🐻Griz🐻to😼Cats😼to🐻Griz🐻

Family and friends,

     I guess I'll get to the most exciting thing first. Transfers are this week! On Sunday we got the call from the Assistants and it looks like my time in Bozeman is up...but guess where I'm going? MISSOULA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It breaks my heart to leave the YSA but I am so excited to go back to Zoo Town. So many people that serve in Missoula go back but I never bought I'd be a repeat, especially for my last transfer. I'm going to be serving in the Missoula 4h Ward with Elder Kole Smith, another companion from Vegas. It'll be fun serving with him and it sounds like some of my favorite Elders are still in Missoula. I could  think of a more perfect place to finish my mission. Trust me, we'll be working hard. I know a bunch of people in the 4th Ward because of all my exchanges with the Zone Leaders before so I'm excited. Sorry I've said excited so many times in this paragraph, I'm just really excited. This means Bozeman will be my shortest area with 3 transfers and I'll have been in Missoula for 5 combined.

     Now I'll get on to this week. This was a great week to end on. Monday we went on a hike with the YSA for FHE and lots of the members brought they're friends that aren't members so we got to meet a bunch of new people! It was a really pretty hike called "drinking horse mountain" I believe. I think I'm a little out of shape because I was out of breath and the next day my thighs were killing me. It was sad because it wasn't even that long or hard of a hike and it wore me out.

     Tuesday I went on exchanges with Elder Pett again. We went to go teach Hondo because Elder Pett taught Hondo when he was in the YSA last year. Elder Pett says it's insane how much progress he's made since last year. Hondo used to be on the verge of bashing with us and his main concern was that he couldn't accept Jesus Christ as the Savior. The past two weeks we've had a couple powerful lessons that were guided by the spirit and his heart was definitely softening. At the end of our lesson this Tuesday with a Elder Pett we watched the #BecauseOfHim video and you could just see the spirit working on him. After the video he said, "my perspective on the Savior changed. He seemed more real. It's more understandable." It seemed like a spiritual overload so we just had a prayer and moved on after giving him another assignment to read and pray about.

     Wednesday after District Meeting Elder Rich and I went on exchanges until a Friday afternoon. He's also from my transfer group and just such a hard working missionary. We did so much contacting it was crazy. We had a lesson with Kelsey which was super good. She continues to be just a spiritually in tune as usual. It was great because we haven't been able to have a lesson with her in a couple weeks because she's been out of town so much. So it was nice to see her again and see that she's still doing awesome. Thursday was when we had lots of success finding. We found a bunch of new investigators. We also had an awesome dinner with a member of the bishopric in the YSA that lives in First Ward with the first Ward elders. It was a blast for sure.

     Friday I got a Elder Ison back and that night we had a great last lesson with Milo. We talked more about enduring to the end again because Milo never wants to turn away from what he's come to know. He's such an inspiration to me. Saturday we had his baptism and it was amazing. There were lots of members from the YSA there and lots of Milo's non-member family as well. The spirit was so strong, the talks on baptism and the Holy Ghost were the most powerful I've heard at a baptism. Milo was just smiling so big as he got into the font and then after his baptism both him and Tommy, his nephew/our ward mission leader that baptized him, were crying. It was such a tender moment as all who were there have seen Milo go through a mighty change of heart. In Max's talk he said that the greatest miracle of all to see is a heart changing.

     The rest of Friday I was on exchanges with Elder Madsen and he is the funniest. He has the best laugh ever. We biked for 4 hours and it was the hottest day of the week. We also had so lots of success contacting people. A cool miracle was that we knocked on the door of a member we didn't know and his roommate answered. His roommate just moved here and is also a member but hasn't been to church yet because he didn't know where it was. It was cool because we just got his records in the Ward a couple weeks ago but it the wrong address. We tried to find him because bishop asked us to and then we just ran into him! That night we also had dinner and a lesson with Milo about the Holy Ghost to get him pumped up for church the next day!

     Sunday was a great last Sunday in the YSA. There were awesome talks and lessons. Also, there were like 16 random YSAs from BYU-I that were visiting a friend in the Bozeman Stake for the long weekend.

     Sorry this one is pretty long. It's been a great week and I love you all! I'll update my address just in case y'all feel like writing me a letter my last transfer :)

Elder Garian Tippetts

garian.tippetts@myldsmail.net

Facebook.com/ElderGarianTippetts

eldergariantippetts.blogspot.com

1101 Greenough Drive Apt. E10 

Missoula, MT 59802

Mother's Day

Family and friends,

     Yet another amazing week, life in the MBM is the best kind of life. So many things made this a great week. We were a lot busier with better things. Lots of fun activities and of course, Mother's Day!

     Monday night we played ultimate frisbee again for FHE and Elder Ison and I got to know some more non-member cousins of our ward mission leader! Ultimate frisbee is one of the best games out there for sure.

