soooo WHERE AM I GOING?

Welp we got our transfer calls...actually our calls started last night. We were in an appointment and we heard the little beep of our phone. We got out of the appointment and we saw that it was a random number and they didn't leave a message and it was 9 so we figured we would just call it back the next day. Then we started driving and we got another call from the same number so Hna Clark answered because I was driving. She started talking to the person in spanish and I was SOO curious who it was...finally she looked at me and she mouthed "Its Elder Bills"...who is one of the assistants to the President. He then said Hna can I talk to your companion Hna Tippetts? She said of course and put on speaker phone. He did all the little small talk and then finally cut to the chase and said "Hna you have been called by the Lord to serve as a trainer this next transfer".....BAAAAAAAAAAA. Of course I said ok and he said wed find out where tomorrow. So this morning right before studies we got a call from the zone leaders and we found out that I will be training here in Newbury Park!! Yayyy I finally get to stay in an area longer than 2 transfers. Hna Clark will be going to Taft (a little town outside of Bakersfield) and she will be white washing with an older missionary (white washing means there use to be Elders there and now there will be Hermanas). Its going to be such an adventure for her and I think that is what has given me the most confidence. I am just so excited for her and her new adventure. Im praying that my baby will be a native but we will see. I know the Lord qualifies who he calls. Hijole. We will see.


Anywayyyyyy....a quick few things because we have to go.
1. Thank you SOOO much for all the love you all have sent me. I love the CDS SOOO much and I love my spanish CTR ring. Everything is so beautiful. THANK YOU.


2.It was great hearing all of your voices even if it was just a random conversation. Haha. I just love you all so much


3. a member was so convinced that I was leaving that he gave me a tearful goodbye. HAHA can't wait to see him Wednesday.


4. Mario. He is the boyfriend of a member. He pretty much became a member because of the BOM c=CDS you sent me Dad because he has a hard time reading so has avoided the missionaries but the CD made him so excited. Anyway he's listened to it every day and loves the BOM. We've taught him twice now and we taught him about the BOM and prayers he was so touched about the fact that we just bare our heart to our heavenly father and he was very teary eyed after the prayer. He didn't come to church though so we will have to focus on that more. I loved the Restoration and it makes a lot of sense to him


5.We were knocking and found this random less active member that we didn't know existed


6.I have this random note in my agenda to say and Im not exactly sure what it means..it says joy=diligence in the work of the Lord. Im pretty sure I was studying PMG or something and I know that that is where we find joy is when we are diligently serving the Lord and his children


7. We went to a christmas devotional in wednesday with the missionaries from Ventura, Oxnard, Thousand Oaks, and Simi Valley. It was really spiritual and really got me thinking about how this feeling we feel during the season can last forever


8. Also at the christmas devotional I found out that a couple of people I taught in Oxnard got baptized and one is preparing to be baptized!!!!! That made my week. I love that family so much!


9. Im glad you had a good christmas and that Jed Chrissy and Jaden could come over. I thought about them during the court day. Im assuming everything worked out?


10. I can't stop at 9 soooo Silvia is doing wonderfully and will be baptized on the 28th of Jan. YAY! Along with her daughter.




I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH AND THANKS sO MUCH FOR ALWAYS SUPPORTING ME!!!!

Smooth Move Exlax

Maybe Ill explain that subject one day. Mom, I do like snacks but I don't really need them. The only ones I would say I would want are these hershey kisses that are mint truffles


HAPPY BIRTHDAY HNA SPILLER (my companion from the MTC). Hopefully you are still forwarding these to her. Have a great 22nd!


Anyway so I did get your package...Im going to keep the shirts but the skirt didn't look right, its cute though. But maybe it would be easier if you sent the receipt here? Here we have a Kohls, JCpenny, Macys, Nordstrams, So if its one of those send it off today so I can take it back next Pday. We have transfers 2 days after christmas and who knows WHAT could happen. I think Ill stay but who knows.


OK so my week....


So there is this member Ingrid and she was telling us about a friend of hers that she wants to share the gospel with and has been talking about families ext. She didn't know her address and said she would get it for us. Well a couple days later we had like 15 minutes until our appointment so I was like lets knock for a second and we knocked on this door and she let us it. We started talking about eternal families and the Book of Mormon. It was great. Then she started to tell us that she has a friend that is a member...turns out it was the friend of Ingrid, so we totally found her on our own. We came back and taught her the Restoration and she really accepted it.


A cool thing our ward is doing for us if they are delivering a plate of goodies every day to our house so that we can give them to investigators and less actives for christmas. Its been super fun ding dong ditching them.


A cool miracle...it was late and we were walking back to our car and we here someone shouting from a truck, we weren't sure if it was at us or not but we just kept walking...they kept shouting and started backing up so we stopped for a second thinking they needed help and out jumped this white girl running towards us....it was ASHLEY...one of our old investigators that just up and moved. Anyway its a long story but she was being abused so she finally escaped and now she is going into a 6 month program to help her get over all the trauma she went through. I know the Lord answers prayers, we have been praying for her for a long time. We have her address now so we can write her.


Carlos is doing so great, he didn't come to church this week because he had to work but he is SO open. I am so happy we didn't give up on him when he told us "i think I'm still good with my church". He's come to all the activities and has just been really embraced by the members. Its wonderful.


Silvia is on track to get baptized. Her and Tomas should be married in the next couple weeks. AHHH seriously a miracle. We are so excited and blessed for this opportunity.


We also set another baptismal date, its a daughter of a member and her name is Nadia. She's a sweet girl, we have just got to get her fellowshipped


The Cano family have been AWAL this week..I don't know what happened but we are just praying all is well.


We are just working and teaching, we set some goals at the beginning of this transfer and we are really seeing results. I know the Lord loves us and that he wants us to come and live with him again. I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY!!!!!!!


Good luck branden with your wisdom teeth!!!!


Love you all so much!!!! Thanks for everything you do for me!

I'm old now and falling apart...HaHa

Thanks for all the birthday wishes. I made my companion promise not to tell anyone but the Zone leaders some how found out and sand to me last night...and then we got to work outs this morning and all the elders there knew and one of the elders made me a birthday cake out of balloons. Its cute. We all took a picture. Then as we were studying I got a package in the mail from LISA! Thank you so much. Im wearing the scarf right now. I love it! We are going to buy some cheesecake and just do normal stuff (cause thats what I wanted).


Oh and mom I haven't got the package yet...but if you sent it to the Oxnard address it might take a little bit I guess they aren't opening that office until December 11th. THey will have a forwarding address at the Ventura address people just need to make sure they are writing "California Ventura Mission" under my name. But you can send them to the Oxnard address...that would be better.



Im so excited for Jed Chrissy and Jaden. I will be thinking about you all in those days. Oh and I can't call on Christmas Eve...rules are christmas and mothers day. Ill let you know next week. I would love to talk to everyone but if they can't come over on christmas I understand. Ill let you know next week or so. We have church at 9 but we only have sacrament.


This week was good. We had to drop Leydy and that was hard because I feel like she is so close to the truth but refuses to open her eyes. We've tried really hard but finally...you can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink. Sad day, but I have faith that her name is now in the area book and one day when she is ready missionaries will find her.


We FINALLY got to teach this man named Rogelio...we were knocking when we found him and he has talked to missionaries before and has good friends that are active members. We were finally able to teach him and it went pretty well. He is totally seeking for truth and is willing to read the Book of Mormon


We had zone conference this week and it was AWESOME!!!!!!! I just felt so taught by the spirit. We had talks/lessons from Sis Castro, President Castro, the assistants, and our Zone leaders. We have the best zone leaders ever. We talked a lot about our purpose as missionaries....which is to invite everyone to come unto christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through fe in jesus christ and his atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end. We talked about how we need to invite ourselves to do that first and how we can be purified by the Holy Ghost. I loved it. The whole time I was just thinking about...well a lot of stuff but one thing that came to my head was soccer...and how if I played 100 percent the whole game...no matter the out come...if I knew I left my heart on the field I felt satisfied. Thats how I feel and want to always feel about my mission too.
Speaking of being purified by the holy ghost President sent us a quote this week and I loved it, I thought I would share it with you all
“If you have felt the influence of the Holy Ghost today, you may take it as evidence that the Atonement is working in your life. For that reason and many others, you would do well to put yourself in places and in tasks that invite the promptings of the Holy Ghost. Feeling the influence of the Holy Ghost works both ways: the Holy Ghost only dwells in a clean temple, and the reception of the Holy Ghost cleanses us through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. You can pray with faith to know what to do to be cleansed and thus qualified for the companionship of the Holy Ghost and the service of the Lord. And with that companionship you will be strengthened against temptation and empowered to detect deception.”


I know that this is true. That is one reason why I love the mission, I feel the spirit so strongly every day! I know its possible any where.


Also president told us we are the closest thing to Jesus Christ in our area...talk about something to make you think.


We have a good chunk of people we are teaching and they are really awesome...
Oh Juan Carlos...he was the guy we "re"met knocking and I totally remembered his name...well we've been teaching him and he came to the ward christmas party and church this week! He was like Ill be at church next week so you don't need to pass by...ha. Doesn't get the total purpose of us being there but we explained. He was so comfortable there and really just soaked it all in.


The Cano family are progressing. Hno Campos came with this week and he was really able to to relate with them and their strong Catholic background. He wants to know which church is true and I know they will know through diligent seeking.


I could go on and on but I am running out of time. Everything is good and wonderful and I am just living this up. Tell bishop I understand they couldn't come by...i doubt president wouldn't have let him haha and we are always really busy. But it would have been cool to see him and Kira.


Oh and camping of course I want to come...I will be hope like July 18th? Yeah..something like that. Don't make me talk about that any more. Yikes. Ok love you have a good week!

reading the chariot

Goodmorning. Sorry this letter is a little late, we had to give our car "fraisa" a little deep clean this morning. We are totally Ammon missionaries hahaha. ANYWAY.


Here we are. We just had a really good week, well it started off a little rocky and we had our ups and downs but it was illuminated by all the amazing things that happened...I don't think Ill be able to describe them all because it was just so awesome. One day you'll hear all about it Im sure.


