Another epic zone training!

Family and friends,

This week we did lots of service and had an amazing zone
training! I've learned so much this week and can't wait to keep on
keeping on!

First, the service. On Wednesday we did not have district meeting
because we have zone training scheduled is week, so we helped Mike and
Crystal work on moving more things to the Mathews house. We were there
for about 3 1/2 hours. We moved everything from TVs to dressers to
desks to beds, you know, the normal moving stuff! We helped them clean
out a car they were selling as well. While we were cleaning the house
and car they told us we could keep whatever change we found. I cam
away nearly $5.50 richer! They also had an Zelda GameCube that someone
had given them, they didn't want it anymore so they just offered it to
me! Don't worry, I've already sent it home and my parents are in
possession of it. It was great being with them, they're some of my
favorite people I've met, definitely a friendship that won't disappear
with transfers. This week there was also a game night and it was great
to see just how comfortable Mike was there, especially because crystal
left for a little bit to watch their kid. He was just fine playing
games with and talking with all the other members at the church!
Saturday morning we met at Brother Haskell's house (they're the
family we had lunch and a nerf war with on Christmas) to drive to the
other side of ranch he lives on to cut wood for a less active member
that lives on the neighboring ranch. Mike also came to that service
project! He said his choices were to either clean the church with the
Mathews or cut wood with us. It took about 30 minutest for driving on
bumpy ranch roads to get out to where we were going to cut wood. We
made it to the spot and starting cutting around 11 and didn't come
back until 3ish. We cut and split probably a little more than 4 cords
of wood. There were some trees that were hanging over the fences that
we got to pull down. Mike and I were on ropes a good distance from the
tree while Bro Williams, the branch mission leader, cut the trunk with
a chainsaw. There's a really satisfying feeling that comes from
pulling on a rope and watching a giant tree fall over. We did that
twice and there were plenty of other trees that were felled without to
use of ropes. We're not allowed to operate power tools of any sort so
Elder Bills and my job was to drag and stack logs. Quite the workout.
I'm still really sore from all the lumber that we moved. But we were
able to meet brother Goff, the less active member. And Mike was able
to really get to know a bunch of the members even better!

Now, Zone Training! The two biggest things we talked about were
becoming consecrated missionaries and repentance. Repentance is so
cool, I'm so great full for it! Repentance allows us to access the
mercy that Christ is waiting to give, and that mercy is what satisfies
the demands of justice. In Alma 36 verses 6 and 14 we learn how wicked
Alma and the Sons of Mosiah were, justice would demand that they were
murdered and destroyed as well. But then in Alma 27:17 it says :
"17 Now the joy of Ammon was so great even that he was full; yea,
he was swallowed up in the joy of his God, even to the exhausting of
his strength; and he fell again to the earth."
That doesn't sound like justice, or murder or destruction to me.
He had so much joy, but Justice says he shouldn't be able to have joy
because of what he did. But mercy satisfies justice and allows us to
change and have joy. In verse 18 it then tells us more about that joy.
"18 Now was not this exceeding joy? Behold, this is joy which
none receiveth save it be the truly penitent and humble seeker of
happiness."
So joy can only truly come by being penitent, which means that
you feel sorrow and regret for doing wrong. The proper form of sorrow,
godly sorrow, leads us to repent. When we repent, we are penitent.
When we are penitent, we repent. The more penitent we are, and the
more we repent, the more joy we can feel! Every time we repent we
become more Christlike. Christ was always happy and filled with joy.
Becoming Christlike includes becoming happier. If we truly repent
everyday then everyday we have a greater capacity to feel joy. Thus
everyday is better than the last and so on and so on into the
eternities. I invite you all to repent! I promise I will be doing the
same. Repentance isn't bad, it is so good and so sweet and evidence
that God really does love us so much.

Here's a funny quote that I think applies perfectly to repentance.

