"es mi iglesia" - Carlos

Hey Family
So i got the package on saturday! Thank you so much!!!! It was funny because I got the card first and it was like "the reciepts are with the dresses" and I was like....uhhhh?? Is this some kind of secret code? Haha it was funny. Then I knew the package must be coming so when we got home saturday night we were walking to the mail box and I kinda caught a glimpse of our front door and I thought I saw a package there but I like closed my eyes so I could be surprised. Haha it was like Christmas! But thank you! You do too much for me! Oh and I will probably be sending the grey dress home with the reciept because it is too short and I looked in the phone book and I don't think they have a Macys any where close so I cant return it. Sorry!! I LOVE the tan dress though, its super comfy!!! Thank you!!! Also..hahaha it was funny because me and Hna Frost made work out goals...For her its called Hna. Frost's hod bod lifestyle change (because shes going home in 5 weeks) and for me its called Hna Tippetts's missionary bod (that will always be super covered) lifestyle change. Anyway...so we got the package and it had all this holiday sweet goodness. Haha we were like "wellllll our goals don't start until Monday"....(dont procrastinate the day of your repentence.. I know I know). But again, thank you so much.

Thats funny that Hna. Frost wrote you..that stinker, I had no idea. I guess I'll write her family now. haha. Oh and also could you maybe find out some how what Elder Matthew Ward's address is...maybe ask Lori or something because he emailed me and I sooo want to write back, but I can't..so that would be great! Or maybe forward this to his email matthew.ward@myldsmail.net

Anyway so how was your easter?? Your lesson sounded super awesome mom! I am sure all the Mia maids LOVED it! It sounds like you have had a super fun family week, going to Dave and Lisas and going to Aunt Marys, I hope you hugged everyone for me!!!

The missionary work here is so awesome, we have just been meeting new people, after new people, after new people, THAT WANT TO HEAR ABOUT THE GOSPEL! Its awesome.

Oh and with the pictures..ok so the corn one (if you put it on the blog you have to put the caption "get that corn outta my face") its just funny, then there is the one of Carlos's baptism that we had this week! What a sweet way to start Easter, with someone taking the steps to use the atonement!! Then there is the random one in the car making a weird face...idk I just figured you missed my weird faces hahaha. Oh and the last one is just me with a family in our barrio (ward). They are super awesome!

Lets see what else is new...oh ok..so in my studies I was kinda studying about virtue and the topical guide led me to Proverbs ch.31 10-the end. We always hear that a virtuous woman is worth more than rubies..but I really like the following paragraphs for a couple reason. One, it tells us how we can be that way, we can't be idle, we have to be willing to work, we have to be an example of strength and honor, and clothe ourselves in purple (royalty...remember our covenants and keep them). Then...I read about the woman who touched the clothes of Jesus and was healed (Mark 5) and the scripture says something about how virtue left him and thats how he knew someone had touched Him...so if you look at the footnotes it says strength and power. So we can assume that when we have virtue(<
I dont know if any of that makes sense to any of you but it all made sense in my head when I read it...haha.

Ok well I dont have much time left, I love you all so much and hope you have a fabulous week!

