Hello Hello....

It has been great!!!! I love being a missionary!!!!!! We started this week teaching this really great family. The dad is returning from inactivity and we are teaching his wife and two kids...THEY ALL CAME TO CHURCH THIS SUNDAY! We really focused on prayer because it is something that the mom has never been exposed to really and has never really practiced it. They all committed to pray. We set an appointment but it was a couple weeks out because they have some crazy things going on. The daughter is getting her wisdom teeth out so we decided we will bring her a shake or something so we have a chance to see the family and just follow up on how prayer is doing! Yay! I really feel the spirit when I am with the family and from what we have heard from the ward the daughter has never really wanted to listen but she has really taken to us and is willing to give this all a shot. I love how Heavenly Father gives inspiration! On tuesday I went on exchanges and it was good...it really made me feel better to know that we have power house sisters in the mission and all will be well. 4th of July!!!!!!!!! It was a great day. We went by to check on a referral from a member...again. We had checked a few times, this time she was home and SO excited to see us! We taught her the restoration and invited her to be baptized and she said yes! Woo hoo!! We invited her to be baptized on August 18th...she thought about it..said she would want to but thought she had to go out of town that weekend...but she said she would look. It was such a great lesson..she is so prepared by the Lord. She also speaks spanish...she knows a lot of english but spanish is her first language. So I told her Joseph Smith's vision in spanish. I felt the spirit so strongly! We were really worried about Wendy because she cancelled our appointment..hadnt returned our calls or texts and didnt come to church. We really wanted to go see her but we figured there was a reason we never did the lessons at her house...but all day all we could think about was her. So finally we prayed to know if we should go visit her. We both just felt like we could go visit her, that it would be ok. So we went (she happens to live in the same apartments as us). So it was thelast thing we did and it was so good to see her. I think she needed it. She is still doing good. Fighting to stop smoking and drinking coffee and she is having the most stressful things going on at work. She needs our prayers. I love her. We'll see if she can get ready in time. We also met with a girl this week who has been going to church for 3 years and hasnt been baptized because her parents dont want her to. Now she is old enough but really respects her parents. She has also never had the missionary lessons for the same reason. We decided to test her and have lunch with her so we could really get to know what is going on. She is such a sweet girl and has recently been praying about what she needs to do in life and she feels Heavenly Father keeps answering her "you need to get baptized". So we are now going to be getting together with her to make that happen! YAY! Then this weekend we went to a celebrities baptism...woo hoo. hahaha. Anyway Nancy came (the member referral) and she was just bawling. She found out that she cant be baptized on the 18th but we set a different date with her for that month. Following the baptism we went to the members house and had a lesson. She says she knows the Joseph Smith is a prophet! AHHH! I just love being a missionary. We had 8 investigators come to church yesterday. The ward was so happy. I love Moorpark...I love that this area is just booming. My emotions are going crazy. Hahaha. I have felt anxious at moments, just overwhelmed with happiness, content....everything. I dont think that it is all really hitting me yet...maybe subconciously but haha. I dont know. I love my life. I love you all. I am just ready for all the great things Heavenly Father has in store.... LOVE YOU ALL!!! Have a great week! Tell the girls to have a great week at girls camp. Hermana Tippetts

I haven't been with my companion for three days!!!

Soooo hello. I feel like i am in a crazy flash back. I am at the mall in Newbury Park and Hermana Clark is with me. Haha. Its crazy. So we are still together because we were in Bakersfield all weekend and came back on Sunday but since Moorpark is closer to to Bakersfield then Ventura we just decided to stay in Moorpark all day and since we have to meet up again tonight to do another exchange we just decided to stay together here in Moorpark and since my Neff watch broke the Elders gave us permission to come to the mall to get it changed. Crazyyyy... Exchanges were really good. Bakersfield was hot but really not that bad. I love Bakersfield so much. Crazy thing that happened. One night we were filling up the tank so that we could leave in the morning and a car pulled up full of a family that lived in Lamont and that I taught!!! It was so cool. We took a picture. Another cool miracle. We were knocking in Bakersfield and we saw this man and woman searching for something...and we realized that they were searching for their keys. We offered to say a pray with them to help them find their keys and then taught him a little and he told us he has a lot of questions for us so we were able to set up something to meet with him more. We went and got in the car and as we did we saw that they found their keys...we rolled down the window and said "prayer works!!!"...haha. It was really cool. Moorpark is just doing so great right now. We are teaching a lot of people and they are progressing. We set two people with a baptismal date last night. THey were referred to us by members and are really excited about the church. It is a mother and daughter. Super cute family. We met this guy named Ryan this week because I guess the elders had found and returned his iPhone for him and he was really grateful so he left a note in our door with his apartment address. Well one day we decided to go by and see him we went by and caught him in the perfect time to talk to him a bit about the gospel. We had a very inspired conversation and he set up an appointment for the next day. We came and he said that after we left his buddy had called and invited him to a 12 step program and he said that he had tried to quit using prescription drugs a week before and we were such an answer to his prayers. He's really excited to learn and expressed the want to be baptized! Wendy is getting baptized! Sister Bennett was super great and bold and pretty much told Wendy it was up to her to decide when she is getting baptized because she just needs to stop drinking coffee. She said that she could stop right then and we set her with a date of the 21rst of July. We are teaching lots of people and I love it. Don't think I'm not excited to see you all...i mean of course I am...i just can't think about that until Im on the plane I owe to heavenly father to finish out serving ...."with all my heart might mind and strength"... Love you all....Hermana Tippetts