Week #25 in Sundance and #13 in Moorcroft

Family and friends,

It's really weird to me that at the end of this transfer I'll
have been out for 7 1/2 months, and all of that will have been spent
here in Sundance. Or at least all of it has been spent in the the
North East corner of Wyoming. Wyoming is so grand. I just keep falling
more and more in love with it! I'm really enjoying myself quite a lot.
The work is definitely starting to move forward, we progress every day
and it's so amazing to me to see how much the work has progressed
since we first got here. I'll start with the best part of the week.
We have an investigator on baptismal date! The investigator, Tom,
that I talked about last week. He's the one that we had a giant
breakthrough with Sunday night. Then on Thursday we had another lesson
with him that went super well. He was supposed to meet with us on
Wednesday but some things came up so that we had to wait until
Thursday. We got to the lesson and all of us were super nervous
because we knew that if this lesson didn't go well then we were goi to
drop him probably. We were pretty sure we had a real breakthrough, but
we'd thought that before and it hadn't really happened, so we were a
little apprehensive. We had studied so much specifically for him in
the days before so that we could answer his questions and so the
spirit could help us know what to say. We got there and he was really
tired after a long day and had forgotten about us coming over, but he
had read Alma 32 like we had asked him to! He told us that he'd been
feeling the seed grow inside of him and now he's really recognizing
it. Then he told us to forget all the concerns he had from our last
lesson and said he was just going to trust him from then on. So we
invited him to be baptized immediately and he agreed! We then taught
him about the word of wisdom and the law of chastity and he accepted
them and said he'd live them! He had said that he wanted to finish off
his last half pack of cigarettes to get his monies worth, I asked him
how much was left, he told me and I pulled out my wallet and offered
to buy the rest off of him promising I wouldn't smoke them haha! He
laughed really hard and then said if it's that important to us to just
take them, so we did! It was the grandest experience. I'm so happy to
be staying here this transfer!!!

We had dinner at the Mathews' twice this week because we stopped
by to tell them that we weren't leaving on Sunday and they noticed
that we had two dinners still open for the week, so they said they'd
just take them both! The Mathews are one of the coolest families I've
ever met. Crystal and Mike, the ones that got married on Christmas
Eve, have recently moved in with them and before they always came when
we came over for dinner. They're really cool people and he's really
warmed up to us Mormons haha!

Anyways, not too much has changed besides that! It's been a
really good week! I hope y'all are doing well! Love you all!

Elder Tippetts

1-2. District pictures at the end of the transfer. I'm laughing in the
second one because literally a second before it was taken Elder Bird
accidentally kicked me in the face. We don't know how it happened, but
it did!

3. A picture with Jennifer and Dianna because we wanted one just
incase we got transferred, but we didn't. Jennifer (the one right next
to me that's not a missionary) is the one that got baptized my first
day in Moorcroft.

Transfers!

Family and friends,

Not much happened this week, it was pretty slow for a couple days.
But it's picking up again...right at the end of transfers...but that's
ok! Because Elder Bills and I will be staying!this will be our 3rd
transfer together in Sundance and Moorcroft Wyoming! I love it here.
The past two days have been really uplifting so I'll tell y'all mostly
about that. The other awesome part of the week was District meeting on
Wednesday. Last district meetings of the transfer are always
favorites.

This Wednesday we basically just had a testimony that lasted at
least 30-40ish minutes with the 6 of us. The spirit was so strong, I
really came away with so much more strength and energy. Some of the
biggest things I learned or had witnessed to me was that we need to
love everyone and understand that we will always be unworthy to God in
one way or another, we all have shortcomings that are not godly, but
God is okay with that! He helps us overcome them and slowly purge all
the ungodliness from ourselves. Also, the Book of Mormon is true. It
really is. I can promise that. It is a real record of real people that
had real problems and found real solutions by listening to prophets,
or real trials when they ignored them. It was truly translated by
Joseph Smith by the power of God. Also, obedience is so important for
everyone, especially missionaries. It's one of the biggest themes in
the Book of Mormon. When they follow God's commandments, they prosper.
When they don't, they don't. How often do we forget that? It really is
that simple. Follow God's commandments and be blessed! All of his
commandments. We can't be selectively obedient. In a lesson with one
of the members in Sundance we were comparing the commandments to
traffic laws. Selective obedience to traffic laws won't protect you in
a crash. If you always follow the speed limit but run stop signs,
you're probably not that safe. If you do everything except wear your
seatbelt then you're still not safe from outside conditions, the
weather or other drivers. If we follow every commandment we're not
guaranteed a perfect life, bad things still happen. But we're A LOT
more likely to get through them. It's not a perfect analogy, but it
answered lots of questions for me!