Hermana Kayla Tippetts

scoopin my booty outta bed

Yes transfers are tomorrow. How did you all know? Did I tell you last week? Hm. anyway we got our call this morning...and drum roll please.... Im staying right here in Oxnard with my companion (trainer). Shes great, and this is her last transfer of her mission. CRAZY. Which probably means I will be staying in Oxnard next transfer too but we will see. Update on our investigators. We have SO many new investigators right now...but they have all just had a first lesson so we are excited to see who progresses (espero que esten todos, pero no se). The ward moved our baptism up to this weekend...thanks ward. Ha..but luckily hes ready. So Carlos will be getting baptized this weekend. Im excited for him. He had been picked up and dropped by missionaries 3 different times, he was just ready this time, and he grew sooo fast! Then we met Hilario who I told you about last week...we are teaching him again tonight for the 3rd time in 7 days. Hes super accepting and reads. Its awesome! We then actually had another cool experience the other day...we got a refferal and we went to check him out that day. We go to the house and he wasn't home so we talked to the person there for a bit and right as we were leaving he pulled up. Pablo. So we went to talk to him and he was just awe struck. He just got out of a 10 year abusive relationship and uses alcohol to cope with it. Hes super depressed. We talked to him and he looked at me and was like "you are just so happy, I can just see it in your eyes"..so we then had a cool opprotunity to testify of the Book of Mormon and Jesus Christ and how he can heal us. We gave him a Book of Mormon and set up an appointment for this week.
So in other words...the work is moving forward here in our little corner of California (Mexico). haha.
I left my old planner at home which has all the funny little things that happen during the week. Im sorry Im super bad at writing. Haha I always forget what happened through out the week.
I havent got spit on...Oh we have this investigator who really likes the gospel but his wife who is 19 years older than him has dimensia and so its super difficult because she just wants to go to her own church.
I love hearing about all the kids coming over and whats going on at home. It sounds like you all are super busy! Its still weird to me that life goes on there. Ha lately everyone who write is like you have been out for this long. Or whatever. Ha im not a fan of that. Time is just super weird right now and Id rather not think too much about the time.
Being a missionary is super awesome. Tell the grandkids that...especially Branden. Its super cool to wear a name tag every day and have EVERYTHING you do be about sharing the gospel with everyone.
Oh ok I have a good story for you. So we went to this ladies house who supposidly knows how to cook vegetarian food...so we get there and she made this stuff that looks just like meat. Sick. But she said it was soy or something..so I was like I have to eat this..so I stuff the tortillas with beans, lettuce and the stuff and tried so hard to eat it. I totally gagged and swallowed stuff whole..it was hard..finally when they werent looking my companion took a ton of it off my plate and put it on her own (so nice). Well this whole time Im thinking oh man...i cant wait to tell my family that I had to go through this...(hahaha then I thought, WOW my friends who went to south america and africa are going ot be like SHUT UP! ha). Anyway Im kinda convinced it was real meat because I did NOT feel good the next day...but I dont know.
Oh and this week we also had a zone council where we talked about "loving our companions" and we like wrote like column things about what makes us feel appreciated and what makes us feel unrespected and we had to share it with our companions. It was interesting...definitley not a bad thing but I felt like I was in marriage counciling or something haha.
Um..yeah i dont need anything else in the package so just send it on off...I already feel bad enough asking for everything I did. Thank you so much family! You are really the best!
Sorry this letter isnt very funny or whatever. I LOVE it here and Im super pumped to stay here for another transfer.
I hope everyone has a way good easter! Send some pictures of it!
I love you all so much!

Rollin' hard in the 'Nard

Whats up from Oxnard!?
What a week. So...we cut our pday short last week as you know so that we could go to the temple. Well turns our we left Oxnard at like 4:30 for the temple...so we got there in plenty time for the first session...so we ended up getting back to Oxnard at 10:40...before normal study time is even over. Ha. Anyway..so on the way there we drove along the coast the WHOLE time!! AHHH. but...of course it was pitch black so I saw..nada. Esta bien..haha. THe LA temple is soooo beautiful and I was so grateful to be there. I cant believe I hadnt gone for a little over a month. I love the temple. LA was awesome too. I love cities.

So the pictures...one is at the temple...and one is at a families house that we regularly eat at. Their little daugther had her birthday when we were there. So fun.

I love spanish and spanish people, I think its funny that you all ask how the Spanish is coming. Maybe because I only write to you in English? haha. I promise I can speak spanish. Maybe not super well...but its coming. I was frustrated a few times with it this week, but thats ok. Gave me a push to grow more. I love seeing Spanish people look at you when you speak spanish. They look so confused sometimes. Like the other day we went to a panadoria (a bread place) to get some yummy lunch and we were ordering in spanish and she was looking at us so weird. YAAA GRINGO POWER! Haha. just kidding...sorta.

That sounds like such a fun experience to go to the temple and do baptisms for Chrissy's relatives. I love the Vegas temple. Everyone sounds so busy!

