Mother's day

Family and Friends,

I can't believe Mother's Day has come and gone. It was definitely a relaxing day. I feel so refreshed and renewed after talking to my family. Both sacrament meetings, 1st and 3rd Wards, we're so good. We were able to take some flowers and other gifts to a couple of our investigators and they really appreciated it! During lunch I played pool with a 12 year old (we live with the Jeide's, they have a pool table, their grandson was here) and he beat me twice in a row so I felt sufficiently humbled for my skype call. While Elder Stone was talking with his family I was playing on the piano, 1st ward's mission leader sent us music for Shenandoah and asked me to learn to play and sing it. Needless to say I was having lots of fun. Then we had a correlation meeting with Bro Wisniewiski (Wiz-nih-ski), the 3rd Ward mission leader. He's such a great guy and really helps us get everything set up for the upcoming week.

This week was super great! We put 3 people on date! (Sorry...didn't mean to rhyme) First was Kyle J, he's the one that showed up to church last week with a friend that we then taught Monday night. He accepted everything we taught, even a baptismal date! As we finished talking about reading the Book of Mormon, before we even invited him to do anything with it, he said, "so I should probably get myself a copy and read a couple chapters each night, right?" RIGHT! Perfect answer! We met with him again on Wednesday and he came to all three hours of church again this week. He's doing well and we'll meet again this Wednesday.

Next person we put on date is Kyld D. He's the one we found while street contacting when we couldn't find a less active's address. We'd been having a hard time getting a hold of him but on Thursday we did some service in the morning at the thrift store and as we were leaving he was walking right by on the sidewalk! So we talked with him and scheduled an appointment for that night. It was getting a little stormy and last time we met with him we just sat on his open porch, so we were trying to think of some solutions. Kyle came out with his Book of Mormon, ready to talk, and Elder Stone, being the stud he is, asked Kyle if he just wanted to jump in his car and follow us to the church. So that's what we did, on the way to the church we got a hold of Bro Williams, the Elders Quorum president and he said he'd meet us there in 5 minutes. We followed up with him on his scripture reading while we waited for Bro Williams to show up and then we all went into the chapel and had a fantastic discussion on the sacrament and the atonement. Kyle accepted the invitation to be baptized and he said he thinks this will be a great step in his life. Then we taught him again on Saturday and in his prayer he thanked God for the good feelings he gets whenever we meet together! He showed up to church for 2/3 of sacrament meeting because he had to go to work, but he's a manager at his job so he said that he'll change his schedule up in 2 weeks so he can be there longer!

Last but definitely not least is Jessica. The missionaries have been trying to meet with her since the end of last summer but we haven't dropped her because she shows so much potential and it's not her fault she doesn't meet with us. We get appointments scheduled and then her kid has to go to the ER or crazy stuff like that. So we stopped by and Jessica and her friend were there and again Elder Stone asks them if they want to follow us to the church and they accept. So this time we call Bro Spomer, one of the Ward missionaries and he said he'd meet us in 5 minutes. So we showed them the whole church and they really liked it, especially all the things about families. Once again it was the chapel that did all the magic. We talked about the restoration and shared the first vision and started right into talking about baptism. For the first time since I met Jessica she didn't shut down the conversation the moment baptism was mentioned! She was even the one that came up with the date, so she's working for the 9th of July! And tomorrow we'll have another lesson and her friend will tell us if we would like to get baptized that same day as well.

Anyways, the Lord's work is real and He delivers on his promises. I'm so thankful to be a missionary and I'm so thankful for my mom and how she's helped prepare me to be here.



P.S. This upcoming Sunday we'll find out transfer news



Elder Tippetts

607 Avenue E



Powell, Wyoming 82435

The elect!

Family and friends,

Dang this week was so refreshing. We were teaching lessons and following the spirit and all those other things that make missionary work the best thing ever. We also had exchanges this week, Elder Stone went to Burlington with Elder Sorenson and Elder Gutierrez came up here to Powell. Tuesday morning we switched and had lunch at El Tapatío, a Mexican place.

Do you remember Victor? I'll remind you of how we found him. It was almost 9 and we prayed to see if we needed to go contact a less active member we were planning on visiting and we felt we should go. No one answered and on our way back to the car we stopped by his house because he had a light on and he let us in. So we had 3 lessons with him this week at the church with different members each time. On Tuesday Elder Gutierrez and I took Victor on a tour of the church with Brother Gwynn, one of our ward missionaries. Victor just loved it all and kept telling us how beautiful the church was. We were talking to him about the restoration and told him that the LDS church isn't just another religion but it's Christ's original church and the only true and living one on the earth. He straight up agreed. STRAIGHT UP! There wasn't even an ounce of hesitation, he just immediately agreed! Then we went into the chapel and we were all bearing our testimonies to him and he told us that he felt so good and said this is something he could commit to. STRAIGHT UP! Not kidding at all. So what did we do? Committed him to it! Victor's getting baptized on the 28th of May!!! None of us could believe what just happened, it was a lesson that missionaries dream about.