Mom you are a facebook stalker!

First off....mom I cant believe you are stalking me on facebook!! Haha Yeah the boy that was in the picture with McKay is in my war..its the bishop's son. In fact the Hunt family actually lives here in Moorpark and are in my ward. I havent seen them yet. Small world. I think I will answer all your questions first because I always seem to forget them. Well reply to what you said. Lets see...ya the beach would be just fine as long as we go to church in Cali(what part of california is it in). Haha you said that Bentley was a little more filled out and said you cant wait to see me...hahahaha well you'll get the same effect..a little more filled out hahaha. ANYWAY. Uh, I will fill out this returned missionary sheet and send it to you. Dad told me to fax it but I dont really have the resources to do that. But ill send it good ol snailmail. Also I am pretty sure that is our address here in Moorpark. Well this week has been super great! I love Moorpark. At the begining of the week we went down to Ventura to have a meeting with President and then I worked with Hna Clark a little bit to plan the exchanges a little more. I know I said this last week but the youth here is SOO amazing. We were at the ward mission leaders house to have ward correlation and as we got there the girls from mutual were leaving and one of the young women introduced us to her friends and we were ableto get an appointment with both of them. They both have come to youth conference and participated in the road show! We taught 16 year old boy who wants to get baptized so bad but he can't because his parents have yet to sign the permission form but he was telling us how he has to hide his book of mormon under his mattress. He also said " I dont really understand all of this...but I know its true". He has such a strong testimony of the gospel. Its awesome! The bishop here is really great and has taken these boys in (there are this group of boys who are all learning about the gospel). It really reminds me of my group of friends growing up. We have been knocking a lot and Sister Bennett is really on fire. I know it must be hard to be in your first area and knock a ton but she is really just doing work!! I am so proud of her and know she is going to be an amazing missionary. Well she already is...but you know what I mean. Anyway as we have been knocking we have run into lots of people who dont want to talk to us but we have found a good hand full of people who want to learn more. We met this great family last week who invited us back and we have an appointment with them tonight. She is a former Jehovah's Witness and he grew up Catholic but doesnt really believe in religion. The wife doesnt even believe in God any more. However when we met him at the door he talked to us for a while and it was fgetting really good. Then his wife came ot give him dinner. She stepped outside and started talking to us and after a minute she let us in. We started teaching her about the plan of salvation because all of her doubts could be resolved by the plan. She talked a lot but the spirit was really strong. She believes in energy and told us that she felt "really good energy" with us. We told her that was the spirit. I am really excited to teach this family. We also are teaching a less active man and his family...well he is more of a returning member, but their family....namely his wife really warmed up during our lesson and came to church on Sunday! We are really laying a solid foundation here...not because we are great...but because President recieved inspiration that we needed to come here in this moment and the Lord has helped us do the rest. I love being a missionary. I love feeling the spirit so strongly every morning as we study and then being able to use what we study as we talk to people on the street. I only get a couple more weeks with Sister Bennett and I could really use some prayers to know how I can be the very best trainer for her. The mission is so important and I really want her to be able to have the tools to be a good and effective missionary! Thanks. The Lord is just blessing us with tender mercies every day and we have made it a goal (Sister Bennett and I) to write down our favorite thing that happened each day and it hjas really helped me to have even more joy. I invite you to do the same. Tell the nieces and nephews thanks for the little shout outs! Love them! Hope all is well! have a great week! Hermana Tippetts