Oh and first of all thanks for all the emails and pictures. I loved seeing everyone at Thanksgiving. It looked like it was so fun!!!! Im happy. Our thanksgiving was perfect. Just the way I hoped it would be. We started off the morning running around and putting thanksgiving notes on all our investigators doors (well not all but a lot). We had traced our hands and made little turkeys and put them up every where. It was really fun. THen we had a few appointments and then at 2 we went to the house where we live and had thanksgiving dinner with them and their family. It was delicious, we shared a message and went around the table saying all the things we were thankful for, then we headed out and just worked. Thanksgiving is great and the way we show our love and gratitude for God as missionaries is working. So it was awesome.


I know Mom...7 days until my birthday.Please Don't remind me. Ill be 22.. yikes. Not my favorite thing. The only person who knows is my companion, and I made her swear not to tell anyone...but some how my zone leaders know....hmmm. Anyway its a Pday so I will be eating a red velvet cheesecake from cheesecake factory and then just doing normal stuff.




SO this week....


SO miracle number one. We were in this apartment complex visiting a few people and we had a few minutes until our next appointment so we decided to knock a bit. We were in the aisle thing and I pointed down and said farthest ones to the left. We went and knocked....nothing....knocked another....nothing..knocked again and found this Indian woman. We started talking to her and testifying and talking about eternal families. She then said "hold on let me go wake up my husband". So she invited us in and we talked and taught her and her husband. Such a sweet family, we asked if the english elders could come by and she said yes. So we left. Then a couple hours later the zone leaders call us (they are over the YSA ward) and they were like did you talk to someone named Benni in hill crest apartments? And we were like yes.....So the Zone leaders were in the area looking for a member who wasn't home so they started knocking and knocked into Benni and his family. We both talked about how we felt such a sweet spirit there! So cool!


We have this investigator Magdalena who missed an appointment this week because she got called into work. We were on her street 2 days later and our appointment fell through. We decided to go see her. We found her and taught her the Restoration. She got so emotional when we told her about Joseph Smith, the spirit was so strong and she committed to prepare to be baptized. She has work on Sundays so that will be a struggle. BUT all things are possible the with help of Christ...


Speaking of all things are possible. I translated on Sunday because all the spanish people were in the english sacrament so i wore this headphone thing with a microphone and they all had headsets. There were totally people who could have done a better job but Im grateful I had the experience because it was amazing to feel the help of my Heavenly Father. The church is TRUE! Spanish is amazing!


We found a less active the other day who hasn't been to church in a year and she let us in..we taught her and she invited us to come back the next week!!


We had an outpouring of member referrals. One set up an appointment with us immediately over the phone and she is SO excited.


I love this work. I know that when we work hard and do all we are suppose to do, the Lord will bless us...


Like with Sylvia she is another investigator and she is with a member of the church. They can't get married because they were both married in Mexico and couldn't get a divorce, but the divorce should be done ...is done...or something and she wants to be baptized with all her heart. She comes to church and we are teaching her now. Im hoping for a white christmas (white as in white baptismal jumpsuits).


Also..when I get home I am writing "Mission- the musical". Its going to be great and I am already practicing the songs. You can even ask Hermana Clark. Haha.


Thanks so much for all you do for me. You are too good for me. I don't need anything for my birthday or Christmas just love. Maybe christmas you could send something that I can give to my companion. She is just so cool and I am really grateful for her.


We have zone conference this week, I am looking forward to an outpouring of revelation and its always great to see President and Sister Castro!


Love you all, cuidense mucho y nos vemos.


You should tell Veronica and Aunt Patty to write to me in spanish. How were they by the way?


Oh and of course Hno Campos said nice things, he's just a really nice guy. Always helping us out.


OH and its far away but I guess you should start talking with the family when it would be best to get together to call.


LOVE YOU!!!!

Happy Holidays!!!!!!!

HOLA!!!!


Ok...first...I have to admit....my patience needs work. I got your package and when I first got it I had every intention of waiting until thanksgiving BUT we got home...and no mail (usually a daily occurrence haha) and I was like IM OPENING THIS! Cause I figured there would be a letter inside. So i opened it....and I LOVE IT! Thank you so much for the blanket! Its so crazy and awesome that they can do stuff like that. I LOVE LOVE LOVE IT! THANK YOU SO MUCH! You are the best dad.


Then I got a letter from chelsea the next day, let her know I loved it and will be writing her back soon.


ANYWAY. We are soooo pumped that its the holidays. Me and Hna Clark both have traditions that we love with our families but we are both so pumped to be spending this holiday telling people about Jesus Christ. I am so excited because I feel like everyones hearts will be so much more open to listening. We are planning a special christmas message that includes the BOM because we can't stray away from what OUR IMPORTANT MESSAGE IS!!! We actually didn't have a dinner on thursday but the people we live with invited us to eat with their family which is perfect because they are our family here. I hope you all have a wonderful thanksgiving! Take pictures for me!


OH ....scary thing...next week the spanish unit will be going into sacrament meeting with the english ward and the man that usually translates will be in utah....so guess who is translating.....ME! AH! I have to wear this headset with microphone and all they spanish people will be wearing headphones. Stressful, but I can do it.


Mom, I have a question, do you remember any of the missionaries who taught you?? I actually had an experience that reminded me of something you wrote me not too long ago. You said that every time you were invited to be baptized you felt the spirit. Well we are teaching Jesus (boyfriend of Ingrid) and the spirit was really strong and I asked him to prepare to be baptized for the first weekend of Jan. and it was quiet and he says Wow.... My heart stopped, the spirit was strong...and then he says..."Ive already been baptized by someone who has authority"....AHHHH. I wanted to cry, for like 2 seconds I swear he was going to say yes...and I think he WAS going to say yes...but he didn't. After the lesson my companion said the same thing...she was like I FELT IT, YOU FELT IT...he HAD TO HAVE FELT IT. Its crazy..but I really have faith that we are suppose to be patient with him. I told him flat out that I would never stop inviting him to be baptized because I love them and I know that is the best thing for them.


Lets see...what else. We got dropped by this wonderful woman Jasmin. It was a bummer BECAUSE she wants to study SO BAD, but she recently got a new job and she is literally working every day from 7 in the morning unit 830 at night...but it was really cool how the spirit totally instructed us on what to do. We taught her effective ways to study the Book of Mormon and made goals with her about studying and praying. We def. will still drop by from time to time. She says in like Feb she will start working like normal again. BUT if you read in the scriptures when Alma goes to preach to the apostate Zoramites and his heart just hearts...BUT it was swallowed up in the joy Christ.


We have a vision for our area and we have goals. We have wonderful leaders that support us and we are just teaching like Crazy! I LOVE LOVE LOVE the mission.


Ok Im going to keep this short because I have a few other people I need to email...like Chrissy.


LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH AND THANK YOU FOR ALL YOUR EMAILS OF SUPPORT!

oh my...

Primero, puedo decir.....!!!HIJOLE!!!! Haha...yes mom it slipped your mind to tell me that Amber was getting married!?!?!?!?!?! Wow. I was reading Mariah's email and I was like WHHATTT??? Crazy. When I left she was totally planning on serving a mission, but the Lord works in mysterious ways. Good for her. I would love to see a picture. You also forgot to mention that Dustin is GOING TO PERU!!! That is so cool. We will be able to chit chat in the language of the heavens. Also...that uncle gene got a pacemaker???? Well Im glad to hear all is well.


Also I forgot to mention that today is the day before transfers...annnnnd. ME AND HERMANA CLARK ARE STAYING HERE TOGETHER!!!!!!!!! We really figured that but we are so happy to actually know. She's really awesome. I just love her to death and we get to spend Thanksgiving and Christmas together. We are excited. Hopefully we will be making Christmas cards today. YAY


Well the work....its good. We were able to teach a lot today. I love how the mission is organized. Its so inspired be the Lord, all the things that we do. We have a district meeting every week and since we have a celestial district we come away every time ready to take on the world. I love that we get time to study every morning, its our communication with the Lord and our chance to build our strengths and testimony. I suggest adding study time Dad to your new retired routine!


So we have a couple people with baptismal dates right now. 2 we set yesterday. One's name is Carlos. I really like how we met him...it was raining the other night and we were walking and started talked to this guy. He was young, like 20 and we talked to him awhile. We then set up an appointment and came by a couple days later. Then we met his brother carlos and taught him. So then we came back the next day and taught them both. Carlos really took in the Book of Mormon and I think he gets the fact that IF THIS IS TRUE, he needs to do something about it. He accepted to prepare to be baptized the first weekend in January.


Then there is another Carlos we are teaching. We taught him about the Restoration the other day and it was just so powerful. I felt the spirit so strong. Then at the end he said something like "Yeah I believe this is all true but I think Ill be ok in my church still"...I think my jaw almost dropped. We talked to him about it a bit and really invited him to pray and ask God, read the book of mormon, and he invited us back. I have faith that if he really does this he will know the Book of Mormon is true and everything else will follow.


We are teaching this man named Jose who we met knocking and he's SO AWESOME. He's 40 and he knows he needs a purpose in life. He was telling us that this year his new year revolution was to find a church and he felt like when we came over it was a sign from God. We taught him about the Book of Mormon and he was so excited to start reading it. He wanted to know if he should read from the beginning or what.


Jesus and Ingrid. Ingrid is a member and Jesus is her boyfriend (father of her child....) and I just love them so much. I taught Jesus when I was here last time and we dropped him pretty fast. But this time....I just feel like we are suppose to be patient. He's progressing.....VERY SLOWLY....but he is. He just needs to pray about the Book of Mormon, but we'e just been teaching him the basics and he is really soaking it in.


There are more but thats the people that were interesting this week.


I love the mission and I love my family. Its weird not being home for thanksgiving a bit, but its not even an option for me. Im here and this is the best thing I could be doing.


By the way the 30 dollars on the credit card at walgreens....I got sick....and we went to the store and just stocked up so I could get better...and IM BETTER!!! Yay. It worked.


