Moorcroft and we're going to start teaching them
soon!

I love you all!

Elder Tippetts

Training Week 1

Family and Friends,

This week has been quite the ride and it looks like there's no letting up in the future! I'm super excited to keep moving forward. To start this off, quick little funny things. For the days that came before we received our transfer calls everybody was guessing what was going to happen with them. Not a single person said I was getting transferred, everyone said Elder Hatton was leaving. We thought it was really funny especially when I was the one that was moving on and he was staying. I don't know if you all think that's funny but we did haha!

So we had breakfast to start out Monday at Dallas' house again. He makes good pancakes and I miss them. He also guessed the popular transfer outcome. He was blown away when he wasn't correct. Over breakfast he showed us lots of stuff from back before he joined the church. He used to be a part of the Knights of Columbus and he showed us pictures of him in his uniform and brought his sword out for us to see! Sadly I didn't think to get a picture wielding it :( Then I got to pack on preparation day and that's no fun too.

We had quite the delightful surprise on Tuesday! We had a baptism! Elder Hatton's the District Leader so he did the baptismal interview for the other Elders in our district for a lady in the Moorcroft Branch. Elder Hatton had to hold onto all the paperwork so we had to take it to the baptism. I was officially assigned to Moorcroft by then so I got to meet lots of the members and the branch president and mission leader and the woman who got baptised! She's so cool. I got to be a witness for the baptism and participate in giving the Holy Ghost, they asked me to because I was going to be in Moorcroft now. It was a really powerful experience and I was able to see how much the baptism meant to her and her family and her friends. The spirit there was so strong and inspiring!

Wednesday was a normal day for the first half and then we drove to Upton to meet with President Booth, the Sundance branch president to talk about the work in Sundance. We spent the rest of the night in Moorcroft waiting for our new companions (Elder Hatton and I both are training, I don't remember if I mentioned that last week). Elder Hatton helped me as we walked around Moorcroft getting to know the area and meeting some members and investigators. It was really fun! It was really late though and there aren't many street lamps in Moorcroft and lots of people had Halloween decorations up that weren't well lit so it was pretty creepy haha. We had a couple of close encounters with some big dogs for the first time on my mission, but nothing to sketchy! So don't worry. Mostly really big dogs that barked a lot and we couldn't see their fences and the gates they were behind so we thought we were in big trouble but we were fine.

The Zone Leaders pulled in with our new companions around 10:45PM and we got everything moved around and drove home. We got to the Sundance apartment around 11:30 and got to bed real quick after a decently long transfer day. My new missionary is Elder Bills. He's such a stud. He's from Aurora, Utah down by Richfield. I'd never heard of it but it's even smaller than Sundance being 1000 people instead of 1200! He graduated back in 2014 and just turned 19. He's in the Army reserves and did his basic in South Carolina. He wrestled and ran cross country in high school. He's taking a 2 year leave from service to serve a mission. I love him so much and he's a hard worker! When he got here we had a good discussion on the importance of exact obedience and the blessings that come because of it and are loving being together. He understands how to work and is okay with tracting quite a bit, which I love! Because tracting is the bomb!

We went to church this Sunday here in Sundance and were asked to speak on Thursday. It was a great way to start off our stay here and the members here really liked having us speak. They love having missionaries so much and have missed having us by often. They're all excited to work and are ready to get to it! We got 4 referrals from a less active member that's been coming back into full activity! We've been tracting and lots of people in town know the members. It's a pretty small town so what else would you expect? There are lots of churches here in this tiny town though. Like a lot. There's a big sign when you come into town that says "The churches of Sundance welcome you!" and it has 15-20 churches on there with their addresses and phone numbers! There are a lot of religious people here and most are very friendly to us. We've done quite a bit of service already. 8 hours since we moved in. We helped out brother Millard again clearing away some stuff out by his house, chopping some wood for some less active members and a little bit of help painting some non-members home! I really love it here so much. God is so good and there are so many blessings he's just waiting to give us!