Hello family from (Moorpark) which is very close to thousand oaks

Well...I did get your email mom and i didnt see anything attached to it so I am guessing that it will be coming in the mail this week. Ill wait for it. So to answer your question, yes I am in Moorpark, we live in an apartment and yes i will still be traveling. I will be traveling with Sister Clark! We wont be doing so many exchanges because of this being such a new thing but I am excited. Yesss... So I feel bad for Sister Bennett (my new companion!!) She had the craziest first week EVER! We had to stay in Ventura for a couple of days and we never really got to work together. Then we got here and had to figure this whole white washing thing. We didnt have any appointments and we knocked a lot. It has been really great though. Just really different but I guess she didnt know the diference. She is so great. We have a lot similarities. We LOVE cars. Its been kind of nice. Haha. she understands me. She knows Trevor Tippetts. Also at church on Sunday someone came up to me and told me they knew Tippetts in Vegas and she knew uncle Mark and aunt trudy and said she grew up with my cousins. That was pretty neat. We have a couple people with baptismal dates now..and a few new investigators. I just feel the spirit so much here. I can just feel that there is a huge reason we are here and this is where heavenly father wants us. Im not sure why but I was just thinking about all the things that had to happen so we could be here together and it just blows my mind and helps me know that this is really inspired. We talked to this family who the dad of the family isnt a member but comes to church every week and the wife is a convert and the son is about to go on a mission next month. So as we were there we invited the son to practice teaching the lessons with us to his mom and dad. When we invited them to do that we really felt the spirit and we have an appointment to do so this week. The youth in this ward/stake are AMAZING! There are so many converts who are in young mens and young womens and they are sharing the gospel with everyone. I am so impressed by them! I really feel like we are also here for the youth because they are so willing to open their mouths and share the gospel. I really love being a missionary and I have been reflecting on my mission and it really hit me this week that any of the success I have had on my mission had nothing to do with me, it was all just blessings of our Heavenly Father and from the Holy Ghost. presidente castro sent us this great quote this week: “I have felt impressed to speak today about the need for integrity—old-fashioned, personal, practical integrity. To me, integrity means always doing what is right and good, regardless of the immediate consequences. It means being righteous from the very depth of our soul, not only in our actions but, more importantly, in our thoughts and in our hearts. Personal integrity implies such trustworthiness and incorruptibility that we are incapable of being false to a trust or covenant.” (Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin, Ensign, May 1990, 30) I like because I feel that is what we are trying to develop every day! I hope that I can be that person. I also heard that they opened up Personal Progress to everyone and im really excited to get my medalion when I get home! Well life is great and the greatest joy is serving the LORD! LOVE YOU ALL!!!! Hermana Tippetts!

Soooo....I forgot today was transfer day

Haha or did I tell you today was transfers??? Well I guess I will get that out of the way first.............I am being transfered! Its crazy. So I will be white washing (which means there are Elders there right now and they will both be leaving) and training (in english ahh..) and I will keep my traveling sister assignment but the other Traveling Sister will be here in Ventura while I am in Moorpark!!! Im going back to the Thousand Oak area. CRAZY...but I wont lie I had like a mini revelation the night before so it wasnt a huge shock. BUT STILL. Crazy. I am super exciting but everything is going to be so new. Well....HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!!!!! I was thinking about you and was thinking about your birthday. Ha so I hope it went well. Also can you give a shout out to Lori and Vanessa for their birthdays! I thought about them as well. Life has just been so crazy and I didnt have time to go to the store and buy cards but I love you all the same. Lets see...this week was really good. Sister Thompson and I had so many miracles and she was a great missionary! I am excited to see her up at school. This week we talked about an inspired of way of teaching and we put it into practice in district meeting and asked got a baptismal date that day in a declaration on the front porch! I know our mission president is so inspired. I am also grateful that he is so focused on Preach My Gospel and doesnt feel the need to come up with all these fancy programs because Preach My Gospel is the Lord's way to do missionary work! Oh then before that we were leaving an investigators house but we started walking down the street and started talking to these 2 guys. They invited us to come and sit on the porch so we went up and taught them the Restoration and they both accepted baptismal dates!!! YA! The Lord is really preparing people and if we are willing to be bold and do work he will help. The Evangelista family is doing super great and so is Bro Wages. We finally saw the Fa family and taught them the Plan of Salvation. We invited her to be baptized and she is going to pray about being baptized. She is really so great and is putting everything into practice that she is learning. Now we just have to get her to church more often. She has a really crazy work schedule but we need to be more firm with her.. Sorry if this email is so crazy. My mind is all over the place. Everything is changing haha but it is going to be such an adventure! I got an email from Chrissy too and Im sorry to hear that both her and Jamie had little accidents! I hope they get better soon and I will keep them in my prayers! I was randomly studying in the for the strength of youth (the new one) and I noticed that every single section it mentions in some way that this principle will help you have the spirit to be with you and I think that it is so cool that we have some guidelines to better help us have the spirit to be with us. It just goes to show us how important having the spirit with us is. I love the gospel! Well really my mind is so crazy and we have to be in Oxnard at 3 to take the new sisters out so I have to let you go. Pray that I will be able to train in pure english! Im so excited to meet my new missionary. She is going to be great! I have always wanted to white wash. It is going to be such an adventure! YAY YAY YAY! All is well and we are working! It is so good to hear how everyone is doing. Im sorry this letter is so crazy. Haha love you all!