I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH THANKS FOR BEING SO LOVING AND SUPPORTING. TELL EVERYONE I SAID HI AND I LOVE THEM

Teaching in Spanish is so much better

BUENASSSSS! Thanks for all the emails! Well first off I guess the picture is on my new hair cut....I got it last monday and the lady that cut our hair is a straight up professional. Like her clients in New York City fly her out there to cut her hair. Super awesome. ANYWAY...


OH Mother.....I got a phone call from a lady in our area who said she talked to you. I will call her today but goodness mom, haha my companion told me to be grateful my mom loves me (and I am..), but Im a serious missionary and stuff :). Bro. Campos is the person you talked to...hes a good guy. He is in the leadership in our spanish unit. He was just being nice about me. I promise haha.


Also don't be silly about me helping Hna Clark, she helps me. She's wonderful.


This week has been good. I mean...we had to drop like 5 of our investigators this week but thats ok, you just have to have faith that because they aren't ready right now, they will be in the area book and someone will come a long and find them when they are ready. I know thats true.


HOWEVER we have a quite a few investigators who are hanging strong and really growing their testimonies. One of our investigators Jesus (who has had missionaries in his house since 2005) bought us jerseys from a Mexican team called "America"...he found out that I have a chivas jersey and was super disappointed ha. So he's getting our name put on the back of it and everything. Super legit. It warms my heart. I love them all so much. I feel like he's progressing. I feel like he's so much more open to the gospel right now and I pray every day that right now is his time. He needs the gospel so bad.


We also are still teaching Luis and his family. They are wonderful and read the Book of Mormon every day together as a family and have started saying prayers like we taught them. The wife still has the attitude that "all of the religions are the same, just pick one you like"...ah. But Luis is really really accepting. The only hard thing is that their son is getting ready for communion so he has his classes at the same time as church. They have come once though. I have a lot of faith in them.


Leydey...shes really confused but I can see her faith growing little by little.


We had a really spiritual testimony meeting this week, and me and hna clark taught the relief society lesson in the spanish relief society. It was great. We just talked about the Book of Mormon, its amazing because it is something so basic in our church but its so true and so powerful.


If I every become queen of spanish land I am banning the phrase "Si Dios quiere" ....anyone who served spanish would understand....it just means "if God wants" and they say it a lot when you ask them to church...ext. SI DIOS QUIERE! ha...its interesting.


I LOVE SPANISH.


Thank you again for the package I have been putting the jacket to use the last couple of days.


Oh and tell blake that he should totally go to BYU I. i think thats a very good idea, we can hang out and speak spanish :) yay yay yay. I can't believe all these people are coming back. I hate time. Every week goes by way too fast. Every day. we always get mid day and Im like HOW???? WHERE DID THIS DAY GO? I love being a missionary. Oh and speaking of BYU I you can just go online and look, you could probably ask Vanessa to help you.


Thanks for the tape! I will definitely start making one. It was so weird listening to Millie, I can't believe she can speak full sentences!!!!


How is thanksgiving planning go? I love thanksgiving so much....BUT I have my whole life to go to the tippetts thanksgiving so Im not even worried about it...I GET TO BE A MISSIONARY FOR THANKSGIVING!!!


give my love to everyone!!!! I LOVE YOU SO MUCH FAMILY!!! THE GOSPEL IS TRUE! TELLbishop thanks for the email and I will write the ward soon. Hopefully today

HAPPY HALLOWEEN ...... or even better NEVADA DAY

Hola family. How is it going? Thanks for the emails. I love the pictures of the pumpkins. My companion and i have really wanted to carve pumpkins but of course there is not time for that (but we have the rest of our lives to carve pumpkins), but needless to say we enjoyed the pictures. This morning between personal and companion study Hna Clark was like HAPPY HALLOWEEN....and I was like don't you mean happy nevada day??? And she started cracking up....and I told her that we get the day off of school and she thought was the most ridiculous thing ever...and I was super serious and was just like Hna.....you get a week off of school to help pick "spuds"....now tell me who is ridiculous. She then reminded me that they get two weeks off.....hahaha. I just love her.


Stuff here in Newbury is great. I could say the same thing every week. Its great, we are working hard, finding people, teaching ext. But I guess Ill give you some examples of the stuff that has been going on.


So funny things:
We went by some former investigators and there father answered the door and he was of a different religion and was getting kinda upset with us being there so I just asked him if we could sing him a song and get on our way....he told me to sing to "her" (hna clark) and shut the door. It was....interesting...funny...and mostly sad. I sang to Hna Clark, no worries.


So one of the semi less active members is pregnant and going to have her baby this next week and we were knocking in the area and saw people carrying big boxes into her house...well one little woman was doing it so we went over to help. We then realized that they were giant boxes of hamburgers....so we carried them in. They were planning a baby shower for her and invited us to come back. We told them we'd try but we weren't really planning on it. So fast forward later that night we are walking by and they were doing something at her party so we kinda stopped and looked for a second and this lady we didn't know came out and invited us in (this is why I love spanish people, they will invite anyone into their party). We looked in and noticed that one of our investigators wife was there (who isn't the most fond of us) so we decided to go in. We went and sat by her and had some conversation and told her how we were coming over the next day. We were there for like 10 min and it was so funny. Right before we left they made us play this game. They blindfolded us and told us to put lipstick on her...totally got all over her face haha...


Cool stuff:
So there is this investigator Jesus who I taught before too...hes been taught by soooo many different missionaries. He is with one of our members and is kinda on the stubborn side. But we taught him the Restoration and it was a really spiritual lesson and I really feel like he got it this time. I think he understands how its the church of Christ. We also got the most committed response from him that Ive ever heard about reading the Book of Mormon and praying. Im really excited about it. Its amazing what the spirit can do.


Another day we parked in Las Casitas (pretty much where we spend most of our time) and we were kinda loud because Hna Clark was teasing me for parking on the other side of las casitas then where we were going, and out of the house comes one of our investigators and she was like "you are so loud". Haha then she started talking to us and we had a lesson with her...and she just really really really needed us in that moment and it was super spiritual. She could just feel Gods love for her and I can just see her testimony growing. She's amazing...this is Ashley by the way.


NEW PERSON! His name is Fili and he is SO awesome. So...we were looking for a former investigator and he didn't live there any more, so we talked to the woman that lived there and taught her a bit about the Book of Mormon and got a return appointment with her. So we went back and taught her fully about the Book of Mormon and right as we were about to sing a hymn this man walked in and we invited him to listen to the hymn. He listened and was really emotional so we invited him to make an appointment with him. So we went by this saturday and taught him about the Book of Mormon. His first question was "What is the purpose of this life"...my eyes got kinda big and I looked at my companion. PURE JOY. We taught him about the Book of Mormon and the spirit was sooo strong from start to finish of the lesson. It was seriously amazing. We both walked away speechless.........


and to illustrate the ups and downs of missionary work....


Our next appointment was just throwing anti stuff at us the whole time...wasnt listening or anything. It was crazy.


Anyway, I love this work and it just keeps moving on and on...I love my companion....my leaders...and the ward we serve.


Thank you so much for the package, Im hoping Ill be able to wear the jacket, the weather has just been so pleasant here. I love the tape and have listened to all of it. Both me and my companion was cracking up at the kids, so funny. YOU ARE THE BEST FAMILY EVER! Also the book of mormon in spanish cds rock. Me and my companion have been listening to them in the car and they make me sooo happy. SPANISH IS MY FAVORITE!




THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR EVERYTHING! I LOVE YOU!


THE CHURCH IS TRUE, AND THE BOOK OF MORMON IS THE WORD OF GOD!

Screaming Testimony

Well Hello family. Estoy aqui nada mas. This week went by sooooooo fast. Way to fast. I feel like Pday was yesterday! I think I had like two freak outs this week because I feel like time is going by wayyy too fast. I mean I didn't way freak out. Just a little haha. Crazy. What are the fam plans for halloween? What are the kids dressing up like? I know that Jaden is going to be Harry Potter but thats it. haha. Trunk o treat? We have to go in early on halloween but at 8 o clock. So not super early. We are going to be missionaries for halloween, just in case you were wondering. I wonder if people will still give us candy when we knock on their door...haha probably not.


So events of this week.


LUIS and VIKI and family came to church this week. They are sooo amazing. we just randomly met them knocking and he asked us to come back another day. We came back and he just wanted to know all about prophets and they are really just searching for the truth. So the next appointment we read the BOM with them because they didn't totally understand it. In the middle of it we invited them to church and they accepted with no hesitations. Then they CAME! Ah. THen after sacrament they said they had to leave but one of the members talked to them and invited them to sunday school and they stayed!!! I was so happy and proud of that member. I know it was so important for them to stay!


I FOUND RENE!!!!!!!!!! I know this isn't so exciting to everyone else but I taught him like twice last time I was here and I couldn't get him out of my mind once I got back. I wanted to find him. So i went to his address and they said no one by that name lived there. So i knocked around there...and we looked every where. SO today we decided to target before going and doing email. We were walking to go check out and there was RENE I was so happy/freaked out. We talked and he told me where he lives and he showed me how he has our number in the phone and bla bla bla. IT was so cool. It just gives me a huge testimony that we just need to "be good girls and good boys and we will be guided" (Elder Bednar's talk given at the MTC) People sometimes stress out sooo much about following the spirit and knowing if they are or not. But I know we were guided by the spirit to be there, but I sure didn't think that when we decided to do it that way. SO COOL.


Lets see...oh so last night we were knocking kind of late and night and I was bearing my testimony to this guy and all of a sudden I hear this barking getting really close to me and my companion grabbing my arm and squealing...I screamed of course. I didn't know what was coming my way...hahahaha. But I was alright and I went back on..the guy forgave me i guess because he still made an appointment with us and said a prayer. Hahaha..oh man.


I just asked my companion what else we did that just made us laugh...there is a lot but we can't remember. She's really wonderful. I love being her companion.


Oh I was wondering if you could look at how much BOM in spanish CDs would cost..they should be like 3 bucks. I would think...I don't know. But a lot of people can't read here.