Then on Friday we taught him again at the church. He showed up super confused and frustrated. He told us that he was really sorry but that he wasn't going to be able to do this any longer. We calmed him down until Brother Gilmore showed up. He was a miracle member for that lesson. Victor had some concerns about the church because of some stuff he'd been reading online and in the news about the church and BYU and Brother Gilmore just happened to have read those same article this past week and was able to shed new light on it for Victor. At the end of the lesson Victor was so apologetic and said that he came to the lesson feeling very negative but was leaving very positive. We taught him again the next day with Brother Gilliatt our ward mission leader. He's continuing to do well and in the lesson with Bro Gilliatt he accepted everything about the restoration and it all made perfect sense to him. Victor even came to church on Sunday even though a lot of hard things are happening in his life.

The last miracle I'll share is Kyle J, he's not the other Kyle I've mentioned, that's Kyle D. He just showed up to church yesterday with a member and stayed for all three hours and loved it! We'll be teaching him tonight and he was so excited to meet so he'll definitely get put on date.

I'm so excited for this upcoming week, lots of good things are happening here in Powell. Also, this upcoming week is Mother's Day so I'll get to skype home! Definitely stoked for that!





Elder Tippetts

607 Avenue E



Powell, Wyoming 82435

It's official! I'm contagious

Family and friends,

So once upon a time today I found out I have Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease. Nothing too serious but it means these next couple days can be a little uncomfortable. I got really sick on Friday and then Saturday and Sunday everything went away except for a sore throat and now today I'm getting the little sores on my hands and feet that characterize it. So Elder Childers (he's a practicing Doctor here in Powell that is also a medical coordinator for our mission) told me to have lots of chocolate milk, ice cream, Tylenol and cough drops this week. It is moderately contagious but only through saliva and mucous and other bodily fluids so we'll still be doing some teaching.

Anyways, on to the rest of the week. Last preparation was probably the best one ever! We went out to the George's dairy farm with the Zone Leaders. Bro George is a member of the bishopric here and all the rest of his family lives in Cody and it's their family dairy! We spent 3 hours out there and he gave us a really in depth tour. They forever disprove the idea that farmers are dumb, I never knew that taking care of a farm and dairy took so much work. He showed us how they milk the cows (it's all automated and pretty hi-tech) and how they feed the cows (the cows get a more balanced and regulated diet than any human probably does). They even showed us the breeding barn and walked us through the process of artificial insemination. Sorry if that weirds you out. The best part though was the baby cows. They all had their own individual giant do house (the igloo style ones) with a little wire fence around them. They were in there just hopping around and bellowing and having a good time. Then brother George showed us that if you stick your fingers in front of their face they'll just latch on and start sucking. It was a really weird sensation but all of us thought it was hilarious to see the baby cows put our hands in their mouths. They only have their bottom teeth half formed and no top teeth, so there's no danger of them biting off your hand.

We did A LOT of service this past week. Tuesday Morning we spent 2 hours sweeping some outdoor patios at The Manor, it's an assisted living place here in town. We didn't even get halfway through that stuff and there's more stuff to do after that. We were able to talk to some of the people living there, some of them are less active members. And the lady at the front desk (non-member) was so appreciative and we talked to her a bit about our beliefs about service and what it means to be on a mission, it was a great experience. We met an older guy that wanted some help moving some water heaters so we went back on Thursday and he wasn't home. We were walking back and his neighbor was outside so we offered some service and ended up trimming her hedges for a couple hours and she told us about her life and all the trees and other plants she has. We had to get going so we went back on Saturday and finished up and she had baked cookies for us! She was a great friend to find, not particularly interested in learning about the gospel but really kind. We also did more service at one of the thrift shops in Powell again! For any of you that don't know, my love for Thrift Shops is immense. We vacuumed some more, fixed another vacuum and steamed the wrinkles out of some clothes.

Last service we did was we found Clarence, the older guy with the water heaters, on Saturday. He already got those taken care of so we helped him clean out one of his tomato gardens. We were walking up and he was looking at us weird so we called out, "don't you recognize us without our ties on?" And he laughed and yelled back "Oh look! I thought it was them Mormon Boys!" He offered us a cool beer for our help too many times to count, we finally got him to settle on a cold water bottle. After cleaning out the garden he showed us his animal shed. He has a full body Elk Mount that took second place in the World Taxidermy Competition! He also had a giant trophy Moose head, a bunch of deer and my favorite thing he had was a wolf! It was really majestic and so realistic. I was expecting it to start snarling and eat my face off.

Anyways, last thing is an update on one of the miracles I shared last week. It just keeps getting better. This is about Kyle, he's the less active member we met by mixing up the address we were looking for. So we taught him and it was really awesome! We read out of the Book of Mormon and Brother Spomer kept testifying of how the gospel has changed his life since he started coming back to church in the past year. The spirit was super strong. But wait, there's more. He told us that his family stopped going to church when he was 6 or 7. SIX OR SEVEN. Do you see what we were excited about? So we nonchalantly asked him if he was ever baptized, or at least as nonchalantly as a missionary can ask at the prospect of a potential baptism. He said that he doesn't know if he's ever been baptized and that over the past couple of years he's been really wondering if he has been. We asked if he'd want to get baptized if he found out that he never was and he said, "Sure, I've always liked the Mormon religion." So we talked to the bishop of the Ward he used to live in over in Cody and got his records transferred over and he's not baptized! Moral of the story is we're super excited to keep working with him! The main hurdle we'll need to get over with him is that his work schedule won't currently allow him to come to church...prayers would be appreciated!