On Saturday we were contacting in Sundance with no success. We
knocked on a bunch of doors but the only person we talked to was an
investigator's husband that made it seem like they weren't interested
anymore. But we didn't let it get us down! We went on over to
Moorcroft and contacted people there! We talked to an investigator and
a different investigator's husband, both of them said that their
families were sick but at they're still interested. So we'll head back
next week to talk to them. We went traction and in 40 minutes knocked
on 23 doors. About half of them answered. Half the people that
answered slammed the doors in our faces, half the people that didn't
weren't interested and the rest were interested but we're really busy
at the time. It seems like at least 3 of them were super solid! One of
them said his dad was a bishop in the LDS church when he was young but
they just stopped going and haven't been back in forever. Another was
super nice and said he'll try to come to church sometime and set up an
appointment with us, his uncle is an active member in Gillette so
we'll let him know we're talking to his nephew! The last was a young
family that said they want to talk to us but they were getting in
their car when we talked to him. We found out that he works with one
of the members in the Moorcroft branch and he said that we could stop
by anytime and that he'll definitely be talking to Bro Cherry about
our church!

Sunday was when we got the call from our zone leaders telling us
our transfer information. We got the call during a lesson with
Jennifer and her mom, Dianna. Jennifer is the lady that was baptized
my first day in Moorcroft. When the phone rang we muted it but this
knife of fear went into my heart because I've been serving around here
for 6 months so we figured I'd probably be leaving. That's when I
realized I didn't want to leave. I realized how much I loved all the
people, I really wanted to stay. Our lesson with Jennifer and Dianna
went really well. The whole time I was thinking, "if I leave, what do
I want them to know that I know?" In a devotional by Elder Bednar I
recently read he started off by saying that it was very likely that he
would never address anyone from over that pulpit again, so he had some
important things to say. The lesson plus that devotional make me
realize that none of us know how long we'll be anywhere really.
Whether it's with someone, at a job, in a home or even just being
alive. We don't know when that could end, so we need to make sure we
say the most important things and we need to say them clearly and
concisely with true conviction.

Sunday night we also had a lesson with Tom, he's our investigator
that was given a lot of anti Mormon literature. We got over there and
for 40-60 minutes he laid into us about all the stuff he did last
time. After that things cooled off and really got better. The spirit
of contention was mostly gone and the Holy Ghost could be felt. As we
talked we all calmed down and really understood where we were all
coming from, what we all meant. It started going downhill and all of a
sudden we stopped and said, "Tom, that's not important, we're
misunderstanding each other again. Let us speak clearly. We believe
that the church of Jesus Christ is the only true church on the face of
the earth. Don't get us wrong, there are other good churches that
teach good things and do good things, but none of them have the 100%
true and full Gospel of Jesus Christ. None of them have the real, true
and only priesthood authority of God. All of this was restored through
the Prophet Joseph Smith. Would you like to find out if that is true?"
He stopped and did t say anything for a while and answered, "yes, yes
I would." From there everything went smoothly and we were able to help
him really see why we keep asking him to read the Book of Mormon and
why we're always disappointed when we find out that he hasn't. We have
another lesson set for Wednesday and hopefully things will work out.
Prayers will always be appreciated :)

Anyways, that was a pretty thick letter. I love you all and hope
you're doing well! Keep your testimonies burning. If you feel like you
don't have one or that it's dimming, read the Book of Mormon daily and
pray daily. I promise answers and strength will come. I know it.

Elder Tippetts