I read these scriptures this week and loved them. Exodus 3:11-12. I feel like this is me. I am nothing on my own...but I love how he tells Moses "Certaintly I will be with thee". I really feel like that is true. Also Because of conference I have been trying to memorize a scripture every week. THis week I'm on Mosiah 28:3. I have a testimony that memorizing scripture is something that Heavenly Father wants us to do. I know it will give us strength comfort or whatever we need when we need it.


Oh,...my companion just reminded me of something "rapid bowels"...I have a problem. Like we will be out and I will HAVE to go to the bathroom. There is no in between. I either don't have to go or I REALLY have to go. But we have also found that in almost ALL of our bathroom runs we have found someone or ran into someone we needed to talk to. Inspired bathroom runs....the Lord is that precise in his work. Really though....


The family we live with is so wonderful. Its so peaceful coming home every night. Im super grateful for it.


We are teaching some really cool people right now and we are just trying to find the people who are ready. Javier is reading and is already in 1 Nefi 3. He hasn't come to church yet but he's been out of town. He accepted to be baptized the first weekend in December. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!


I LOVE THIS WORK! I LOVE THE BOOK OF MORMON! It is soooo true. The gospel is true and every single person can know it!


HAVE A GOOD WEEK!

Newbury park....Lets slay this week

Hello Family! So one of the Elders was super bummed that his family didnt write him so he decided he wasnt going to write them back and I gave him a really hard time about it and said thats silly just write them back. Well....I have to take my own advice today. Haha :)

How is everyone? How is your October? Whats the weather like there?

Newbury Park is great. Its still pretty warm but Im not complaining. Every day I re-love it here more and more. I was nervous when I first got the call that I would be coming back so soon but I dont know why, I almost feel like I love it here more than I did the time before. I also really love being companions with Hermana Clark. We are a lot a like and she is just so sweet and easy going. I love it.

Lets see...this week has seriously been so crazy. I think we laughed so hard so many times saying "did that really just happen?"
I think it started last tuesday when we parked our car and started walking and saw this CSI van with this guy walking around with rubber gloves and plastic evidence bags. Hijole! Then that very day we were about to take lunch when we noticed we had a missedcall and a voicemail from the mission office. We were like ummmm.....so we listened to the voicemail and it was one of the missionary couples informing us that they had a new car waiting for us in Ventura and they wanted to know if we could come and pick it up today. We had like an hour and half until our next appointment (including lunch) so we decided it was the best time. So we hurried and left Newbury park and got to Ventura. We got a brand new toyota carolla that smells oh so good. But we are always so nervous because we dont want to hurt her. Her name is fraisa. That literally means strawberry but if you call a girl a fraisa it pretty much means valley girl. Oh and our brakes on our other car had a little issue on the way there and we had to stop to let them cool down so we were so worried we werent going to get back to our appointment in time but we made it back with5 minutes to spare. It was awesome!!!! Miracles.

THe Newbury Park missionaries are going to be the most in shape missionaries. Every other week we have a kick boxing work out class and it is intense. I was sore all this last week. One of my favorite part is I got to beat up some Elders. You never get to do that. Ha so the guy had like two giant pads that you hold and the Elders were chasing me like they were attacking me and I was suppose to hit and kick them. It waspretty awesome.

Ha one of my favorite things that happened this week...So one morning I was NOT feeling up to getting up and working out. So I started tellig my companion that I just wanted to walk...as we were laying in bed and I couldnt say it in English for the life of me. I kept starting over trying to say it in english but it would come out in spanish. Finally I just grew up and we went to the work out class. Later that day I was like p.s. I wasnt trying to speak to you in spanish this morning and my companion started cracking up. She was like I was wondering why you were speaking spanish to me.

So cool miracle. When I was here last time we started teaching this lady Lorena. Well as soon as I got back here i asked about her but hna clark said she moved and they dont know where. Well we had found this lady Carina the other day and we came back for our appointment and she wasnt there....BUT.....LORENA ANSWERED THE DOOR. How crazy is that. Its totally on the opposite side of town from where she lived before...crazy. SO now we are teaching Lorena again.

Oh another amazing thing. SO we were knocking at like 8 and this guy opened the door and was just like its late can you come back another day. SO we set up an appointment. We came back but he wasnt there but his wife let us in and he walks in 5 min later and was like "HERMANAS I THOUGHT YOUD NEVER COME!!!" then he went and sat all of his kids down to listen to us. We were teaching the restoration and as we were talking about prophets him and his wife asked us "why arent there prophets any more???" ....GOOD QUESTION. It was amazing. The spirit was really strong and we were able to say a kneeling prayer with them and one of the kids said the prayer.

Oh then one day we had to go to the bathroom and decided to walk from las casitas to ralphs hoping we could talk to people on the way. Well we get to ralphs and we run into one of my old investgatores and were able to talk to him. It was perfect timing. I LOVE SEEING THE LORDS HAND IN HIS WORK!

Ah there is just so much...but I dont have time. One day Ill be able to tell it all. But I love this work. We are teaching so much and no we have 2 people with baptismal dates and when we first started we had 0. I love this work. I love this area! Being a missionary rocks!

OH one more funny thing that can help you all understand what im like right now (an elder explained this to me). When you come out on a mission you have this bucket full of awkwardness. The faster you dump it out the easier missionary work is..because your not worried about being awkward. Can I just tell you I dont feel awkward about anything any more. Ive realized this is why RMs are so ...awkward haha. OK

LOVE YOU CUIDENSE MUCHO! LES QUIERO

Buenas Tardes!

Well mom you were right, I do get to email on Mondays now that I am back in Newbury Park. It was so weird to be back haha. The first night we were planning it was so weird to see my hand writing and name all over the area book. BUT I really know that there is a reason Im back here. I told all the members its because they need a punishment or something, or maybe I didnt do it right the first time haha. But Yeah I was really sad to leave Arvin Lamont and Tehachapi BUT its so good to be here in Newbury Park and we have been working really hard knocking and teaching, finding when we teach teaching when we find.
We have been seeing so many miracles too. Its crazy. We found this women knocking who had been learning from missionaries in Bakersfield and moved here and tried to come to church but she only saw Americans. We are really excited to teach here. We talked to this man that is here working for a couple days but lives in Simi Valley and is learning from missionaries. He brought his Book of Mormon out to us and we talked to him about it for a while and talked to him about baptism. I think it was really good for him to see missionaries some where else.
Then we found another less active member that was the first to be baptized in his family when he was ten and then all his family was baptized. Lets see.....we seriously had an awesome miracle every day.
This area is so much different then Arvin Lamont and Tehachapi...and is pretty different then when I was here...we dont have a very big teaching pool but we are finding new investigators every day.
I GOT TO SEE ERIKA AND GENARO. That was so awesome and like a dream. I didnt think I would see them again until I came back to visit but its going to be such a cool experience to teach them as members. I love that family so much.
Oh yes, we do live with members, The Davis Family, its a different family than we lived with before. I love living with them. Seriously it feels so good coming to their home every night. It is so peaceful and welcoming. They are such a nice family.
I got to sd card and the sonic card. Funny thing is.......there isnt a sonic in any part of my area hahaha. I guess Ill just save it haha. BUT THANK YOU SO MUCH :).
Activity days! That will be so fun! you will love it! It sounds like everything at home is busy as ever! Thats awesome. Why did Mariah go to Reno????
Millie just sounds like she is growing up so fast. Does she know what she is going to be for Halloween yet?

Ok well gotta run! All is well here...slightly cold....but really well :)

My companion Hna Clark is so awesome, I just love her to death. I will send pictures next week!

Cuidense mucho!
hermana Tippetts

Family

FAMILY i am going to make this short because I want to get back to work but I am here in Newbury park again, so crazy. So yes I got transferred, and I am with Hna Clark and she is from Ashton Idaho which is by Rexburg. She is super sweet and Im really excited to work with her. She has almost 3 months in the mission and I am her follow up trainer. Crazy. All is well I know this change was for a reason. As much as it broke my heart to leave Arvin Lamont and Tehachapi, I know God has a plan for me and all of his children there and they will all be alright. Im excited to start over in Newbury (so crazy that Im back so soon). I love you all so much. I love that you are thinking about serving a mission! I can't believe Millie is talking so much. oh man.


Ok i love you all sooooooo much take care. I sent a picture and note in the mail because I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to email you or not. So it should be coming soon. Thanks for everything. and with the clothes its not super important. I mean you know me I would always love more clothes but I have enough, the only thing I really need is my bright blue over coat and maybe a coat or two.

pues.....

Well its last week of transfers (I cant believe it). So next week is transfers...and well this whole transfer we just figured that Hna Randall would be leaving because we have had 2 transfers together and she has been here for 4 tansfers now. Yeah....BUT then this week happened...I dont really want to say too much because it doesnt really matter but like the last couple days have been some of the hardest of my mission. Some stuff is changing and all....bla bla bla. Anyway so after it all me and my companion were almost 100 percent positive that I would be leaving or we both would. BUT THEN we had interviews with President today as a zone and it looks like we both might stay here. But who knows...anyway all that just to say if I dont write next week its because I got transfered ok :)

AND DONT WORRY ALL IS WELL. I LOVE MY AREA SO MUCH!

Speaking of love this week I had felt the love of God a lot. Well I always do but some funny random things happened. So me and my companion have been trying to just live off the food we have for 2 weeks and well...things are kinda bland hahaha. So after lunch I was like I really just want something bubbly to drink..like a sprite...that just sounds so good. Haha so we were out knocking like two hours later and this guy was like do you want some water? and we said sure...but then he comes out with two cans of sprite!!! I was like no way..haha. THEN a couple days later me and my companion were talking about some stuff and grapes came up and I was like "well...I havent really had grapes in a while, we have been in like a grape drought" I said that at night and the next day some one gave us a huge bag of grapes...and onions. It was awesome.

Gen 29:20. Totally true when I read it I was just stuck so hard about how much I love this work and how fast it goes.

We had to drop Rodrigo this week...we havent been able to find him. Im sad about it but I know he will get baptized some day.

BUT we still have so many people preparing to be baptized. Antonia is so amazing and was 100 percent willing to live the word of wisdom. Mostly because Carlos had already talked to her about it and shared a scripture in the bible about our bodies being temples (I am so proud of him sometimes)

We are teaching this family who is just so awesome. They read the Book of Mormon, they tell us how they can feel the difference in their home when we are over ext. We are just fighting to get them to church right now.

