Family and Friends,
This week has been pretty average mostly, so no super insanely
exciting thing to make a catchy subject line...sorry! But that being
said, this was an awesome week! Average, but average missionary life
is awesome! I like being a missionary.
This week we talked to Brother Glenn on Tuesday! He's the less
active member we found with the fu-man-chu mustache that fought in
Vietnam. We've tried going by his house so many times in the last few
weeks but he's never been home. We talked with him on Tuesday and got
mad at us a little because he said that a couple weeks ago he went to
church but no one was there, but he wasn't really mad because the
weather was bad. We were confused because we were pretty sure they had
never cancelled church here. It turns out he went to a different
church! But we got it all sorted out and we showed him where it is on
the map for sure. Sadly he wasn't there yesterday, he woke up and got
dressed but then fell asleep on his couch reading the newspaper. We
stopped by after church with President Booth and brother Glenn felt
really bad for missing church. He said he'll be here next week so
we're super excited!
Tuesday night and last night we had dinner up in Hulett, about 40
minutes N/NW of Sundance. It still blows my mind that people drive 40
minutes to go to church when I've pretty much always just had a 4ish
minute walk. It's really cool just how dedicated they are to making
sure they come each week! At the Tuesday dinner we had some
non-members there that we'll hopefully start teaching soon! They've
come to the branch Halloween and Christmas parties and their kids
participate in mutual and primary activities. They're super neat,
already pretty much live Latter Day Saint lives and love the members
around here. They asked us lots of questions about what it means to be
a missionary, how you become a missionary and just other logistical
stuff about missionaries. At our Sunday dinner we talked with the
people we were eating with about having the faith to formally invite
them to learn more about our church. Everyone in the branch has a
really good feeling about them!
On Wednesday we had random interviews with President Wadsworth!
It was super neat and such a highlight. Apparently he was just in
Gillette and for some reason our district leader decided to have
district meeting in Gillette this week. He needed to talk with some of
the Elders in the district about something and then decided that
because he was here he might as well talk with all of us! It was great
and definitely an answer to prayers. President and I talked with each
other about following the promptings of the spirit because that's
something I've been having some questions on lately, like on how to do
it better. He reminded me of something that Elder Bednar said during
the worldwide missionary broadcast. It was something along the lines
of 'thoughts to the mind, feelings to the heart, that is the essence
of revelation.' He helped me to see that whenever a thought to do
something good comes into my head, I can trust that it is revelation.
If we act on promptings with faith over and over, even if there
doesn't seem to be any positive production, the spirit will guide us
more and more and we'll find success in whatever we're doing! And
remember, success isn't measured by numbers of baptisms (or whatever
the equivalent might be in your life) but is rather measured by our
progressive levels of devotion, consecration and faith. Remember that
if you've been baptized you've convene tend to ALWAYS follow Christ
and keep his commandments and if you've received your endowment that
you're under covenant to be consecrated. The law of consecration has
not been done away with, we all need to live it. I challenge you all
to pray specifically to ask God how you might be keeping back part of
your heart, might, mind or strength from Him, promise Him you'll fix
it and then follow the promptings of the spirit to improve! Repent
daily and take the sacrament, I promise that your lives will improve
as you turn them over to the Lord!
I love you all and hope things are going well! We're just heading
off to clean and shop now. We're going on exchanges from tonight until
Wednesday and I'm excited for that. Also, tomorrow BYU Young
ambassadors is putting on a concert in Gillette and we get to go help
out with it! I'm definitely excited for that! I guess there are some
grand things that happened this week. Eh, I'm too lazy to go change
the subject line...
Bye!
Elder Tippetts
No comments:
Post a Comment