I love you all! Have a grand week!


Elder Tippetts

607 Avenue E



Powell, Wyoming 82435

1. The Wyoming West Zone for this transfer

2. Us next to a bunch of cows

3. Me in a John Deere tractor

4. A baby cow sucking on my fingers! This cow was my favorite because it doesn't have ears.

Two miracles. Short but sweet.

Family and friends,

So much stuff ended up happening today so this will be pretty short. I just want to share two miracles from the week.

Elder Stone and I decided to work super hard to show our faith that there are people prepared to receive the gospel. One day we had some plans to go to an area we felt we needed to go to. Along the way we kept feeling like there were some other places we needed to stop at, so we kept putting off the original place by the park we were walking to. We've been working hard at sticking to the plans we make but we felt really strongly about each place we went so we were talking and decided that the place we were going was the right place but God needed us to get there a little late than we planned. We were getting a little discouraged because all of our promptings were not coming up with anything. We finally got to the place and skipped the first door because the second one had a light on. The second, third and fourth doors all answered but none were interested. Then we turned around to head back and someone had come out of the first door and was sitting on his porch, this is Sam. We end up having a great conversation with Sam about the Book of Mormon and he committed to read and accepted a specific return appointment!

Last one. We went to go contact a less active lady and I knew her address and I had tried by her house multiple times already, so I knew where I was going. When we got to her street I began to doubt that it was the right street, so I checked the address and sure enough it was the wrong street! So we went to the street that I now knew it was but couldn't find the house. So we went to a young couple that was sitting in a car nearby to ask if they knew where the lady lived. They didn't, but then we started talking with them about the Book of Mormon. It turns out the guy is a less active member and his records aren't here and the girl has been wanting to know more about Mormons for a while! So they committed to be reading the Book of Mormon and praying until our return appointment this week! Then I checked the lady's address again and it was the original street that we had gone to before I doubted. I know I didn't misread it. God moves in mysterious ways to get us to be with the right people!

I love you all! Have a great week!

Elder Tippetts

607 Avenue E
Powell, Wyoming 82435

The work is hastening!

Family and friends,



First off, we moved! We're out of the cozy little apartment we were living in on Avenue B and now we're living with the Jeide's on Avenue E! My new address is at the bottom, so feel free to send anything :)

Anyways, the first week being with my cousin has seriously been the best thing ever! I love him so much. He's a super refreshing companion, meaning I always feel so full of energy with him around! We've been working super hard and are really seeing the Lord's hand in the work. I've really had my testimony strengthened that this is His work, gospel and church.

This week I'll sorta go through each day one at a time because it was that good. Tuesday night the Cody Elders came up and Elder Nuffer and Elder Lankford left, leaving Elder Loehr and I in Powell. That night we had a great lesson with a young less active couple where we applied Elder Holland's talk from conference to their desire to get sealed in the temple. It really answered lots of their questions and gave them the hope they need to push through tomorrows to get there. The rest of the night was cleaning and getting other logistics taken care of for transfers.

Transfer Wednesdays are usually a day where next to no missionary work is done and I'll be honest, I was looking forward to a bit of relaxation, but I really felt the need to get the transfer started that day so a Elder Loehr and I hit the pavement! We walked around and talked with people of the streets and contacted a bunch of investigators. We even got a new one! Then we drove down south of town contacting some more people. We had a really cool doorstep lesson with an investigator that we thought was dodging us, but literally everything that could have gone wrong in her life did, so we're glad we found her. While we talked she realized that all these hard things that were getting in the way of our appointments came from Satan trying to stop us from meeting. She's really starting to understand how this Gospel can bless her. We also talked with a lady we thought was a less active member, Aletha, and we found out that she's actually excommunicated. She was very open with her feelings again, like usual, and told us that she was scared to possibly convert again but is willing to try! She wouldn't stop thanking us for being persistent and never give up on her because we've been trying to teach her this whole transfer but it's never worked out. We told her that we don't give up on her because we know it's the right thing for her and that it's what God wants for her, she really liked that. We also talked with Joe, he's in his 20s and his Dad is a recently reactivated member. We read from Mosiah 24 with him about God making us strong and our burdens light and he started tearing up pretty bad, right there on his porch!

Late Wednesday night Elder Stone showed up and then Thursday we started working hard. Elder Stone is super good at talking to everyone and I couldn't tell you how many times since Thursday that we've pulled over and ran a couple people down! We didn't got any new investigators from it yet, but we've met some nice people and had good conversations. That night we met one of the coolest people from my entire mission so far. His name is Dennis, he's 70 years old and a philosophy/art professor at Northwest College. Every time we walk by his house we see his big truck out front. And when I say big mean BIG. The wheels are more than half as tall as me. But the real unique thing about the truck is the horns (don't worry, pictures will come). He has 90 real cattle horns coming out of the bed of his truck. That's not even the entire unique part yet because this is Wyoming, lots of people have cattle horns in the back of their trucks. Dennis has every inch of them covered in small pieces of mirrors. It's quite the bright and reflective sight! Anyways, we talked with him and he told us stories about his truck and cops pulling him over just to get pictures of it! He's had so many crazy experiences in his life, especially with that truck. Then he told us that he used to be a minister and wasn't looking for a new church, but he said we could come back and chat with him about religion during May when he's working on his lawn!