We had an amazing family home evening yesterday. We were able to play SOCCER!!!!!!! Woo hoo. I felt so spanish. By the end of the game I was even saying everything in spanish (soccer terms are just so natural for me to come out in english). Mely and Antonia were there...Mely is one of our investigators who lives with Carlos and Alvaro. Hes pretty awesome too and he came to church for the first time this week!! He also was able to see Mario get the priesthood which really affected him.

Sorry this is kinda short I dont have too much time BUT THE WEATHER IS AMAZING RIGHT NOW!!!! I LOVE IT SO MUCH!

OH...and the temple sounds so amazing. Give Jamie a huge hug for me and tell her that I felt the same way after my first time haha. I couldnt even handle going out to eat with people hahaha. But its amazing. Make sure you take a picture after all of the kids are sealed and send it to me :) thanks.

Im trying to think of other things to tell you that are important but we just had so many good lessons this week and amazing experiences. The mission is so cool. There are really little miracles every day that I cant remember to tell you every week but dont worry I write in my journal every single night so one day youll be able to hear everything.

Thank you so much for always writing me and for being an amazing family. I love you all so much. Tell Mariah to keep it up, its so good that shes able to do all of that. I know it will bless her life. Also if shes not taking institute tell her that she needs to make it a priority and find room for it.


LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!

-Hermana Kayla Tippetts

Pictures

Elders and their football...

Good afternoon family! How is everyone doing? Really busy I am sure...which is wonderful. Also can I just say CONGRATS JAMIE!!!!!!!! That is amazing. I had not heard anything about that so Im super happy to know. You all will have to let me know how it goes. Im sure it will be so beautiful!!! I love the temple so much. Also the primary program sounded really cute. I cant believe it is Kendall and Ryanne's last year in primary...and that Eryka is in primary too. So weird!!! So this week....so much happened (as always. I should probably stop saying that now haha) One cool thing happened...we were thinking about going to visit a former investigator who is a sibling of a member. We hurried and looked through the records and my companion wrote down the address. So we went to go visit them....and it totally wasnt the person who we thought it would be. It was a different person with the same name. BUT she totally needed the gospel and was so excited to have us back and now that her husband is back in the picture she has more support. Its a miracle for us not looking so perfectly :) haha. Also...so we were teaching this 16 year old boy for a while. His mom works with a less active member and said her son is super interested in religion. So we went over a few times but all he wanted to do was fight with us and we always left spiritually exhausted. Plus he wouldnt do anything. So we hadnt gone by for almost 3 weeks and the member kept telling us that the mom wanted us to come over. We were thinking...why? all her son does is fight with us. So we kinda just pushed it to the side and we would put their names as back up plans but we wouldnt really get over there. SO then we were walking down the street a couple days later and she totally pulls over and she was like when are you going to come over again? So we set up an appointment with her like a week later. We go for the appointment and she had totally forgot that we were coming over but the MEMBER was at the house and we were able to have a really short lesson with her but the spirit was so strong. We talked about what she could have if she did her part. We read the conversion of the anti nephi lehis. It was pretty awesome. We have another appointment with her tonight. So a lot of times if we dont have appointments in the morning its a little hard because everyone is out working. We still knock and find people but its just a little less. So we asked the Elders for some ideas of what they do. They suggested going around and talking to people in the park. We thought it was a great idea because there is a big park here in Arvin and there are always old men there playing card...wearing white cowboy hats. So we went. ha...well first off I got really excited about baptizing them all and then coming back after the mission wearing a white cowboy hat and walking up to play card games with them...but pull out a huge sack of candy and tell them we were going to play with that instead of money. Hahah..it was funny in my mind...BUT then we went back today and they are just a bunch of creepy old men...but also children of God. Ha. Another funny thing that happened this week is we were studying in the morning and we hear someone coming up our stairs..and then a knock on our door. The only people who know where we live is our manager and we figured it was something like that. Well I looked out the peep hole and it was a family...so we answered it and realized that they were all dressed really nice and the guy starts talking and is like "hey we are in the neighborhood today encouraging people to read the bible"..."9/11 this...satan that..." (They were Jehovah's Witnesses) and in that moment I realized my hair was covering my name tag so i just pushed my hair back and he looked right at it and was like "oh..." "you probably already know about the bible"...then he read us a verse and left. He was really nice though. I just dont think he expected to knock on missionaries door. I was bummed to because I have this goal to give any missionary that knocks on my door water and some fruit...but he got away too fast. haha. GENERAL CONFERENCE IS SOO CLOSE!!! I am so excited. I hope you all are thinking of questions you want answered and are preparing to listen to the prophets. Also read Mosiah 2:1-9 and see how the prepared for general conference in the book of mormon times Antonia has a new baptismal date! Shes getting baptized on the 29th of October. Its amazing the difference a month can make in someones life when they actually do the work. Like ....she is SO HAPPY. So happy. She hasnt missed church since she came 4 weeks ago, actually she missed once. But now she has her car back so she doesnt have to worry about rides. Shes just amazing. She brings her book of mormon to work and reads with one of her friends who is a member and her prayers are so sincere. I just love her so much it just gives me such a testimony that we can choose to change, we can choose to be happy and we do that by following God's commandments. How is everything going with everyone else? How are all the kids? Chelsea? I have some letters for her but I dont have Kimbers address anymore, I dont know what happened to it. Could you send it to me? Are you going to do anything for Brandens birthday? OK LOVE YOU ALL. Take care!

run for the hills....no wait don't...They are on Fire!!!!!

Buenas dias! Well....heres your email so you dont have to call President. Hahaha. I was wondering if you would here about the fires. They are crazy! Seriously our whole back yard was on fire here in Arvin. We are fine though. So we woke up saturday morning to lightening and we decided we were just going to work out inside (we are babies ok?). Then during studies it started raining. Well we went out and everything was fine but you could see smoke coming from the hills. Well once it got a little dark you could see the red surrounding the fire. It looked like lava! Pretty crazy. Then it got to be 8 o clock and we had appointments still but it got really smokey and really windy with ash in the air so we had to drop by and reschedule our appointments (seeing as they were with men and we would have to teach them inside). It was alright I guess because we hadnt taken a dinner so we only got home like 30 min early and ate dinner. But yeah its been burning for a couple days but it looks like they have them under control. Im in no danger here....except for maybe the way nasty air. BUT ALL IS WELL.

MARIO GOT BAPTIZED!!!!!!!!!!!! highlight of the week of course. He got baptized on Friday. Well there is a little joke that one thing goes wrong with a baptism....but let me just tell you. So this is the first baptism ive been in charge of being the senior companion...so I was a little stressed and my companion has never done one before. So we were just doing our best. We made plenty of follow up phone calls ext. Then everyone kept asking me if we were going to have refreshments (spanish people....) and I wasnt planning on it....but EVERYONE kept asking so I decided id call someone in the Relief Society Presidency to organize something. Ok. So I called, asked if they were in the relief society presidency...they said yes...I asked if they could bring stuff...she said yes...all was well. Well then the day of the baptism I called Mario to make sure he had a ride with his friend still and he told me yes and I told him to be there like 20 minutes before. Well....on the way to the baptism the ward mission leader calls us and was like "Why didnt you call anyone from the relief society like you said you would?" ........long story short I called the wrong number and it was just someone in the relief society haha. But she showed up with food...whoops. So then we are sitting there waiting and 640 rolls around and I call Mario to make sure hes almost there. He then tells me hes still at home and Anastacio is coming for him now. So then I call Anastacio who is still in Arvin...BAH. Long story short the baptism started 40 minutes late, but it was beautiful and hes a member of the church. HES AWESOME and the baptism turned out just fine.

So investigators...

Luis Angel- still reading, hes in second Nephi now. Hes praying every time he reads but its really hard for him to just go by everything by feeling. Hes never done that before but he is trying SO HARD to recieve an answer from God. Its awesome. Hes having a hard time getting to church because he works nights and comes home at 6 am...so getting to church at 11 is hard for him, but hes going to try this week.

Antonia- our schedules have not been matching up very well this week but we have been able to have a couple quick lessons with her this week between our other lessons. SHES AMAZING as well. When we first asked her to be baptized she was kinda hesitant about it but said yes. Then it had come up again she had gotten a little defensive about wanting to be ready. BUT just the other day we were over there and she was telling us about how she was talking to her sister about how shes going to get baptized and her sister was teasing her. Bad that her sister was teasing her but good that shes now so open about getting baptized. I just love her so much and its so amazing to see the spirit work on her little by little. I know its because she has been so prepared and is so willing to do the things God wants her to do.

Rodrigo- HE QUIT HIS JOB AND GOT A NEW ONE SO HE COULD COME TO CHURCH EVERY WEEK!!!!! This has been the one thing that has kind of stopped him from totally progressing but we had a lesson about faith to follow the comandments of God. We read the story of Abraham and Isaac. A couple days later he called us and told us he was coming to church and he came! Hes getting baptized on the 8th of October! YAY YAY YAY!

Mely- hes a friend of the guys in the "man house". He now lives there and has been going to our English class...then family home evening...and now he is taking the lessons. Hes another one who just is reading..and praying right after we ask him to do it. We asked him to be baptized last night and he said yes but he didnt feel comfortable with a date...yet. Right after his lesson we had a really good family home evening that Carlos taught which talked a lot about baptism. (perfect for him to hear).

Hahaha...so this being a missionary is so awesome and so funny. The things we do....so the other day it was night and we had dinner planned for the last half hour of the day but I just really felt like there was someone who needed us. So we went by to check on this person that Carlos had told us we should visit. So it was dark and we go to this trailer park and knock on the door...we hear "quien es?"...we walk around the side and there is a guy sticking his head out the window. Well we ended up teaching him a lesson right then and there. I wish I had a picture of us teaching this man..at night in a trailer park while his head was sticking out the window. So great.

