A baptism, part member families...and you guessed it...more service!

Family and Friends,

Remember a couple weeks ago when Carter got baptized? Well his 9 year old brother got baptized this Saturday! We're still working on the middle child, he's not sure he wants to get baptized anymore but we'll keep meeting with them all. The baptism was awesome though! There was a big turnout, including 3 non members! We stopped by one of our investigator's, Henry, right before the baptism and he came! His wife and son got baptized down in Houston 7ish years ago and so this was e second baptism he was ever at. It turns out that Cole's mom is Henry's cousin so that was a neat connection! The other non members was a girl from Cole's class at school and her mom. I talked with them quite a bit and it turns out that her husband is a less active member and his parents are active members in one of the wards we cover, so we'll talk with them to see what work can be done there.

Moral of the story, part member families are a missionary's best friend. Remember that miracle family I told you about last week, the Cheney's, where the dad basically taught the lesson and said an awesome prayer at the end? Well we had another crazy miracle lesson with them this week. We stopped by on Thursday and they let us right in and we started talking with them and kept building our friendship. They showed us pictures of a recent rafting trip their family went on and they tried to talk us into going with them so we had to explain that since we're missionaries we can't but they told us that after our missions we have to come back and go rafting with them! Anyways, that's besides the point. After talking with them for a couple minutes the Dad stops the conversation and says, "you know what Elders, you always tell us good stories, it's my turn this week." He proceeds to tell us about how they were camping a couple weeks ago and a little girl got lost in the woods while playing hide and seek (don't worry, she was only gone for maybe 20 minutes), so they put together search parties and we're looking for her. While he was put in the woods with only his small cell phone light he said he realized that he's been trying to find his way through the darkness with too little light for too long and that he feels God pushing him to accept more light into his life! So I guess you could say things are going well there. Sadly they weren't able to make it to church this week but we'll be visiting them tonight to see how things are going!

And...SERVICE!!! On Saturday I looked at our schedule ever since Elder Stone and I have been together and I tallied up more than 83 hours of service. That's a good amount. We did a lot of stuff for old man Ray. He's an old guy that lives in the other Elder's area. We helped him move lots of dirt in the past. This last week we planted his garden and mowed and weed whacked his lawn. He'll come up behind us and yell at us and tell us how horrible of a job we're doing, stare us down, then walk away win a toothless smile and laugh. He's funny. He gave us all nicknames too. Elder Hubbard (we were on exchanges) is boots, Elder Decker is Mud, Elder Fleming is Jock, Elder Stone is Hyper or Cutie (depending on his mood), and I'm Honcho.

On Thursday Elder Stone and I went to a part member families house, the Kiers, and did service for them. Elder Stone mowed their lawn while I tilled their garden with a shovel. Then Elder Stone, the Unbaptized boy and the less active dad weeded while I worked on taking a trump out with a wedge and hammer. It was good hard work and we were definitely exhausted and sweaty at the end. We really got some good fellowshipping in and got to know them a lot better. There will definitely be more open doors in the future because of this.

Finally, on Saturday we did even more service at 9 we went to a family that used to be less active but in the past year all of their kids have been baptized and they come to church almost every week. We went over there with the other Elders and 6 guys from 3rd Ward and fixed the soffit and facia on their house. We went around the house on ladders and caulked in he big gaps and then put some new wood lining in. We did the caulking and held the wood in place because we're not allowed to use nail/staple guns. Then at noon we went to the Parish's. They're a recent convert family that was baptized in November. We helped them load things into a U-Haul because they're moving to Georgia. I'll really miss them but they've been to church down there once already and really enjoyed it so they'll be in good hands. Around 2ish we went out to the Redd's again and sheet rocked! They're the ones that we did landscaping for a couple weeks ago. Between fixing a roof and sheet rocking I had a good day, I wish we had more opportunities to do service like that.

Last thing is Joe. His life seems to be going well now and we were able to teach him at the church this week! He even committed to baptism and said that he's finally ready to quit smoking and get married! Huge miracle!

Thanks for all your prayers! We appreciate it and see the effect on all our investigators. I love you all!



Elder Tippetts

607 Avenue E



Powell, Wyoming 82435