Saturday night we had a pretty cool miracle with a referral. We got Mark's name and address and went to contact him but it was a motel. The motel owner finally told us which one he lives in so we visited him. It turns out he's a less active member, we're trying to find his records now. He asked us for a blessing because of some bad lung problems he has. We talked with him about faith and then gave him a blessing. Before, he was really drowsy and sick looking. After, he was happy and smiling and healthy looking! He told us that he felt tingly all over and good inside. We gave him a Book of Mormon because he doesn't have a copy anymore and invited him to church, sadly he didn't show but that leads us on to our next miracle!

Sunday night it was 8:50 and we had planned on checking in on Mark because he wasn't at church but we both felt it was too late to see him that night. We prayed about it and felt strongly to visit him. He wasn't home, so we knocked on his neighbor's door that had a light on. Normally we don't knock around in motels because the owners get really mad, but we figured that God told us to go there so there had to be a reason. Well, his neighbor wasn't interested. So we started walking back to the car which was a block away. On the way we passed a house that only had a garage light on and we figured 'hey, it's 8:57, let's try it! What's e worst that can happen?' So we knocked on it and I had a scared moment thinking this was a bad idea because the place looked pretty run down on the outside. I said a silent prayer asking for protection and help and then the Victor came to the door. He brought us right in and sat us down and told us he's been wanting to talk with us for a while! When he was in prison a while ago he was reading the Book of Mormon and everyone there would persecute him for it, but he kept reading it because he thought it was the word of God. It turns out he grew up here and is best friends with some members that really helped him through some of the struggles of his life. So we taught a quick lesson and gave him a Book of Mormon and got a return appointment for Wednesday and the house of the member he knows! I am seriously so stoked for this transfer! Victor seems so prepared and I can't wait to talk with him more!

Anyways, you all have a great week! Pray to see how you can help God in this work and then act!



Elder Tippetts
607 Avenue E
Powell, Wyoming 82435

Easter

Family and Friends,
I hope you all had a great Easter! And I hope you were able to
remember what the season's real meaning is. Hint: it's not about
bunnies and eggs and chocolate ;)
Anyways, I'll start out with some of the fun stuff we did this
week. We had dinner with Brother Rosendahl, he's such a cool guy. Less
active for decades and then 3ish years ago he decided he wanted to
come back and then the next day the missionaries knocked on his door
and he's come ever since! He took us to a Barbecue place and I had
some of the best Barbecue chicken I've had in a while, except it was
pretty pink in some places and the next day my stomach felt pretty
messed up. But besides that it was good! We were looking through the
menu and I started laughing when I saw they had Rocky Mountain Oysters
for an appetizer and Brother Rosendahl couldn't believe I'd never had
any, he cut me some slack though because I'm a city kid. The waitress
came back and got our orders then asked if there was anything else we
wanted, Bro R and Elder Lankford looked at me and the waitress started
laughing and said "just get them," so I ordered some and.....THEY WERE
SUPER GOOD!!! So check that of my bucket list ;)
Then on Saturday Brother Cozzens fed us. He's been off his
mission for less than 5 or 6 years. He's one of the funniest people
I've met on my mission and he's always there to help us out when we
need a member to go with us or when missionary work isn't going how we
want it to. His wife couldn't come with us because of the Women's
session of conference, so he drove us a couple miles out of town to
start a fire in the middle of nowhere and roast hot dogs! It was super
simple but it was so nice. He was just telling us funny stories from
his mission the whole time and we were laughing hard. Then we drove
back through a rougher part of the country and climbed up some pretty
steep, bumpy hills in his truck. He brought his .22 rifle just in case
there were any coyotes around or big crows. He pulled over a couple of
times and got it out but didn't feel good about the shot. Don't worry,
we didn't touch or handle (as the missionary handbook says) any form
of firearm at all, it was all him! Needless to say, it was a great
dinner and a breath of fresh air.
This last week I went on an exchange with Elder Nuffer, he's the
biggest stud out there. He came up to Powell with me and Elder
Lankford went down to Cody with Elder Loehr. We had such a great time
together and got a lot of good things done. Sadly all of our set
appointments fell through with some of our more promising
investigators, but we still taught some! We also visited some less
active families that he knows because he used to serve in Powell. He
was so happy to see how some of them have progressed and some are
preparing to go to the temple to be sealed! So as for investigators we
found he helped us with Joe and Jessica. Joe was starting to dodge out
on us because of some medical problems but Elder Nuffer is so bold and
wouldn't let him back out. He helped Joe see that when problems come
up in our lives we need to turn to the Savior rather than turn away
from Him. We also talked to Jessica, the potential we finally got into
contact with last week! After talking with her for a little bit,
here's how the conversation went:
Elder Nuffer: "So are you actually interested in talking with us? Are
you really looking to change your life?"
Jessica: "Yes!"
Elder Nuffer: "Okay, so what do you know about baptism?"
Jessica: "Nor much."
Elder Nuffer: "When you see the things we teach you bless your life,
will you be baptized?"
Jessica: "Um, of course!"
Elder Nuffer: "We'll be having a baptismal service on the 30th of
April, will you meet with us regularly to prepare yourself to be
baptized on that day?"
Jessica: "Ya!"