Anastacio cant go on a mission. I guess they changed the rules and now you cant go if you are over 25 and hes turning 26 in December. Ah. broke my heart. He wanted to go really bad but I know he recieved an answer and is going to do something really good.

We are having exchanges this week. Hna Randall and Sister Dalton will be in Arvin and me and Hna Doxey will be in Lamont for the day. Itll be fun, Im really excited.

Well thats all the time I have for today! Have a good day and take care of yourselves! THANK YOU FOR ALL YOU DO FOR ME. I WONT EVER BE ABLE TO PAY IT BACK!

One week older...and wiser too?

BUENNNNNAAAAS! Pues estoy aqui. Ha.

First things first. I did get a letter in the mail from you today...im assuming it was suppose to have the SD cards in it because it was like priority mail...it was like a big white envelope. So I was super pumped. But then I opened it and all it had in it was stamps (thank you by the way) and another little envelope. No SD cards. Your note said that you were planning on sending the SD cards, I dont know if that meant in that actual letter or not? But I did notice that the bottom corner of the envelope had been ripped and taped. Did you do that? So anyway I havent gotten it yet. Hope it wasnt suppose to be in that envelope.

So I dont really know whats new...

I guess I will tell you a little happy moment I had. So we have this one recent convert we teach Carlos. He might be the death of me. No. Not really. Hes really awesome but sometimes I feel like everything I tell him just goes one ear and out the other. (sometimes). But the other day he came with us to an appointment with Antonia (she is his friend) and she asked some kind of question and he pulled out a scripture I had shared with him to help him understand what he was going through. HE LISTENS!!! I was super happy. Then that sunday he went to go pick her up for church and she was kinda down and he was totally like "no we are going...lets go". I was proud of him. Especially since....

Antonia totally recieved revelation at church that day. She has had a few hard things happen recently and the lesson in relief society was exactly for her. EXACTLY. She knows how much God loves her and she is doing all she can to learn and change. I just love her so much.

Oh...Saturday we taught 10 lessons in one day. It was awesome. One of our lessons fell through that we had planned and we thought...well...lets go check on Fransico (this guy we had taught twice). We went and he was home with his whole family and they all sat and listened and want to learn more. We are really excited about them.

Also..I just started reading the Bible along with the Book of Mormon (start to finish) and well....maybe you could ask sister handy to explain to me what the heck happened in Gen. 9. Im sure I had it explained to me before but Im totally confused and don't know how to figure it out (the part where Noah is drunk and Canaan is cursed. Why Canaan?) Thanks.

I like the Bible a lot though. I love reading about Adam and Eve and Noah ext. One phrase that ive read a few times in the Bible now that kinda sticks out to me is "walked with God". What do you all think it means to walk with God? I love that imagery and I know its so true especially in missionary work.

Oh the sisters conference in Ventura was AMAZING. We totally needed it. It was super nice being in Ventura too, it was only like 40 degrees cooler. hahaha. Running in the morning there felt super nice too. President and Sister Castro are super amazing people. I just love them so much.

I sent you a letter this morning so hopefully you will get it soon.

I think that is pretty much all that is super new. I love these people. I love this area and ward. There is this family that we eat with every Sunday. It just feels like eating with the family. They are all super nice and super understanding of me not eating meat. The other day they made me BBQed napalas (cactus). SOOOO yummy. Haha but the new missionary was like what is that? Hahah. Greenies...

Well I love you all and hope you have a really good week!

"I'm the person that give Sister Missionaries a bad name"

Wow...so I was surprised I didnt get a call from the mission office because my parents had called wondering what happened to me...HA. Im alive but super busy. So you already know that we have to email on tuesdays instead of Mondays here because the library is closed on Mondays...well as we were planning on Friday we get a call from the "traveling sisters" and they tell us that we have to be in Ventura Monday because we are going to have a "sisters conference"..I was like ok ok thats cool...(I was a little stressed because we had a million appointments we had to reschedule on tuesday and monday but thats ok).So Sunday night we get home and we are planning and eating a dinner (scheduling dinner is for babies) and we hear this SUPER loud noise in our bedroom...so we are like frozen but grab our keys and run outside. As we run to our door some one knocks on the door (heart attack please). So we answer the door and it was our manager. She told us we had to move our car. So we leave and get in the car. We were still super freaked out and while we were in the car the zone leaders called. Ah. So we told them what was going on and they told us to call someone in the area to come check. Its almost 10 by now so we call one of the hermanas and her husband...they come right over and check it out. Everything was fine. (Hence us giving sisters a bad name...I felt super needy) Anyway..so we are getting ready to leave the next day and I go to get my luggage out of our extra closet and it was all soaking wet. I looked up and found the source of the noise from the previous night. The whole ceiling was wet with mold. Some kind of pipe started leaking/burst. So yeah...we told the apartment people and left for Ventura.So we were in Ventura on tuesday and didnt get home til like 8 o clock, we hurried and taught a lesson and came home. It was crazy. So then we planned on writing our emails on wednesday when we were in Lamont.....well Wednesday deserves its own little paragraph so here it comes..

Yesterday.. so in the morning the repair people came to fix our ceiling and that is obviously not condusive to studying so we drove out to bakersfield to study (because we had district meeting there at 11). So after district meeting we had to get our car checked because the brakes had been making funny noises. We thought it would take about an hour and then we could head up to Lamont where we had packed schedule. Well...they tell us its going to take like 6 hours. Ah. Sooo..we called everyone to cancel our appointments except for Mario (our investigator that is getting baptized next week and was having his interview that night). As we were walking we hear "Hermanas!", we turned around and it was Mario riding his bike! He had come to Bakersfield for some kind of appointment and was riding his bike to meet his friend to get a ride. So we were able to teach him a lesson right there on the side of the street. HELLO, what a miracle. It still seems so surreal to me that it happened. I know that God is really watching over Mario and is making sure he gets everything he needs for his baptism. So then we were still stuck in Bakersfield so we decided to just go knocking in one of the Elders areas...for 5 hours straight. It was CRAZY. Then when we felt like we might die a little toyota corolla full of Elders drives up with dinner and water for us. It was super sweet. BUTTTTTTT....then we get a call from Mario and the person who was suppose to give him a ride to his interview forgot about it and he didnt have a ride....and his interview was in like 20 min. So we called someone from Arvin (anastacio) to come pick him up...and of course he did because Anastacio is amazing. So Mario gets there and we are talking to anastacio (hes a recent convert that we teach..hes like 25) and I asked him how his prayers have been going about serving a mission. Oh my goodness, Im not even going to try to describe his experience because its just to sweet to describe over email, but hes amazing and is now preparing to serve a mission!!!!!! AHHHH the fruits of missionary work. Like he just got baptized this year..and because of that he will go on a mission and baptize people...his children will go...their children will go. Can I just tell you that this is the Lords work????

Ok ive used up wayyyy too much of my time telling you about these last 3 days. They have just been amazing.

Oh yes, I am still in Arvin Lamont and Tehachapi with Hna Randall.

Random American Mexican thing me and my companion have discovered= Mac and cheese with black beans and tapatio. Its cheap ok? Dont judge us.

Antonia is so amazinnngggggggggggggg. Seriously. We gave her 3 Nefi 11 to read and when we came back she brought up how amazing it was that when christ came he gave them the AUTHORITY to baptize. She told us that when she reads the book of mormon she just feels more desires to live and to be happy. THE BOOK OF MORMON IS TRUE!!!!!!!!!

So much has happened. I want to reply to all that you wrote me, thank you for the emails. I cant believe the kids are growing up so much. Its crazy. I also got a email from Chrissy and all seems super well with them. Also give Lisa a huge hug for me please. Oh and tell Cody hey and yeah he should write me for sure.

The mission is so awesome, there is nothing I would be rather doing...every day I feel like Im fighting and searching for one more hour because everything just goes by way way way way too fast.

Oh and I reformated my sd card this morning and now its working...go figure. Oh and what video did you think was so funny? Also please do not put my sweaty picture on the blog...I mean the whole world doesnt need to see that.

Tell Grandpa happy birthday for me and I love his soooooo much!!!!! I hope you guys have fun when you go out to dinner!


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So this next transfer I'll be in ....drum roll please

ARVIN LAMONT AND TEHACHAPI (bakersfield..same area). I'm super pumped. I really didnt think we would change but its good to finally know for sure. My companion Hna Randall is staying here with me as well. YAY! I am so not ready to leave here. Actually my prediction is that i will atleast be here until December (wishful thinking?).

First off! Mom and Mariah thank you so much for the pictures. My companion can testify that I have looked at them almost every night. I love them. Hahaha then for my spanish study I looked through them and tried to describe what was going on in the picture in spanish just in case I decide to share them with some of the people we teach. I now know the word for "keg" in spanish..hahaha. The kitchen looks wonderful and SO different! I love it. Good color choice. I also like that you moved the hutch, the dining area looks much bigger. Oh and randomly I saw the white board on the floor and it says "kayla was here" hahaha what the...Not going to lie though, the pictures kinda freaked me out. How does everyone look so old and different?? Especially Mariah, she looks like a little adult, I hope you are keeping her locked up in the house. Millie also looks so grown up...and eryka...branden...kendall...and ryanne. AH! I LOVED the pictures though.

So this week....

Well the most important news...I BOUGHT A MUMU. Yeah. I am converted. They are so comfy. Mine totally has this rockin grandma print and pockets. LOVE IT.

So I told you last week that we were going to do an exchange, so last thursday I went to bakersfield south (so like in the city of Bakersfield), and was with Hna. Hulme. It was so fun and me and her are a lot alike. However she only has like 6 weeks in the mission so it was so weird being the one that pretty much had to lead everything and talk, but I think it was good for her because I told her that we are going to take turns talking and teaching and she really stepped up to the challenge. A fun thing about the switch was that both sides of the switch saw huge success. We found 5 new investigators and taught 8 lessons in S. Bakes and they did just about the same in our area. AWESOME.

We saw a lot of miracles this week and we were able to teach in total 30 lessons this week. YAY! We also now have 3 people with a baptismal date and if all goes well with Mario in the next few days he will be baptized on Sept. 10th!!!! Just around the corner but he has been ready for so long, he just now got rid of his probation! YAY! Im so happy for him, he is pretty much a member already, but Im just excited for him to be able to have the companionship of the Holy Ghost and a remission of his sins!

