Family and friends,
This has been an amazing week. Even when things don't go perfectly as
planned it's still great. The longer I've been on my mission and the
closer I get to finishing I am grow in my gratitude to my Savior for my
call to serve as one of His full time representatives and my assignment
to labor in the Montana Billings Mission. It's a privilege to be
persecuted and to struggle for Christ's sake.
There was one pretty crazy thing that happened this week but other
than that things were pretty calm. So last transfer the Sister
Missionaries got a self-referral from Church Headquarters named Canton.
They went over and gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon and he was
super excited to meet! They talked to him a little bit before they
realized he's YSA age so they passed him off to us and told him some guy
missionaries would contact him, he was still down to meet. We call him
and the number is disconnected so we go by his place, he answers the
door, we tell him our
Church
is on the corner of South 5th and Grant and set up an appointment to
meet with him. He doesn't keep this appointment, doesn't answer texts or
calls and doesn't come to church. So we keep trying but can't make any
contact. Keep in mind, this all happened last transfer so for the past
~6 weeks we've been trying to get a hold of him with no luck. Then this
past week we give him a call, he answers the phone but hangs up when we
tell him we're the missionaries. We text him to see if he's still
interested in learning more because the phone call was cutting in and
out a little. He responds that he already joined us and is confused as
to why we're trying to contact him about learning more. He says for the
past six weeks he's been learning about the history channel and at the
end of the week he was planning on becoming a full fledged member! Now
we're really confused. We tell him we're the full time missionaries from
the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and that our church
building is at 1316 S Grant to which he responds that he's been going to
the building at 1321 S Grant and thought it was also the
Church.............guess what's across the street at 1321? A college
fraternity house. So we tried to clarify and he hasn't really responded
since. Ladies and gentleman, this is the story of the time we got a
baptism for a frat house. I don't think they baptize people but same
idea. We were a little embarrassed when we told our ward mission leader
and he just laughed his head off. This is just one example of something
that didn't quite go the way we planned but you learn and move on.
Also
on Tuesday we did service at the Community Cafe with our ward. It's a
really cool restaurant. It's the only 'pick your own price' restaurant
in Montana. They serve a different meal each night and you can literally
pay anything, the suggested price is $5 but if you only have a nickel
or if you want to pay $100 they'll feed you! They have a lot of homeless
people come through that don't have much else to eat. I got to pull out
my Chick-Fil-A skills! They assigned me and my companion to do
dishes...it's the only place where we could stay together for sure the
whole night. It wasn't actually that bad, I had a blast. Speaking of
Chick-Fil-A, Meg and Kelsey went down to Utah for conference and watched
some of the sessions at the conference center and even went to my home
for breakfast and the Sunday
morning session with my family! But on their way back we get a phone
call around 5 on Monday saying that they're just pulling into a CFA in
Idaho on their way home. So my companion and I got to order some and we
made a drop off in town when they got back. I think this makes the 4th
time I've had Chick-Fil-A on my mission with the only one in boundaries
being up in Kalispell and I've never had any from their. #blessings
#membermissionarywork
We had 2 solid lessons this week with 2 different new investigators
we found last week! We got members to come to both! One was with Suzanne
and the other was with JT. Suzanne had heard lots of bad things about
Mormons and what we believe but let us teach her and at the end of the
visit she said she learned that we really do love Jesus Christ and that
our church is focused on Him! She's excited to learn more and we'll be
teaching her again this week! JT is super solid too, he's really curious
about religions. He's kept all the commitments we've given him and
apologized for ONLY reading the first 7 chapters and all the
introductory material in the past week. JT, don't worry, you're doing
fine!
We've been doing lots and lots and lots of finding this week. We
usually just walk around the streets surrounding campus and look for
apartments that college students probably live in. We're always on the
look out for big apartment buildings. Another big sign for wether a
college student lives there or not is if they drive a Subaru Outback,
have lots of bumper/window stickers or have a license plate from a
different state. With all the time we're putting in we aren't seeing too
much success but we are seeing progress. I think one of the biggest
blessings I see when we do some good finding and don't slow down even
when we don't see fruit is the change in me. The gospel doesn't make
sense according to the world because it teaches that we take more
responsibility upon ourselves and forget about ourselves and then our
burdens are lightened. The world teaches to only care about ourselves
but that only brings the heavy load of narcissism, loneliness and pride.
We need to take Christ's yoke upon us because His burden is light. We
do so by facing all trials in life with a spirit of meekness and
lowliness of heart. With that attitude we can endure faithfully in
submission to the Father's will and His will is only to make us better,
even if the refining comes by fire.
Even though not much happened this week I learned a lot about myself
and my Savior. I was getting frustrated a little bit at the beginning of
the week but humbled myself to submit to His timetable. I know that if
I'm honestly trying my best to be worth of and to follow the spirit then
He will hasten His work in His own time. It's a comfort to me know that
if I give my heart, might, mind and strength to him completely then He
will move His work forward regardless of my weaknesses. God's will and
plan is for all of His children to make it back to Him and truly the
only thing that ever interrupts His plan is each of our individual
wills. God's plan is about repentance, it's about change, it's about
Joy. In short, it's about Jesus Christ, He who is the Giver of all good
gifts. Press forward and trust that His grace sufficient.
Elder Garian Tippetts
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