And that's how we got our first person on date since I've been here!
Last story. On Saturday we were walking around on the south side
of town and we got an unexpected phone call from a member that lives
in Cowley. She told us that her grandmother has been in the Powell
Nursing home for a while, that ye were driving there right then and
that they wanted us to come give her a blessing before she passed
away. We got there and she was definitely in bad shape. The lady that
called us and her daughter were the only members there and the rest of
the people there couldn't stop thanking us for coming. They'd tried
getting their pastor to come, her pastor to come and any other pastor
they could find to come but none of them would. They were impressed
and thankful that our church can respond so quickly to any body that
asks for help, even people who aren't members of our church. So we
anointed and then blessed her. In the spirit of Easter, while our
hands were on her head I felt the spirit tell me so strongly that she
would live again. It was completely unmistakable. Then on Sunday
morning we got a text from the lady that asked us to come bless her
grandma letting us know that she had just passed away. I again felt
that spirit of comfort and this Easter, Christ's sacrifice took on a
whole new meaning to me. I know that we'll all live again and we all
have the opportunity to repent and change so we may live in God's
presence again. According to preach my gospel, "the purpose of the
gospel is to cleanse people of their sins so they can receive Savior's
mercy at the day of judgment." (Pg. 6) That's the glorious message
that accompanies he Easter season, that we can access mercy and be
saved by grace. I hope you were all able to feel your Savior's love
this week. Make sure you find someone to share that with this week!

Until next week! I love you all!


Elder Tippetts

Couple good lessons!

Family and Friends,

Not much happened this week. More lessons cancelled and plenty of
tracting. But we did have a couple of really good lessons this week!
So I'll tell y'all about those.
We finally talked with Travis, he's a less active member that the
bishop doesn't know. We tracted into him a couple weeks ago and kept
getting appointment after appointment cancel. We kept trying back
though because he has a non member wife and a couple of young kids, so
there was going to hopefully be some good part member family work to
do there. He let us in for about 15 minutes to talk with him and it
turns out his wife isn't really that interested. He says that he knows
he needs to come to church and that he knows it would help his wife be
interested, he just has a hard time coming alone. He says she always
has lots of questions about the church and he never knows how to
answer them, but she doesn't want to talk to us even though they both
recognize that we have those answers. It was a little frustrating,
obviously, but we were able to give him some materials and other
resources so he can start learning about the gospel again and then
hopefully be able to answer some of his wife's questions. He said
he'll think about coming to church and he was glad that we kept trying
to talk with him.
Saturday afternoon we took our ward mission leader, Bro Gilliatt
(who looks like Chris from The Strike by the way...), to a lesson with
a potential investigator we finally got a hold of. She wasn't there
when we got there for the appointment. A guy pulled up to the
neighbor's house to help them move, so we talked to him. They were
just finishing moving, so they didn't need help, but we talked with
him about prophets and it was really good! He was 17ish and had
graduated early and definitely has faith in Jesus Christ. He wasn't
against anything we taught, he actually really liked it all. We shared
with him the Easter video and gave him our number. I don't know if
he'll call back, that's usually the way things work. But while we were
talking with him I really pictured him in a year going through the
temple and then going on a mission. He was such a cool guy and easy to
talk to and I could see that he can make a big difference in a lot of
people's lives.
Last cool lesson was with Marva. She's an older lady and has
investigated the church for nearly 15 years. She comes to church most
weeks but hasn't been baptized because she doesn't agree with some of
the doctrine, but she feels like she's benefitted a lot personally
from learning about our church and attending it. She also has a couple
of mental problems that make it hard for her to comprehend what she
reads. So we started to just read the Book of Mormon with her from the
beginning this week. It was neat because she focuses a lot on
historical facts like how many sons Lehi had, what year they left
Jerusalem and what sea they sailed on to get to the Americas. We've
been trying to help her understand that those facts are less important
and at she needs to focus on principles instead, and it finally
clicked this time. So we helped her see principles in the first 2
chapters and the spirit was super strong. It really helps me learn the
gospel better talking with her because we need to teach so simply.

Elder Tippetts

Too many canceled appointments!