​Last thing and then we've got to go meet some members at Subway! Our new address is

106 Edna​ P.O. box 1500

Sundance, WY 82728

I'd love to hear from any of you and I've never had a po box before so we asked the post office lady and she said to make sure you put both the street address and po box number on everything so that it definitely makes it here!

I love you all! Look everywhere for missionary opportunities! Pray and you'll find them!

Elder Tippetts

Good week! Now my head is spinning a bit...

Family and friends,

Like I said, it's been a good week and now my head is spinning at
least a little bit. Lots of exciting things have happened! I'll start
off with the one that was probably most exciting and causes my head to
spin the most. I'm being transferred about 40-50 minutes northeast to
cover the Sundance branch and the Moorcroft branch. I'll most
definitely be sad to leave Elder Hatton and Newcastle, but I'm
excited. The part that makes my head spin at least a little bit is
that I'm training. I'm going to meet a new missionary Wednesday night
and then for probably at least the next transfer I'm responsible for
making sure he understands what missionary work is and how to do it
even when I'm not always entirely sure I understand it. But just about
everyone tells me you never do really fully understand how to do it,
you just study plan and prepare as much as possible and then let the
spirit take you from there! I'm having a crutch, my fantastic
companion, taken away and am now going to have to wholly rely on the
spirit and Christ's atonement to get us through this. I'm going to
learn and grow a lot and it won't always be easy, but if a mission was
easy I wouldn't have wanted to come out. I'm excited for this pretty
big change, I'm excited for an uncomfortable stretch. Prayers would be
much appreciated haha!

Now on to some more awesome things from this week! We had a baptism on
Saturday! I had my first baptism my first week out here but this was
my first baptism that I was a part of finding and teaching the person
the whole way through. We went and read the Book of Mormon with him on
Tuesday and then brought his jumpsuit over to try it on on Friday. On
Saturday everything went well and he was super happy and prepared and
excited! The baptism went off with no mishaps or anything like that.
The talks were fantastic and I've never been as happy as when Mikey
came out of the font and said "I feel clean" he had the biggest smile
on his face. There really is such an infinite amount of worth in every
soul and I'm feeling the joy! I'll send pictures of us with Mikey and
his step dad Mike later if I remember haha!

On Thursday we had a pretty unique experience. We ran into some
missionaries from the Rapid City South Dakota mission! Don't worry
they weren't breaking rules. Normally you're not allowed to leave your
mission boundaries for any reason but there's a member that goes to
their Ward that lives just outside of Newcastle. He goes to their Ward
because of some allergy issues. So they have permission to come here
to have dinner with him when it's his turn to feed the missionaries.
Besides that, the really unique and awesome thing about it is that one
of the missionaries, Elder Hunt, played soccer in high school with
Elder Hatton down in southern Utah and they were close friends. And
his companion, Elder White, was in the same MTC district as Elder
Jesse Carter! I was so happy when I found out so we took a picture
together and I sent it his way today! It's not everyday you get to
talk with missionaries from a different mission haha!

I attended another alcoholic party this week! But don't worry,that's
not why my head is spinning. On Thursdays we help out at the senior
center at lunch time serving food. This last Friday they asked us to
come help with a banquet they were holding at the senior center. We
helped prepare the banquet hall and helped serve food before the
auction. They had a live bar and once again I think it's funny that I
haven't really been around alcohol ever but now that I'm on my mission
I've been to two alcoholic parties haha!

On Saturday we went out to the Stewart's ranch again to help build the
log house. We only worked until 1:30 this week though because we had
to get back in time to shower, get dressed, fill up the baptismal font
and make copies of the program! But all went well!

Lastly we're still working with our golden investigator Trent. He
really is the definition of golden. He's so prepared and can't wait to
get baptized, he reads the scriptures and came to church before we
were even able to start teaching him, he has told us that he believes
what we teach him is true. He recognizes the spirit and says he really
wants to live in the celestial kingdom with his family. His faith is
so inspiring to me and I'll be sad to not be teaching him anymore, but
I'll definitely be looking for more Trents! Alma 16 says the Lord is
continually pouring his spirit out upon the land and preparing the
hearts of the children of men. When you show faith as a missionary and
deal with all the hard parts involved in missionary work, you are led
to the people God has prepared to be taught by you!