     Tuesday we had one of the most awkward lessons of my life. The guy was really quiet and doesn't really respond or participate too much, but he's a good guy. I was super worried the whole lesson that I was going to say something stupid and eventually I did. At the peak of the lesson I was bearing my testimony on the Book of Mormon and said, "because of the Book of Mormon, I know that Joseph Smith is our Savior." There was an awkward pause and I corrected myself very quickly. I was thoroughly embarrassed. We also met another super smart guy. We meet lots of smart people that are going to school here that are 'scientific' and therefore don't believe in God. But this one was really nice and said that he'd love to believe in God, just doesn't feel he can yet. So he's going to be reading and praying to find out if God exists!

     Wednesday through Sunday we tried to work ourselves into the ground. Despite our best efforts we weren't able to get any appointments set up those days. The only appointments we had were dinner appointments for Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. So we were just grinding all day long tracting or street contacting or trying old referrals. We found 3 new investigators from street contacting and 2 from contacting formers! We were definitely seeing some good success from working hard and putting in the effort. It was nice that there wasn't a whole bunch of administrative stuff didn't get in our way.

     Thursday night and all day Friday we went on exchanges with the 1st Ward elders and had a blast. I was with Elder Pett and Elder Ison went with Elder Baum. Elder Pett is also from my transfer group so it was a blast being with him. I've never actually served with him before. We worked hard and met a lot of cool people.

     Saturday night we got a hold of Abdula, a potential investigator we met a while ago. We followed a prompting to go by his place and as we showed up he was just getting home and invited us in as well! He's from Saudi Arabia. We sat down with us and talked a lot about both of our religions. It was cool because I don't really know anything about Islam so it was an awesome experience. I really felt the spirit with him. It was really cool because he kept telling us that he believes what he believes but says that if he finds more truth he'll believe it. So he's also reading and praying now! We taught him how we pray and he showed us how he prays. I love seeing other people pray because I still feel the spirit, God appreciates anyway we reach out to him. He is also going to be coming to church, he says he loves going to Christian churches and has never been to ours before!

     Well that's about it for now, obviously I got to Skype home yesterday and it was great. My family is indeed the best.

More Holiness Give Me...

Family and friends,

     Some awesome things definitely happened this week but again we had a bunch of things take up all our time. I'm definitely learning a lot of patience right now. In the moment it doesn't seem bad but then looking back on the day or the week it's easy to be discouraged or feel like you didn't accomplish much. No worries though, we're working hard and trusting that the Lord will make everything work out in the end. I'll share a little more about that at the end.

     This week we had our last lesson with Alex. That was definitely a sad day. She's officially back in Washington and the missionaries in Washington are teaching her now. She was such an inspiration to me. Her and lots of her friends that she made in the YSA were freshman and all live in the freshman dorms so we made plenty of good memories there. Lots of good laughs, tasty dinners and spirit filled lessons. This last lesson we went over the baptismal interview questions and the importance of always remaining faithful to our testimonies and to the Savior. I've been thinking a lot about the story of Lehonti in Alma 47. Even though they were described in the scriptures as "fixed in their minds with a determined resolution," they fell because they compromised and came a little off of mount Antipus. That led to Lehonti being poisoned by degrees until he died, leaving his followers and soon to be the entire Lamanite nation under the control of wicked Amalickiah. Moral of the story is we cannot compromise on spiritual matters. Sin will always be sin. Obedience to God's commandments will always bring promised blessings and protection.

     We had an investigator this week tell us he's not sure if he wants to meet anymore. He said last week he talked with some friends that don't have high opinions of the LDS church and since then he says that he is no longer sure how he feels about everything we've taught. When we asked him if he has been reading he said no, we asked when he stopped and he said it was the day his friends talked to him. Hopefully by the end of our quick lesson he was able to see that if he wants to keep feeling good about everything we've taught them he needs to keep exercising faith. We can't compromise on the small things. The important things ARE the small things.

     Another sad thing is that even more people are moving out. Church was lacking some of my favorite people. One that will definitely be missed is Meg. It's crazy to think it's almost been 4 months since I first got here and she had only been baptized for 24 days. Goodbyes are definitely not my favorite things. So on Thursday us and our ward mission leader and elder's quorum president went and helped her get all packed up. We had a final lesson with her where we shared the Mormon Message "Good things to come" by Elder Holland. Tears were shed all around. Then she left that night on her way down to Utah.

     The last exciting announcement is that Milo is on date for baptism now! All the interviews are taken care of so he'll be getting baptized on the 27th of May! He is so excited and ready for this to finally happen after waiting the whole year so far. He is another person that has inspired me so much being here in the YSA.