im not talking, im just complimenting the elders on their spanish

April 28, 2012 Good Morning Family on this beautiful Memorial Day weekend! It is so good to be here in Ventura. I am always so spoiled with wonderful weather. The sun is shining with a cool breeze...SOOO nice, but I have to remember that June gloom is coming. Anyway it sounds like you have had a great memorial day weekend! Was it some kind of joke to make dad the youth speaker? Hahaha. What did he speak about? Andres got baptized this saturday!!!!! Woo hoo (see attached picture). I was out of town thursday and friday doing exchanges in Oxnard and Newbury Park and when I got back...bam baptism. It was so crazy. I still can't believe that he is a member of the church already! I feel like the time went by so fast. He was so prepared and has such a strong testimony of the Book of Mormon. The day before his baptism he finished reading the Book of Mormon for the second time! That is pretty amazing. The baptism was really simple but really beautiful. His wife and sister and law gave talks, his daughter and niece sang a special musical number, the bishop baptized him (in spanish...so precious). We watched some mormon.org videos between the baptism and the spirit was so strong during the temple one (also side note one of the videos we watched was a conversion story of two kids who played on rivalry football teams and at the baptism Bentley was there as a missionary! That was so cool). When we came back from being baptized he really was just glowing. Then on Sunday he was baptized by fire (he recieved the gift of the Holy Ghost). His daughter was talking about how excited she is to have the priesthood in her home. I love this family so much and I will always be grateful to our Heavenly Father who allowed us to be here to teach him. We had a really cool thing happen to us this week. So we were walking back from meeting this family (the little 14 year old boy reminded me so much of Joseph Smith) and we see this lady struggling to carry a car seat and some bags so we run up to her and carry her carseat. We then teach her a bit about the book of mormon and set a return appointment with her. She was really excited for us to come back. Before leaving we asked her if there was anyone she knew that might need some service. She said her father and mother would need some and she gave us their address. So then we get in the car and I check the phone to see that we have a text message from the referral center I noticed that it was the same street as her parents, when I checked further I realized that it was the same people! They called for a DVD (finding faith in Christ). SUCH a miracle. Unfortunatley we did not have finding faith in christ in the car so we had to wait until we saw the elders. We are really excited about it. We had training for this bike rodeo that the city is helping out with and we are volunteering to help. I will be putting helmets on kids. It sounds like it is going to be a lot of fun. We are doing it this saturday from 8 am to 2 pm. It was really fun to be at the meeting and all the missionaries (well a lot of them) saying that we could help in spanish and english...BECAUSE WE SPEAK BOTH. Pretty cool. Lets see...It was really fun being back in Newbury Park. I love that place so much. SO MANY PEOPLE TO TEACH. I felt like I knew everyone though. Oh yes...next week is transfers....BUT my companion has to leave this thursday (home) because of visa and school stuff. She will be at BYUI (and I would really like to live with her too). SOoooo...starting wednesday I will have a new companion...but who really knows who...these are the random things missionaries have guessed.. 1.companions with Sister Castro (I wish) 2. mini missionary (someone who isnt a missionary but gets set apart for a week) 3. solo sister in a tri-pan with the assistants (that is really a joke) 4. break up a tri pan that is in Bakersfield and bring one of them down here. Im guessing the mini missionary but I wont find out until tuesday. Either way it will be super great, I know it! I love the scriptures! I love reading them in english and in spanish and the depth that it brings. I love how simply the Book of Mormon testifies of Christ and I know all who read it will come to know who we worship. I know that reading the Book of Mormon helps us to change our desires and inline them with those of Christ. I love being one of the Lord's full time missionaries. I will use his time to the fullest. LOVE YOU ALL!! Hermana Tippetts

I CANNOT believe its Tuesday...