I love you all! Pray for opportunities to share the gospel! Always be
missionary minded!


Elder Tippetts

!!!

Family and Friends,

This week was one filled with miracles! There were so many opportunities we had to grow and I learned so much about myself and how I can improve to serve the Lord better! I hope your week was just as fantastic!

I started out the week with an awesome exchange with Elder Eyslee again! On Monday we went to a thrift shop around lunch time and I found 3 completely rad ties for 4-5 dollars each! If you know me and my ties, you know I'm very happy right now. We had a great day and ended up doing an exchange within an exchange with the zone leaders because one of them was sick and they had a lesson they had to go to. Tuesday was also great! I was studying some more old conference talks! President Uchtdorf's and Elder Bednar's first conference talks as apostles! You can find them in October 2004, it was an idea I had to look them up in preparation for this new conference and I was not disappointed! It was really cool to see how much they've grown! I also looked up a the earliest talk by President Packer that's in Gospel Library, all the way back in April 1971. There's a cool video that the church posted on Facebook today that was so cool! It was a compilation of the first presidency and living apostles and their concluding testimonies at each of their first conferences as apostles! It was really touching, they are all men of God! I know it! Then Tuesday night we went tracting and we had a great discussion about showing faith while we were walking around and we found 2 new investigators for his area!

Wednesday night was a new experience for me! I had my first investigator that had his baptismal interview! Mikey is getting baptized on Saturday and I can't wait! He's such a stud and he's very prepared and ready. He says he's excited and nervous for Saturday. Excited because his heart tells him it's right, and nervous because it's a new experience. We've got everything all set up and are excited!

Friday was a great opener to a weekend of conference! We had zone training and I learned a lot about what it means to consecrate yourself fully as a missionary. I had some questions answered that I'd been wondering about for a while that really helped me. We did an activity off of page 152 in PMG that talks about goals for the end of your mission. As I've put in perspective what I want to have happened by the end of my mission, what I want to happen at the end of my mission and what I want to happen after my mission I've seen what I need to do now to reach those goals! Goals are amazing. To any of you that are on missions or preparing to go or want to go, the 2nd personal study activity on page 152 will help you a lot. And it's totally fine to change or adjust your goals as you start or continue to serve!

Conference was so insanely uplifting for me! One of the biggest reasons why was because I set some goals! Goals help with everything. I decided that I wanted to take notes on spiritual impressions rather than exact quotes, I wanted to write down all challenges/commitments/invitations that were given and I wanted to say a quick prayer of thanks after every talk. You may ask how I did wi my goals. I failed. But that's okay! Not all goals are meant to be achieved 100% and even though I didn't meet any of those goals 100% I got a lot more out of conference that was personal and meaningful and constructive than I would have if I had not set goals for myself! I would encourage you all to set goals in the future for General Conferences and all other aspects of your lives. My favorite talk for Satuday was probably by Niell F. Marriot! She spoke powerful,y and you could feel her experiences that led her family to their firm motto "It will all work out." On Sunday my favorite talk was probably a stereotypical crowd favorite that many people will love for years to come. It was Devin G. Durrant's on ponderizing! It was really cool to listen to him talk at conference after I've known his daughter and met him a few times! His invitation to ponderize a scripture every week is a powerful one that can sustain and uplift all of us in times of trial or doubt. During times when trials and doubt are lacking, ponderizing can give us the strength we need to withstand them later in life. I strongly encourage you all to throughly study and apply his words. You will feel so many blessings in your life. If it seems like a daunting task to do it every week, don't think about that! Just do it one week, and then tell yourself you'll do it one more week, and then one more week, and one more! Time will fly by, life will be more fruitful and enjoyable and you'll understand what it means to endure to the end! I also loved the talks of all of the first presidency members like usual. I loved that they all focused around simple things like obedience, courage and faith. Especially that they emphasized how simple it all really is! This gospel is a simple one, but it is profound and holds eternal consequences! I hope you all study and pray about the personal revelations you have received and will receive because of this wonderful weekend!