So I told you guys how people just like to give us fruit randomly..well the other day some one gave us a HUGE bag of chiles. Which we are totally good with because...well....we are Mexicans too. So the other day i made some rice, beans, corn, salsa, ext. then I threw the chiles on top (just one)...i started eating the rice (not even the chile) and my mouth was on FIRE. Seriously on fire. I started like crying and sweating as I was eating it and my companion was like come on they arent that hot. So I was like "probelo entonces!" (try it then)...so she ate a little part and was like, "where is the milk??" Hahaha. Needless to say I dont know what kind of chile's these are but they are HOT. But...I was eating them again the other night and after dinner I went to take out my contacts...and well....I had forgotten to wash my hands...ya...my eyeball was pretty much on fire. Oh chiles....

We are going to play soccer next Monday! Im so excited. We are doing it for family home evening and everyone is going to bring a friend, our investigators are going to be there, and after we are going to teach a mass BOM lesson or the Restoration. Im really excited to find new investigators this way (and to play soccer of course). However...they all think I'm really good, but I'm pretty sure I'm really rusty.

Our investigators are wonderful..

Antonia was able to come to church on Sunday and I think she had a really good time, she just seemed so calm and content. We have an appointment with her tonight. Oh and get this...after she was taught the Joseph Smith story she said this/...."This is what I have been looking for, Ive gone to so many different churches and read the bible a bit and this just makes sense". Hello ensign story. Shes amazing.

Rodrigo has been studying the scriptures for an hour every day, he gets up early before work and reads. Also he changed jobs and he was going to have to come to church late on sunday but he kept praying that he could go to all of church and he called us saturday night and told us that they had kept him late that day so he didnt have to work on Sunday! He was telling us how he knew it was a blessing from God and that he needs to be in church. Yay yay yay. Hes totally ready for his baptism. It takes him a little longer to understand but he really has the faith and the desire to do what God wants him to do.

I already told you about Mario...hes awesome.

We went to visit Luis Angel and he had read up to chapter 9 in the Book of Mormon! Wow...he did have a little problem with the whole "Nephi killing laban thing"...details...details. But we invited him to pray about it and to continue praying about the Book of Mormon.

We havent been able to get ahold of Fidel and Estela (that random people that came to church), but I am NOT letting them fall through the cracks.

there is more but I am out of time pretty much, so I LOVE YOU ALL.

Thanks Dave and Chrissy for the emails I will write you back next week ( Im really happy about Jaden PS)
Also tell Eryka, Ryanne, and Branden thanks for the letters!

YOU GUYS ARE AMAZING!

week 6

FAMILY!!!! How is everyone?? Welp...Im just hear at the begininning of week 6 (last week of transfer), and im TERRIFIED to leave this place. I mean I loved all my other areas but I really really don't want to leave. So yeah. BUT I really dont think we are going to change. YAY!

This week has been so crazy.

First off I would like to say that I am a mother. SUPRISE! Seriously though...being a missionary makes me feel like a mother because I am always worrying about the people we are teaching and the recent converts. (especially a certain few recent converts....mmm), Its ridiculous haha. So sorry Mom if I ever made you worry, because its not fun. I understand that.

Oh and question, Im really confused whats going on with Mariah...you said shes at training for a job, what kind of job? And then you said something about music...is it a music teaching/something of that sort job or is that have to do with school? What school is she planning on going to? ....Sorry for the confused questions from a really confused daughter/sister.

Well this week we had zone conference!!!!!! It was amazing (zone conference is when the President, his assistants, and wife come to a zone and do some training). So we had it wednesday and it lasted from 9 in the morning to 5 at night. Yeah...I totally felt like Joseph Smith and Lehi...i just wanted to pass out, it was so spiritually exhausting...BUT AMAZING. I learned so much about how I can better use the Book of Mormon in my teaching. Also we talked a lot about focusing on the temple and it really relight a fire in me to help these recent converts and less actives to get into the temple. I LOVE IT. I also just love President Castro and his family. Such amazing people.

At zone conference we found out that we are going to be doing exchanges (me and my companion with the other Hermanas in Bakersfield). So this Thursday I will be working with an Hna who has 6 weeks in the mission over in south bakes. Crazy. But I'm really excited. Normally Elders only do exchanges so we are really excited for this learning experience.

OH another news from zone conference....SISTERS DONT HAVE TO WEAR JACKETS ANY MORE TO ANYTHING!!!!!!!! WOOO HOOOO. I'm almost tempted to send mine home.
OH and we can play sports with members now so we are in a process of setting up a soccer night so people can come and invite their friends. YAY soccer.

So funny story. We have a family home evening every friday night in Lamont. So we were in Lamont last friday working and we were taking this member with us (Hna Migdi) to all of our appointments. Well we went to take her home to find out her daughter wasnt going to go to Family Home Evening so Hna Migdi didnt have a car to take...so we figured it was like 3 blocks or so, so we would just walk with her to make sure she went. Well after FHE we were getting ready to go and Hna Migdi comes running up and is like "im coming with you" (shes like 60 something) and we were like no Hna, Anastacio is going to give you a ride home...but she would NOT allow us to walk back in the dark with out her, she we let her and we were on our way. So we were walking and I was like Hna...really...what are you going to do if someone attacks us?? And she was like "this" and she totally just high kicked and then looked at me. Oh man...I seriously about died. DIED. I was laughing so hard in the middle of this dark Lamont street. I will never forget it. Hilarious and I love her sooo much.

SO MIRACLE. Remember last week how I told you about the two random people we met in the street who said they wanted to come to church? well we were out looking for one of their houses saturday and night and we get this call...IT WAs HER asking if she could come to church the next day. So Estela and Fidel both came to church and we have appointments with them this week! We are really excited about them.

Louis Angel. Hes a young man we met up in Tehachapi knocking doors (right after we had been told we were going to hell by some baptists), and we were super distracted but he agreed that we could come back, we gave him a book of mormon and invited him to read the introduction. Well we came back, he was home and had read the introduction...AND the testimonies of the 3 witnesses, the 8 witnesses, and of Joseph Smith. WOW. We were so excited and were able to teach him more about what the Book of Mormon is, Hes really really awesome.

Antonia, she is a friend of a recent convert here in Arvin. Carlos (the recent convert), told us we should stop by. We've now had 3 appointments with her and she has a baptismal date!!!! Shes amazing. We gave her Mosiah chapter 4 to read and gave her a question like "How can we find peace and happiness"...she read it all and totally understood everything. Shes changed how she prays and shes just amazing. I love her so much. She even wanted to go to church really bad but we only had one member that was going to church that had a car and it was only full. We were really sad....but NEXT WEEK!

Guadalupe...shes this amazing 19 year old girl that we found knocking a couple weeks ago who is really curious about religion and really wants to have a strong communication with God. Shes really humble and is really seeking the way God wants her to take.

Rodrigo hes still progressing towards a baptism date...hes having some problems but thats ok. Hes still trying.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE this area. SO MUCH!

Oh and mom thank you so much for sharing more about your baptismal day with me. It really means a lot to me. You should share that with Grandpa, I really think it would touch his heart.

I challenge you all to invite a friend to learn about the gospel, or atleast bring the gospel up in a conversation with someone who is a nonmember!

I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH.

Oh by the way I got a letter from Eryka yesterday, she is just so sweet. Tell her good luck with preschool!
Also you can tell Jed and Chrissy (and Jaden) I have them in my prayers for sure. Let me know how everything turns out.

Oh I sent Mariah a letter yesterday with my photocard. Could you maybe send it back as fast as possible, I was trying to take pictures last night at our FHE and the other card wasnt really working.

Thats really crazy Cody is going to be home, Im sure the Lehr's are super happy.


This work is amazing.

Love you all, HAVE A GOOD WEEK!

4 heads up pennies

Welp...HELLO again. Im trying to upload some pictures...but its not really working. Ill have to send this card home because I cant even print off pictures at most of the photo places becausse there is that like huge file you put on here. But thats alright, Ill send it home next week and you can have more pictures.

ANYWAY. Hows it going? I saw that you planned on emailing again today but Tuesdays are crazy and since we have to make a reservation ahead of time sometimes the times will be different and we like to do our emails as early as possible so we arent taking away from good proselating time. So para que sepa...(just so you know).

Oh stinky 'ol Arvrin. How I love it here. Really. I have just felt so good the last couple of days. I feel really at home with these people here. Of course I have loved every area I have been in and all the people I have taught but its just really awesome here.

Speaking of areas....ERIKA and GENARO GOT BAPTIZED!!!!!!!! Friday during lunch we got the mail and I had a letter from Hna Burch and I was so nervous to open it....but the first thing I saw was a happy couple dressed in white. Seriously...I think I jumped like 5 feet into the air...like 3 times. They are so amazing and Im a little sad that I wasnt there for it, but it really doesnt matter. THEY ARE BAPTIZED!!!!!! Then a few minutes later I read this scripture and it fit that ppicture perfectly its 3 Nephi 19:25. I love it. Happy Happy Happy.

So some experiences we had this week:
So last Wednesday for district meeting we talked a TON about pray and it was really inspiring and we all felt really uplifted. So we went out to work and like an hour later we are walking down this street and we see this shirtless smoking man sitting on his porch. gross. Well...you can ask my companion....i just talk to everyone (she teases me for it but now shes doing too haha...actually I caught her waving to people in the street while we are in the car..just like I do..its precious)...anyway i thought...mmmm maybe we can just skip this guy...but we thought better of it and went and talked to him. IT WAS AWESOME. Well actually first he starts telling us about these voices that he hears in his head and we are just talking to him (and of course it occurs to me that Im totally acting normal while this person is telling me that they hear voices in their head...) but long story short we were able to sit down with him and teach him about prayer and use all of the things we just learned in district meeting. (and of course by this time he had put on a shirt and stopped smoking. MIRACLE). THEN, he prayed. It was awesome.