Wow, the last few days have been so great and so crazy. First let me explain why I am writting on Tuesday. We had zone conference this week and we had ours on Monday so we had to have pday on tuesday. No stress. So we had sisters conference last week and it went great. As we were driving away me and Sister Vasquez looked at eachother and said "is it already over? I can't believe that it already happened". They day went by TOO quickly. We had beautiful musical numbers by the sisters, classes taught by some of the sisters and I learned so much!!!, Sister Vasquez and I taught about finding and talking to everyone, President Castro talked about our theme "thou art an elect lady whom I have called"...it was amazing and totally what all the sisters needed to hear. We had workshops on learning how to meditate and how to be more organized and take care of ourselves. We had a yummy yummy lunch and ended the day with some beauty tips by one of the sisters. It really was a great day. It was so spiritually uplifting and so impowering to see all these beautiful sisters who have desires to serve the Lord. THEN.... The very next day we headed up to Bakersfield in the evening. It was a really fun ride and we arrived in east bakersfield. As we were getting close to Arvin you could smell the lovely stink that is the Arvin signature and I rolled down my window and took in a good wiff. That smell will always be pleasing to me. hahaha. We were in Bakersfield until Sunday morning when we drove back. Bakersfield was HOT but I LOVED IT. I was a little worried that I would die when I finally got back to Vegas but I think I will be able to handle it ok. So many great things happened in Bakersfield. We crashed an apartment bbq and they fed us and we taught them the gospel, we set like 6 people with baptismal dates, we met so many people who were prepared for the gospel, and at the end of the night I always got to end up with my companion. YAY! I left my books in south bakersfield and didnt realize it until we were in Taft, so we were planning on staying the night in Taft again before we drove to Bakersfield but we decided that it was important that I had my books so we drove back to South Bakersfield. As we were about 10 minutes outside of Taft we realized that sister Vasquez forgot the phone in Taft so we turned around to go get. Needless to say it was a late night. But as we were driving in the middle of no where Bakersfield I rolled the window down and was just taking it all in and (I admit it was a little smelly), and I said "I will never forget this moment", Sister Vasquez found that so funny and has become one of her newest catch phrases. While we were gone our area was just great. Andres talked to the bishop about his baptism and all is settled for him to get baptized excet for his interview that he will have with a missionary tonight. He will be baptized this Saturday and I am so excited. In Preach My Gospel under the section of "helping people prepare for baptism and confirmation" I was reading how our commitments that we extend are what will help them prepare to make covenants with God like baptism and every single thing we have invited Andres to do, he has done. I know that he is so ready to make covenants with God! Yay! Two funny stories: So one day we had a lesson with one our less actives Julie and as we were driving to her house, about to turn into her neighborhood we saw her parked at the stop light going to the other direction. As we were turning I rolled down the window and was like, "Julie, turn,,,turn Julie"...hahaha she did and sister Vasquez was like "she obeyed you". It was funny. Julie is so funny and we have been trying to help her so much. I really hope she can feel the love the savior has for sure. Other funny story...so for zone conference we have car checks and part of that car check is that we have enough air in our tires. Well I wont lie (sorry dad), I really have no idea how to use those tire pressure measurer thingys...but I was willing to try. So about an hour before we have to go to the meeting we texted our zone leaders saying something like "hey if you havent filled up your tires yet there is a great gas station by the church and if you happen to see two confused sisters there you could help them out". The thing is we feel like we are always asking for help so we were trying to be a little more discreat about it....well needless to say they never showed up and I thought I did it right...added air...checked it...got a different reading every time but figured it was ok. Well...it wasnt...we were like 5 pounds low. hahaha...we blamed our zone leaders and afterwards we brought up the text...and they were like "oh........". Life lesson learned...if you want men to do something, ask them directly. They were nice though and came outside and taught us how to use the tire pressure gauge. So yeah. Life is just great. We are teaching some great people but as well e really need to find more so I am excited for the next couple weeks to work so hard and gain the trust of the Lord that he will place more elect investigators in our path! I have been learning so much and it is so crazy that here at the last part of my mission (kill me) I am still learning so much and still have a lot to learn. As for you question Mom about disneyland...I really dont care when we go. Whatever will be best for everyone else. Love you all lots! May 22,2012