Family and friends,

Sometimes life is just tough and you have 2 days during the week
that are completely packed with scheduled lessons from after lunch
until it's time to turn in for the night and then one of those days
completely falls through and half of the other one does. It's tough,
but you deal with it. That's something I love that I've learned from
my mission, that faith is usually shown by how you react when things
don't go the way you planned. Even though that happened we used the
open time to get a lot of good accomplished. We got some good tracting
done and made lots of phone calls. We're trying to meet with more less
actives and part member families so we've been finding them and just
giving them phone calls. It seems a little scary because you've never
met them but when it comes down to it, what can they do to you over
the phone? Luckily we haven't had any of them be too hostile to us
yet! And we've found some good stuff to start working with!
We had a really cool appointment this week with Rebekah. She's 19
and graduated the same year as Elder Lankford and I, 2015. She's been
less active for a while and is going to the college here in town. Her
family used to live here and they all just moved away pretty much so
she's been feeling lonely and she's felt the need to turn towards the
church. She said she doesn't know that the church is true but she does
know the church, meaning that it's familiar to her. That it feels like
home. We were able to help her with a bunch of her concerns! She went
to institute the next day! She'll be out of town this weekend but
we'll get her to church next week. It really strengthened my testimony
of faith as well and I definitely felt some personal revelation that
comforted me. I realized that even though God doesn't always give us a
specific answer to all of our questions, He'll often tell us that
there is an answer and expect us to trust Him. There are so many
people I've met that through away precious doctrinal certainties for a
couple of unexplained curiosities. Doubt your doubts before you doubt
your faith.
Elder Nuffer and Elder Loehr (the Cody elders) are going to kill
us! They're the ones that I did the baptismal interview for last week,
then I did another one for them yesterday, they have another one
scheduled next week and I'm pretty sure there are a few more lined up
after that. Just kidding on the killing us part, it's definitely a
blessing and a privilege to do the interviews! It strengthens my
testimony on the importance of baptism and it inspires me to meet
these people that are making changes in their lives.
This last week was the first district meeting I've conducted and
it was pretty nerve racking, but I got through it! The spirit was
really strong there and many of the missionaries told me how great it
was. I'm pretty sure they were somewhat trying to make me feel better,
but I think it did go a lot better than I thought it did at first. We
have a zone conference tomorrow so I'm free of planning a district
meeting for this week! But I'm really excited to do another next week!

Elder Tippetts

Apparently we're not Christians?

Family and Friends,
Don't worry, Mormons really are Christians, but I have never
heard more often that we are not than this week. So many people are
really bothered and disturbed by some of our beliefs and when we try
to explain them and show them plainly out of the bible they freak out
and walk away. Don't worry, it wasn't bashing at all, no contention
until they flip out. They would ask why we would believe what we do
and we would answer, 'well, it says it right here in the bible, so
that's why we believe it.' On Wednesday we had a couple people while
tracting and a referral we contacted tell us that it's ridiculous to
believe that Jesus Christ and Satan are brothers, it really bothers
them. It really strengthens my testimony when stuff like this happens
because it shows how Satan has taken simple, plain and precious truths
from the Gospel and twisted them to keep people from Christ's true
church. And this is Christ's true and living church.
We had a really good lesson with a less active family. We talked
about not procrastinating and how we need to sometimes just square our
shoulders to life and do whatever we need to. You could tell that by
the time we left the Holy Ghost had pricked their hearts and humbled
them quite a bit. Sadly, they weren't at church yesterday, but we'll
see them again tomorrow! After that lesson we met with one of our
progressing investigators and she told us about all the frustration
and anger that she feels when she reads the Book of Mormon. When I
heard that, my heart snapped in two. On my mission I have come to
love the Book of Mormon like I never thought I could, so it hurt to
hear from someone how they had a negative experience from reading it.
She said that she had never felt like she got anything out of reading
it, and she's almost all the way through 2 Nephi. So we reviewed some
of the things that are keeping her from baptism and shared 1 Nephi 3:7
with her. You could see the wheels turning in her head and we knew the
spirit had spoken to her. She said she really liked the verse and it
gave her hope and trust in God. We're reviewing the Word of Wisdom
with her again tomorrow and then we're going to start just reading
from the Book of Mormon with her multiple times a week so that we can
help her identify principles from the verses so she can apply it in
her life.
Friday we had zone training, pictures will be included. Elder
Hoschouer, Elder Schneider are in this zone as well! That means we're
only missing Elder Potter and then we'd have our entire room from the
MTC back together. But it was still super good. Most of the meeting
was focused on not focusing on ourselves. I really keep seeing over
and over is that your mission gets too hard when you're too hard on
yourself. A mission, and any other form of discipleship, is all about
forgetting yourself and serving others. That's the only way we can
really profit. Even if you serve perfect in every way possible, but
you do it grudgingly, you can gain no reward. This life is about
turning our will over to God and loving it.
Last crazy thing that happened this week was that yesterday I
gave my first baptismal interview! I was pretty nervous that it might
be some really intense and intimidating guy with a crazy past, instead
it was a 10 year old boy. During the interview I just kept thinking of
a statement from this past conference in Bradley Foster's talk, "Do we
recognize that our children are the largest group of investigators of
the Church? What must we do to bring about their lasting conversion?"
One of the reasons people fall away from the church later on in life
is a lack of righteous support. Obviously people have their free
agency and even if they have a perfect upbringing they can still
choose to go astray. But just because they have their own choices
doesn't mean that we can't help them understand that when they are
baptized they covenant, they make a literal and binding promise with
God, to follow him for the rest of their life. There isn't really away
to avoid answering to God for breaking that promise. This week
consider the covenants you have made and how you can be more true to
them. Also look for opportunities to strengthen other people's resolve
to keep their covenants. And of course, look for family members and
friends that still need to make covenants and prayerfully decide with
God's help what you can do to help them take the required steps.

I love you all! Have a great week!

Elder Tippetts

Powell is the best!