Then just yesterday we had an appointment with Doris, but she was "showering". Bummer. But as we were leaving her house we found 4 pennies heads up....4...different places. So we had plans to go some where else but we thought.."hey we are probably on this street for a reason..lets go knock some doors". So we head over to the other side of the street and as we turn around the corner from a car we almost run into 2 people and we said hi. Normally we have to like stop someone, but they just stopped and started talking to us. Come to find out..Estela lived in Mexico and had gone to our church a few times and really liked it, but she didnt know there was one here. So we asked her to go to church and she just said yes. Like...we didnt have to do anything, they both just want to come to church. So we have their phone numbers and address. So awesome. So they were the first two lucky pennies (just so you know I none of this happened because of pennies). So then as we are driving to our next appointment we get a phone call from Rodrigo (an investigador that has a baptismal date but had kinda fell off the face of the earth for 2 days) and we were able to get him a ride for FHE and set up an appointment.
THEN we were able to contact one of our referals named Antonia. SHE IS AMAZINGGGGGGGGGGG. Shes a single mom with a couple kids and she was referred to us by one of the recent converts that we work with and he just told her how much the gospel has helped him (hi, I was super proud of him). While we were teaching her I actually had a really cool experience...while she was talking I kinda thought of a scripture that I would love to share but I had no idea where it was..so I just kept listening and then I opened up the BOM and THERE IT WAS. Right and front of me. I know God lives, I know He loves us, and in moments like that I really know that He is taking care of all of His Children. It was amazing. I cant even describe it to you.

Oh and then on sunday...I was just super bummed out in the morning (not super..super), but none of our investigators were coming to church and I know its what they need to progress and 2 of the recent converts here havent been coming to church and they went to a party the night before but I was so worried they were going to come, but we walk in the doors and there they were sitting on the bench AND with a friend they had brought. I was super happy. Then as we were taking the sacrament I started reading the English handbook and decided to read "Be Still My Soul", and it was such an answer to my prayers....I know that God answers prayers and if we will "be where we are suppose to be doing the things we are suppose to do we will be blessed" (thanks bishop horlocher). We need to be in church...we need to be reading the scriptures and out doing good. God will bless us with what we need.

We have zone conference tomorrow which means we get to see President and learn from all the other missionaries. Im so pumped!

I LOVE YOU ALL SOOOO MUCH AND MISS YOU!!! BUT! There is no where else on this earth I would want to be than stinky ol' Arvin (Lamont and Tahachapi)

I really hope you all have a great week!

Hey Howdy Hey

Holllllaaaaaa....I cant believe its Tuesday again and time to write home. Being the noob I am I lost my little post it note that had all the stuff I wanted to write down for you guys...so Im just going to start by replying to your letter and then see where my brain takes me.
First off THANK YOU for Blake's address, I will write him next P-day. Hopefully he will get it before he gets home. Crazy! I always love to hear how Millie is growing and playing. How is Erika? Is she going to start school this year? Thats insane. I cant believe the girls are going to be in middle school and Branden in High school. Kill me.

Sorry this thought just came to my head so I thought I would tell you it. So this week I endeavered to make my own soup totally from scratch. I didnt have any kind of recipe so I just bought a ton of veggies at the store on monday...blended some tomatoes (which people gave us) and some garlic together...mixed it with water and then added a bunch of veggies.....yaaaa. It wasnt the tastiest....but i ate it for 3 days straight because I made a lot of it. Hahaha...oh man.

Anyway...I laughed out loud when you told me about Brother Fotheringham and the candy bar...seriously brought me back to institute...he would totally say something like that. Did you talk to him at all? I really want to write the institute but I dont really know how...

Wow...Mariah on a road trip...thats weird but it sounds like they were safe and had fun.

Chrissy wrote me an email this week so I will write her back in a moment (hopefully), it was REALLY nice to hear from her.

Did school start this week? It did hear..oh yeah you can google map me but I dont have the address with me right now.

Lets see so this week was crazy. Like a ton of bad things happened...like people just werent there for appointments and we would bring members and erverything...but nothing. But also I was just able to feel the love of God really strongly when we were teaching some people and feel that God really cares about me. Like after one day of just..no one being home for appointments I read an article that I totally needed and a couple days later I got a letter from my companion from the MTC (Hna Spiller) and she shared a scripture with me that was perfect. And I was thinking how cool it is that God knows us so well that he knew that I was going to be put in a situation, and he knows me SO well that he knew exactly how I would feel so he inspired someone else to send me a letter. I love it.

Ok so a little bit about some of our investigators...
Rodrigo- Hes awesome. He always reads and prays and is preparing to be baptized on the 20th of August.

Mario-hes pretty much a member, he even taught our Family Home Evening the other night and ROCKED it. He really has the desire to be baptized but he just has to work a few things out legally to be able to, but we are working on it. Oh and it was so great. Since we live out here in Arvin and Lamont sometimes its really hard to get people to come from the ward to help out but we knew that Mario was going to teach the FHE so we asked the ward council to send someone to support and we had 26 people there!!!! Normally there is like 7 including us. It was so awesome. So many people are supporting Mario now.

Doris- we just met her the other day but w have been able to teach her twice, we found her knocking after we had prayed to find someone who would let us in to teach them.

there are plenty more but these are the people that we are teaching pretty regularly.

Then there is Carlos, Alvaro, and Anastacio who are 3 recent converts that we teach every week and they are all so cool. Especially Anastacio, he has just taken the gospel and run with it. Hes like 25 so its fun to talk to him and teach him because hes making the same goals that we have. He's also trying to learn english and so we are going to start an English class.

Lets see...I think thats good. I had funny stuff written down but I cant remember them right now.

I sweat a lot.....haha. Ill send a picture next week haha.


HAVE A GREAT WEEK AND TELL EVERYONE I LOVE THEM!!!

I'm just not an American...

Welp...good afternoon. Im sitting in the good ol Arvin library typing my email to you. Thanks for the emails every week. I know many missionaries that their families dont send them an email every week and i think I would maybe be really sad if i didnt get an email. ANYWAY. so thanks :) I kinda feel like sleeping right now haha sooo if this is kinda scattered brained you know why.

Im excited to see the pictures of the kitchen and from mariahs graduation and party and such. So much stuff is going on! Did Jamie and Jeff show you pictures from their trip? I bet they were awesome! That sounds like a lot of fun.

I got a letter from Vanessa like last week and she told me she was going home to Las Vegas and I just sent her a letter yesterday so she should get it soon. You should invite her over for games or something. Shes probably super busy though. Have you seen Lori too? Hey also..speaking of my friends could you ask Blakes Mom to give you his address so I could send him a letter? That would be grrreat. We can write in spanish :) yay. Also have you been forwarding my emails to my MTC compy? kay.spiller@myldsmail.net thanks.

Well the work here in good ol Bakersfield is HOT just like the weather, I love it. Thats so cool that Grandpa has heard of tahachapi...I LOVE that town...we only go there once a week but its sooo pretty there and they have like a billion windmills there. Its pretty cool and the drive is lovely...and I get to drive it. Ah how blessed are we to have cars in this mission. It really is a huge blessing. Speaking of blessings...we also get fruit..ALL THE TIME because that is where all my people work..in the fields. We have recieved watermelon, cantelope, grapes...grapes...grapes, plums, ext. Its awesome.

We have a couple people preparing for baptism here. One named Rodrigo, he is pretty awesome. Like he just went and asked his boss for Sundays off. Members who have had the blessings of the gospel for YEARS are afraid to do that, even when we promise them blessings and Rodrigo just went and did it with out being asked. Its awesome, he will be baptized next month.

The Lord is really blessing us to meet wonderful people here and is teaching us how to teach. love, and care for his children. Its amazing and I have absolutely nothing to do with it. I think that might be one of the main things that I have learned on the mission is that I can show people scriptures, and saw a few good words, but God and the spirit and these amazing people do everything else.

My companion is wonderful...6 weeks younger me in the mission...still freaks me out, but her spanish is wonderful and so I never have to worry about that and shes a really hard worker.

So I guess some funny stories from this week would be good....haha so here...its straight up Mexico...I mean there are dogs...EVERY WHERE. every where....anyway. So we always like make a lot of noise with the fence before we walk into a fenced yard. Well we walked in to this one yard, turn around the corner of the car and there is this HUGE dog sitting there and my compy was in front of me and she was like BIG DOG....and we booked it. Oh man it was funny....and terrifying.

Also so...we were home for lunch and there is a soda machine in our apt complex (yes we live in apts) and I felt like a soda...not often but I wanted on...so I had changed my shirt while we were home because I was cooking something so I had this HUGE unlv shirt on with my long gray skirt and my hair was on top of my head in braids (ill have to send you a picture, someone told me I looked like I was from germany so thats what inspired it). So I asked my comp to stand on the balcony to watch me and I went...and I was like I dont care if I look like a red neck...anyway so I ran across the parking lot looking like a fool...put in some money and it didnt WORK. Iwasnt happy. But I still push all the buttons every time I walk by haha.

Oh yeah...so the story I wanted to tell you all last week. I have been studying the maps of this area so that I can get all the roads down (im sure youve google maped it all and can see all the towns are nice and small). Well I saw a Newton road and i was like I WANT TO KNOCK THAT ROAD. So we FINALLY got the chance to knock it a bit and we ran knocked into this english family (of course) and come to find out hes a member...has been through the temple...was in the bishopric but hasnt gone to church for like 7 years. Hes a convert, Hes remarried and his wife is a doll and wants to learn more about our church. He even told us he knew it was a miracle that we knocked his door, hes hasnt seen missionaries in a really long time..ext. It as pretty awesome, even if we had to give them to the Elders. I know she'll join the church and he'll reactivate.

Oh and don't worry about looking up the music, I really dont need anything, Im good :) promise.

I dont know what else to say except the work is moving forward, sorry I dont tell you about every single person Im teaching..but thats something I want to do because they are what matters to me here and the only thing I really think about. So I will do better with that. I love the mission, its so awesome and I am so happy I get to go to all these different areas and learn spanish. There are so many amazing people in this world to get to know and Im glad I have double the chance to get to know people because I can speak to them in English and in Spanish!!


LOVE YOU ALL TAKE CARE!