Mom...you should send the package soon..not because I need it..haha but Im going to keep asking for stuff if you dont hahaha. I was just thinking that I have that like salmon colored dress from shade that would probably work here..and maybe some music. I have the reflections of christ CD...it might still be in my car..and on my computer i have like..LOTR? Haha. I can listen to anything thats uplifting and glorifies the savior..but no love songs. So I could listen to like Stephanie Smith just not the love ones. ha. Yeah. you dont have to send them though. :)

Lets see...so this week..we have been doing a TON a finding and we really are being blessed. We have found a ton of people. One that is really interesting is Hilario, we went to find a potential (a person that said they would like it if missionaries stopped by) and they werent home, we didnt really have time to go knocking where we had planned to go knocking so we decided to knock the street we were already on. So..we knocked a house and a guy talked to us for a while but said he wouldnt be interested...so then we decided well we will ask him if he has any friends or family that would like to listen and he gave a random guys name that lived with him. Well we went back 3 times to find him and never could. So we were kinda like...ok then. But we were on the street again like a day or so later and decided to try one more time so we knocked and he was there!!! Woo hoo...and THEN he let us in! It was great. We made another appointment...but he canceled...but he called to cancel so that was a good sign. So we made another appointment and went to see him, and walk with him to a church tour. He had totally read the assignment we gave him out of the book of mormon and loved it! He needs the gospel so bad in his life and it was such a miracle to find him! We are so pumped! We have had a lot of miracles like that lately, we really are being blessed.

Today, since its the last p-day before transfers we are having a zone activity, we are going to a park by the beach and playing volleyball and ultimate frisbee and some members are cooking us BBQ! Its going to be a blast!

Speaking of food...so since the Elders serve in our ward too often the 4 of us eat at dinner appointments together..some families just dont know what to serve a vegetarian so I eat a lot of beans..the Elders and my companion kinda laugh at me (in all good fun of course)...well the other day I had a bowl of fruit (which I was very content with)..and they all had this little grin on their face...and then their dinner came...HA and they had this giant soup with like bones in it. HaaaHA. Its great.

Oh and another food story...so we went to Taco Bell the other day and i got mild sauce like normal but it was like NOTHING to me...I had to use the fire sauce. I love being a Mexican haha.

I LOVED general conference. I know I already said that but it really was awesome

Sorry this is short. I love you all. All is well, all is well!

OH also me and my companion just read from the John Harvey Tippets book thing...yeah that is SO legit. Why didnt I ever know this stuff? And how exactly is he related to me?

OK love you all sooo much! The work is great!

Dad thanks for the thoughts and insights to priesthood session. Ill have to study those!

You arent a missionary until you get spit on!

Familia! What a week! I love being a missionary...its amazing.
Let me just tell you this story first. So..as missionaries we cant teach people of the opposite sex in there home if there isnt a member of the same sex in the home. So one of the people we are teaching and had an appointment with this week was home alone..which was fine, we would just teach on the doorstep. So we are sitting there in chairs and we are teaching about the law of chastity. Which is obviously my favorite lesson to teach...especially in spanish. Its just awesome. SO we are teaching and all of a sudden I feel something on my back...splat. I look back and there is definitley a HUGE spit globber on my shirt. Some kids from the apartments above thought it was a really nice thing to do. So nice of them. Hahahaha.. I was like for real? this really happened? haha yes. My companion just kind whipped it off with a paper towel and we continued. So if you didnt get spit on on your mission I would rethink how successful your mission was....
Conference was so awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I also loved when they talked about the importance of the temples! I love the temple..and guess what?? Today my pday is only for 3 hours because...I GET TO GO TO THE TEMPLE OF THURSDAY!!! We are going to the LA temple! I am so beyond excited. I love the temple and have missed being able to go every week in the MTC!
I love Spanish and the Spanish people. They are so loving and kind and want to do all they can to make it back to God. Im in the middle of the Missionary library and they are so awesome! I think everyone should read Our search for happiness....in fact I thought a lot about Jeff and Jamie when I read it, I think they would like it a lot. Get it for them for easter. Haha..just kidding. Maybe. When is easter any way?
Ok I gotta make this short! I love you guys so much and I think about pray about you often! Share the Gospel with your friends!