     Back to the beginning. This principle applies to repentance, personal weaknesses and the short comings of those who might let you down as well. Don't make a big deal out of it. Too often we take ourselves too seriously but we don't take the Savior and His gospel seriously enough. Coming to trust him requires a mighty change of heart. Sin is turning away from God, repentance is re-turning back to God. It takes humility to recognize  what happens has happened and you just need to keep moving forward. Elder Ison and I were watching a church history video is last week and this quote from Emma Smith really hit me hard. "No amount of sorrow can make things right. Only the Lord's love can, if we let Him." We let the Lord take an active part in our lives by actively seeking Him. We can't purify, sanctify or justify ourselves. Only the atoning blood of the Lamb can. The trick is we need to use the gift of agency and repentance to allow Him to cleanse us and make all our wrongs right. I love the Hymn "More Holiness Give Me." The key word there is GIVE. All good gifts come in, through and because of Christ.

I bought a sandwich for $75.60...

Family and friends,

     This week was interesting, we still taught a decent amount of lessons and got a lot done but I wish we could have done more. Yet again things just keep popping up over and over and over that keep us from doing what we want. Sometimes I'm not sure if it's something I'm doing wrong or if the Lord is trying to teach me something. Don't worry though, I'm pressing forward and will keep on keeping on. I'll go through the week day by day so you get a feel of it.

     Monday: Classic preparation day full of too much basketball. I think I have improved a lot on my basketball skills but it's still not quite my favorite sport. We taught a quick lesson to Kelsey right before FHE and then had FHE. FHE was supposed to be broom ball but only us and like one other person brought brooms so we all played ping pong for a bit and then played soccer together. We had like 15 of us in a circle and we were trying to keep the soccer ball in the air until everybody had hit it at least once. It took us almost an hour to accomplish it but we did it! We taught Petyr again and this time we met his roommate, Cam. He's just as smart as Petyr too! The two of them double teamed us with tough questions but we were able to keep on top of it and satisfied them by the end. Cam is now also reading and praying about the Book of Mormon to see if it's true and he should get baptized!

     Tuesday: MLC! We got picked up at 6:30 to drive to Helena. MLC lasted until just after 2 and we covered a lot of subject material. I learned so much on Tuesday, especially about leading with a Christ-like example. We got back and talked as a companionship about how we could apply what we learned to our Zone before going to dinner and then institute. That took up the rest of the night.

     Wednesday: We had district Meeting and then split up for exchanges with the Belgrade Elders so Elder Ison could go do some baptismal interviews. Elder Earl and I taught a bunch o lessons on Wednesday and just had a great time together. We were able to get a hold of our investigator from Eritrea and give him an Arabic copy of the Book of Mormon! It's not his primary language but there isn't one in Tigrignia and Arabic is closer than English.

     Thursday: Did service in the morning, got lunch and then went to the truck dealership to get our truck inspected. The blinking red dashboard airbag light was going off so we figured we would like to play things safe. The 2 hour wait for them to tell us that our seat belts were faulty was a buzz kill. We just barely had enough time to do some study together to prepare for our lessons that night. During comp study we get a text from President Wadsworth saying he wanted to go to some lessons with us that night because he was in town. So now we're scrambling to get a hold of our lessons that night because they still hadn't confirmed and the members that were supposed to come with us cancelled. Dinner also cancelled. But both lessons, one with Hondo and one with Milo, both went well. Teaching with President is a neat experience.

     Friday: We had interviews and I got my companion back. Milo had his final interview and we're doing the very final preparations for his baptism! This Wednesday we're setting an official date with him so keep us on your prayers! We went to lunch at pickle barrel because we've heard they're sandwiches are amazing. That's where I bought the $75.60 sandwich. The sandwich itself was 15.60 but I didn't realize I parked illegally so I also got a $60 parking ticket. Ouch. Bummer. Then we realized we had the baptismal interview forms for the Belgrade Elder's baptisms coming up so we drove them out to them because they sort of need those pretty bad. We had to fill in some paper work online at the library. On our way home for dinner we watched a car crash so we had to sit there for almost an hour while the cops figured things out so we could give our statements and contact information. Another damper. We weren't able to really start working until 6:30.

     Saturday: We had Zone Leadership Council in the morning with the District Leaders and then had a lesson and then did Weekly planning finally. So another day inside filling out paperwork and planning. That night we had some fun tracting and street contacting though so it turned out well.

     Sunday: Again I just felt like I was receiving answer after answer during church. I learned more about where real confidence with God comes from. We need to honestly give our best and turn over our hearts to God. He is then able to change us and make all of our experiences work together for our good. After a rough week of seeming disappointments I see what the Lord is trying to teach me and I hope I can catch on quick so we can move forward. If you want real joy go feast on the Word of Christ and honestly strive to listen for the Holy Ghost.

     That's about it. I'll send pictures next week! Things are good. Life is good. Elder Ison is good. Bozeman is good. The MBM is good. I'm happy! :)

Elder Garian Tippetts

garian.tippetts@myldsmail.net

Facebook.com/ElderGarianTippetts

eldergariantippetts.blogspot.com

311 Michael Grove Unit B

Bozeman, MT 59718