I love you all. Go ponderize!

Elder Tippetts

Service service service and marching band

Family and Friends,

Good week! I had one and I hope you did too! It's been a weird
week though haha! Not a bad weird, a pretty refreshing weird! We only
had Tuesday and Sunday as full days of proselytizing. Monday was
preparation day, Wednesday was district meeting and exchanges with the
zone leaders. Thursday was weekly planning and some random non member
lady called us to help her move. We helped her most of Thursday and
Friday. Friday was Newcastle's homecoming so there was a parade and
the football game and then all day Saturday we were out on a Ranch
building a log house! Sunday was a normal Sunday except we went around
helping lots of people with their home teaching and helped teach
mission prep.

My exchange on Wednesday was fantastic! I love exchanges because
I feel like I just learn so much and it's really refreshing to see
missionary work from another missionaries perspective. Especially
Elder Mason. He's definitely the most hard working missionary I know.
When I spent the day in Gillette we had every second of the day
planned with multiple back ups and people from the Ward to come with
us on our visits. He's such a great teacher and I learned a lot about
the need to simplify and intensify. Pure testimony and doctrine is
what converts people. That's what the spirit confirms to people in
their hearts

The homecoming parade was cool! We don't really do those in Provo
so it was a new experience for me. I saw lots of the youth from the
Ward and cheered and yelled their names haha! Then we saw them at the
homecoming football game and they told us that all of their friends
were wondering why the missionaries were saying hi to them haha! Now a
lot more people know who the missionaries are! Hahaha! That night we
went to the homecoming football game because in a small town no one is
home the night of homecoming. Sadly Newcastle lost by one point. But
it was great and we were introduced to a lot of different people by
the members we were sitting with!

The lady that we helped move wasn't a member. The guy from Uhaul
(who also isn't a member) gave her our number. I guess some previous
missionaries gave our number to him so that if anyone needs help
loading and moving then he just has them call us! We get calls every
once in a while from people we don't know that just need help moving.
It's really great and fun to help out that way! This lady literally
had nothing packed though haha. She had us move some heavy things and
then she left and we brought the Ward Mission Leader over and just
started stuffing everything we could find in boxes. That's what she
told us to do and I've never seen a house get so clean so fast haha!
Saturday we went to the Stewart's ranch. It's brother Stewart's
ranch but his son (another brother Stewart) is building a log house
for him and his wife. They've been working on it for a while but
haven't had much help. So at one time or another 8-12 of us were out
there helping. I was a part of the group that spent 10 hours rotating
through using draw knives to strip the bark off of logs. And then we'd
either carry the logs to the house to be fitted or they'd come pick it
up with the backhoe. All in all it was an extremely hot and tiring
day. I'm surprised I barely got sunburnt at all! We got a lot done and
are going back on the 10th to help out again! Now my fingers are just
super sore and stiff still from gripping a draw knife for that long!
That's all that happened this week, lots of service. Oh ya! The
marching bands! There was one in the homecoming parade and it was
great to see a band march down the asphalt! And when I was on my
exchange with Elder Mason we were walking down a street and I heard a
familiar sounding metronome and drumline, I mentioned it to him and we
drove over to the high school and it was pretty nostalgic to see a
good 60-70 person sized marching band out on football field cleaning
pictures and music!

Keep being great people and make sure you're allowing others to feel
Christ's love through you!

Elder Tippetts

Pulled pork cinnamon rolls and my first party with alcohol!