Family and friends,

Powell is seriously the best! I love it here way too much. First
thing's first, my new address is 595 #2 Avenue B Powell, Wyoming
82435! My new companion is Elder Lankford. This is his 3rd transfer
and he is on fire! I love him and he is super bold and knows the
lessons well. We've been having lots of success so far at teaching
powerful lessons and finding new, solid investigators. It's been such
a testimony to me this past week about staying busy, we've barely had
any time to slow down and we've just kept going.
Something really cool from this last week: I spent all Wednesday
with Elder Hoschouer, my MTC companion! We made it to Billing Tuesday
night and I was talking with the Zone Leaders there. They said
something about Elder Hoschouer and I mentioned that he was my MTC
companion and I've seen him once since we parted ways. Right then and
there they rearranged the assignments for Elders staying in Billings
overnight and told me I'd be staying at Elder Hoschouer's apartment
because he's been serving in Billings! I walked in and he freaked out
and ran at me and picked me up and squeezed the life out of me. We
spent the whole night until bed time catching up and I'm sure the
other Elders there were a little annoyed, but hey, we haven't seen
each other in forever! The next morning the zone leaders told me that
I was going to be Elder Hoschouer's companion for the day! So we spent
all day together. Nothing was going on, we pretty much just ran
errands around town because it was transfer days. It gave us lots of
time to just talk and tell stories that have happened to us. Most of
the day was spent cleaning and packing up their apartment because they
were shutting down that area. After we finished getting everything
packed up we got a phone call telling us to put it back together
because some missionaries were going to use it for the next couple of
weeks before they officially shut it down. That was frustrating but it
just meant more time for us to talk!
We made it down to Powell Wednesday night and then got to work
the next day. We had some really awesome bold lessons with an
investigator named Vanessa and one named Paul, they'll definitely
accept baptism soon but they've been turning it down for a while. It
looks like they're picking up and progressing quick though. We also
had a part member family that we taught. The missionaries have tried
to get the kids baptized multiple times and it looks like this time
will go through. We've been meeting with some less active members that
haven't been interested in talking with us for a while now and they
look promising! Sunday night we went to the addiction recovery
program. We were the only ones there for a while but then people
showed up. It was really cool and really strengthened my testimony of
the atonement. We'll try to go each Sunday night and are trying to get
some of the investigators and less active members we're teaching to
come.
Last cool story. Yesterday we were tracting and there was this
one guy who wasn't interested at all, but he talked with us. Then he
told us about all of his neighbor's and what religions they are and
that they wouldn't be interested. We were knocking on one of his
neighbor's door and told them that one of their neighbor's said that
they'd be interested. Hopefully we'll be forgiven for lying because
she wanted to talk! We shared the restoration with her and it all made
sense to her. She said that baptism is definitely a possibility if she
finds out its true! We'll be heading back on Thursday to teach her and
give her an official baptismal date hopefully!

Love you all! Have a great week! I might send pictures tonight or I
might just send them next week.

Elder Tippetts

Bye to Sundance and Moorcroft

Family and friends,

Yup, after 7 1/2 months in the Northeastern part of Wyoming I'm
getting transferred...to the northWESTERN part of Wyoming! I'll be
serving in the 1st and 3rd Powell wards. I'll also be the District
Leader, that's freaking me out a bit. It's weird to think that this
transfer I'll be in almost the same position that Elder Hatton was
when I first met him. I think it was during his 6th transfer, around
the time that he hit 8months, that I became his companion. The only
difference is that I won't be with a brand new missionary. I'll be
with Elder Lankford, this'll be his 3rd transfer I believe so he just
finished training. I don't know who all the missionaries in my
district will be, but I believe there will be around 10 missionaries
including the Zone Leaders for the Wyoming West zone. The zone
includes the Cody, Lovell and Worland stakes as opposed to The Wyoming
East zone (where I am now) that is just the Gillette stake. The
district I'll be in is all the missionaries that are serving in the
Cody stake. We don't know exactly how transfers will happen yet, but
we'll find out soon hopefully!
This week was so awesome! It was the best last week in an area
that I could have asked for. Monday night we called 15 or so less
active members and invited them to the Moorcroft branch valentines
dinner for adults. We pretty much just went through the branch
directory and if there was someone we didn't think had been invited
yet and they had a number we gave them a call! We talked to pretty
much all of them but sadly none made it. On Wednesday we took around
10 invitations to less active members and some of our investigators,
sadly none of them came either. It was sad but we were still happy
because we had worked hard and for some of those people had to be
pretty persistent to get a hold of them. Thursday night came around
for the dinner and it was awesome! Dinner was very good and we had a
good turn out. The parents of a part member family we're working
showed up when they to,d us they wouldn't be able to make it, that was
great!
Also there's a family that recently started coming back to
church, the Hutchisons. They've gone back and forth between less
active and active for years and a few weeks ago they showed up to
church and brother Hutchison told president Jones that he wants to do
whatever he need to do so he can be right wi God and baptize his kids!
That was quite the miracle! The Hutchisons came to the dinner and we
sat by them and it was so much fun. We talked about so many things and
brother Hutchison likes me, even though I'm a city boy. The branch
mission leader and his wife were also sitting by us and they were
talking with the Hutchisons about their 2 year old horse that's
pregnant. I was only partially tuned in to the conversation, so I was
super confused. I completely missed the whole *horse* part, which was
a pretty big part. Some of the things I heard out of that context
were: "She's only two, I can't believe she's pregnant!", "Do you think
she'll make it?", "Ours wasn't quite that young, but almost, maybe
3?", "it was a complete accident.", "what do we even do with a baby
one? Do you know anyone that wants one?" When I asked to clarify that
it was, in deed, a horse they were talking about Brother Hutchison
almost died he was laughing so hard. Definitely a memorable night.
Tuesday morning Elder Bills and I were doing some family history
work training and studying the purpose of family history, especially
in missionary work. We learned a lot and were able to apply what we
learned that day! We met with Kellie finally, she's an investigator
that always has been busy whenever we have an appointment set up with
her. It was our first time actually talking with her and we taught her
the restoration. She really liked the idea but wasn't seeming too
interested all of a sudden. She told us that she had a question for
us, one that has bothered her since she was young about all churches.
She asked, "Pretty much all churches say that they're the only right
church, so are only members of your church going to be in heaven?" We
were able to teach her about the different glories of heaven and how
we do believe that if you don't receive the proper priesthood
ordinances through the right authority you can't be saved in the
celestial kingdom so we do proxy ordinance for those that didn't have
the opportunity to do it themselves so they have an equal chance at
salvation. She was glad to have an answer to a question she's had for
decades! She agreed that when she finds out that it's all true she'll
be baptized!
Also it's been super warm this week. Almost all the snow around
town was melted (until the big snow this morning). But last week there
was actually a day where we didn't wear our suits or sweaters while we
went tracting and we weren't cold at all! It was too grand.
There were lots of other cool things that happened as well but I
can't seem to put words to them right now. I'm super excited to see
how this next week goes! Remember that this gospel is so true and we
are so blessed to have the peace it brings in our lives!