Family and Friends,

I think I'm abandoning writing my letters spaces out by day now.
I think it made me just write super long letter, I'll try to write
more about highlights instead of everyday stuff. I think that will
make my letters more meaningful. But who knows, maybe I won't like
this and I'll switch back in a couple of weeks haha! And don't worry
about the heading, I've still never tasted alcohol
Two quick things from last week that I didn't put in my quick
letter last week! We were tracting once and a guy answered the door
and he was really nice but told us he was already Christian and like
usual we asked him which christian denomination he belongs to and he
told us Baptist. Then from the back of the house we hear a harsh voice
yell 'We're not baptist! What are you talki about!?' To which he
responds, 'We're not Baptist!? Then what are we!?' Haha it was really
funny and I thought y'all would enjoy that! Also if you remember from
a couple of weeks ago I met a kid over Facebook and his name was
Cooper. We were finally able to meet with him again and teach him
more! He agreed to get baptized if he found out for himself if the
priesthood authority that's required for baptism is found in our
church!

Now this week:
I started off this week with exchanges again! I was with Elder
Eyslee from Chico, California. He is super cool and it was so easy to
work by the spirit with him! There were several situations where we
were in the right place but for the wrong event, meaning an
appointment or something cancelled and we were able to meet someone
with that time instead! We also went to contact a referral for a lady
named Barbra but she wasn't very interested...but her son was! His
name is tony and we sat down with him and gave him most of the first
lesson and he also agreed to baptism! Then we went to a lesson with
Trent. I think I've mentioned him before, his younger brother, Slade,
was baptized by the missionaries before us and Trent wanted to be
taught the lessons but because of his work schedule he couldn't. We
got to meet with him on Tuesday with Slade and Bro Wilkes, Trent also
agreed to be baptized! Now we've got those three and Mikey all working
towards baptism! Speaking of Mikey, he's a stud. He'll be baptized on
the 10th of October.
We met brother Palmer again this week but he still hasn't been
able to make it out to church because he's been on call for work every
Sunday. But when we went to his house he had found a little kitten
under his trailer house and is taking care of it! It was adorable!
I'll attach a picture at the end!
We spent sometime up in Sundance this past week. Good news is
that the Sundance are should be getting their own set of missionaries
soon so then we'll just be covering Newcastle! It'll make things a lot
more convenient for everyone! We had dinner with Bro Gennings up
there. He's awesome and used to be a musician. He has a room in his
house with 2 walls that are completely covered in super nice guitars!
He played some songs for us and it was awesome! We helped Bro Millard
do some cleaning up around his farm as well. He had a giant trailer
full of scrap and we took it to the back of his property and he has a
giant trash pile. It was so much funny just taking trash and throwing
it as far as we could haha!
While we were in Sundance I met my first bible basher too! I
think that's an important milestone for a new missionary haha! His
name was David and he was really nice, but with people like him you
can tell that they aren't really interested in learning more at all.
He had lots of questions and wouldn't really accept any of our
answers, but he wasn't contentious about it. I think a lot of his
questions were mostly him trying to get us to doubt ourselves, but I
left with a stronger testimony. I realized that even if I didn't have
answers to all his questions, that doesn't diminish the fact that the
spirit of the Lord has told me this church and the Book of Mormon and
our prophets are all true.

Now to my header. We had dinner with the Branch mission leader
and his family in Sundance on Saturday. Sister Skeens made us pulled
pork cinnamon rolls! Elder Hatton was wary about trying them but I was
so excited! It was probably my favorite meal I've had so far. It's
basically just brown sugar and cinnamon pulled pork wrapped up in
cinnamon roll dough and then baked! If you think it sounds iffy,
google it or look it up on Pinterest (I think that's where she said
she found it) and then try it! You won't regret it!
Now the party with alcohol! Last night was a birthday party for
our landlord's wife, sister Carr. She's the young women's president
but lots of her extended family aren't members. I've been around
random drunk people here and there throughout town but I've never been
that close to alcohol haha! It wasn't anything serious though so don't
worry, someone just brought a small jar of homemade cherry moonshine
haha. No one was drunk but I just think it's funny that I'm from Provo
so I'm pretty sheltered still, but now that I'm on my mission I can
officially say I've been to a party where there's been alcohol haha!

Thank you all for your support! I love you all! If you have any
critiques on my formatting please feel free to inform me haha! Until
next week!

Elder Tippetts