Elder Tippetts

Love and exchanges!

Family and friends,

Don't worry, there isn't some sort of scandal going on, but there
was some love this week! On Tuesday we got to go to the Young
Ambassadors show Heartsongs: Songs of Love. It was a little strange
because they just sang love songs the whole time and there was kissing
in some of the dances, which is a big no no according to the
missionary handbook. But we were invited by the Zone Leaders to come,
who were told by President Wadsworth to bring the whole zone to it!
Apparently they just did a tour of Wyoming Colorado and Montana or
something like that and where ever they've been in our mission the
missionaries were all invited. When it was in Helena President
Wadsworth went and there was a member of the seventy there as well I
guess. It was really refreshing to hear some of my favorite songs
again though and we talked to some of the performers about the
missionary opportunities they've had because of the Young Ambassadors!
Going to the concert was like a nice nap that left me refreshed and
excited to get back to work!

This week we were also on exchanges from Monday until Thursday. I
was with Elder Bird, he's from Provo as well! It's pretty crazy
because he graduated a year before me and we never knew each other. We
know a lot of the same people though and he knows pretty much all the
same teachers from Provo High hat I do as well! It was really fun to
be with Elder Bird, we worked really hard and it was also refreshing.
The funny but sad thing about exchanges was that Elder Bird didn't
know we were going to the Young Ambassadors show and the Newcastle
elders weren't invited because they are too far away from Gillette, so
Elder Bills and Elder Blum didn't get to come.

Elder Bird and I went tracting a lot and I've never had so much
fun tracting, especially with literally nothing that came out of it.
We knocked on lots of doors over the 4 days we were together and had a
positive attitude the whole time! We may not have found anyone that
was interested, but we were able to talk with some people that had
negative views of the church and answer some questions that will
hopefully make them more receptive in the future. It's stuff like this
that reminds me throughout my mission that success doesn't come from
how many lessons you teach or new investigators you find or how many
baptisms you have, it comes from working hard and following the
spirit. Y'all should read the article "only two baptisms?" from the
February 2016 ensign, not just because the guy who wrote it is from
Montana, but because it's just an awesome article!

The other really awesome thing from this week is that we think we
found the miracle investigators that everyone in Sundance has been
praying for and fasting for! The last baptism they had in Sundance was
more than 5 or 6 years ago. Everyone here is hungry for growth and
they want to help but it just hasn't happened. I can't remember if I
mentioned this last week or the week before, but Elder Bills and I
tracted into this really nice young family. They were super nice and
readily agreed that we should come back and talk more. When we found
them we were just excited that they wanted to talk to us and we set an
appointment. The appointment was for this Tuesday afternoon and Elder
Bird and I went over to confirm that it would still work on Monday
night because we don't have a phone number for them yet. We went by
their house and he opened the door for us as we walked up and waved us
in. He offered us food and asked if we were still good to come over
the next day! We said we were and talked with him and his wife a
little more about the restoration. They asked why our church was
different from theirs and we just told them that the fullness of the
gospel was restored though prophets and scriptures along with the
priesthood authority of God and that if they read and pray about the
Book of Mormon that God would tell them that it's true. They were
super excited to find out and it made perfect sense to them! *insert
Billy Mays' voice* "BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE" The husband is really good
friends with a less active member apparently! They're a really nice
young couple and it doesn't seem like anything is really keeping them
from church, it's just early in the morning and he likes Sunday
football. We talked with them and they said they'd help out with this
new family we found! Everyone here is hoping that this will bring them
back into activity as well. Two young families would really help the
branch out a lot. We're super excited to move forward with all of
this!

Remember to read and pray! It's one of the best things to do to
keep your testimony strong and invite the spirit into your life! Look
for the principles taught in the stories and how the scripture
characters display Christlike attributes! Follow their example and the
world will be better off!

Love you all!

Elder Tippetts

Uhhhhhh...I don't know what to name this one...

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

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