Hey Family...man life is ironic, I need to do this session quick and you all wrote me nice long emails haha I LOVE THEM THOUGH. I read them all and they all made me super happy.
BUT I have to make this short because I have to opprotunity to pack up all my stuff and move. Am I a little sad? Yeah. I love my area so much and Im just worried about all my investigators. BUT I am moving to Newbury Park and my new companion is Hna Burch, last I heard its a "zebra area" which means they teach in spanish and english, but spanish is the priority. The only thing I know about Hna Burch is that she speaks spanish 24/7 and Im really looking forward to that. Like Im sad of course...we have so AMAZING people here, but the Lord wants me in Newbury park, and I am SOOOO excited to learn about Newbury park and English work...and speak more spanish and meet MORE people that I get to love. It really is a beautiful thing.
Tell Bishop I will write the ward when Im in Newbury Park...and tell Lori she is AMAZING and I love her. Tell chelsea to be careful. Tell the Family they are all amazing and I enjoyed their emails so much. Everyone: Read the Book of Mormon every single day of your life. I promise you with all my heart that your hearts will be healed, your burdens will be made light, you life will go smoother, and you will be guided in all you do.
Monday, May 30, 2011
Monday, May 23, 2011
"love at first sight"
Hola familia! Como estan? All is well here in good ol Oxnard California! Sometimes I can barely believe that I'm a missionary but then sometimes I'll be talking to someone on the street and it'll hit me....I'm in California...speaking to this person who I don't know about the gospel...IN SPANISH. I'm speaking spanish. Haha. I guess I'm kinda slow sometimes but its awesome.
Anyway! It sounds like you all had a good week getting to drive up to Utah and all. We had a strawberry festival here this weekend so of course it reminded me of peach days (speaking of strawberries go watch the mary kate and ashley movie when they go on a road trip because it mentions oxnard and thats the whole reason I knew it exsisted before the mission haha)
So again I put a little sticky note in my agenda today to write random stuff down so I would remember to tell you stuff. So here comes the randomness of my week...
1.So we are knocking this street called Terrace. Its a street HIGHLY populated with Spanish people. TONS of apartments so we have been knocking it for a while. So one day we knock on this door and start speaking to the guy and he was like I dont speak spanish...so we started speaking to him in English about our message...and he was just like..."No....no....I cant...No...I dont like to bother Jesus...dont you know he's sleeping????" and we were like "ummm what religion are you?"...and he was like "I'm Catholic"..and we were like ok.....Then we just offered him a card and he was like "yeahhh when we sleep he sleeps and when we drink he drinks" and then he closed the door. So then we start knocking on his neighbors door and he opens the door again and says pretty loud "Jesus is drunk right now!!!!" Weird people...
2. So same street a day later we were knocking before our dinner appointment which happened to be on the same street. Well we had just finished up and the Elders drive up. So we started walking and talking with them to our dinner appointment. Well we knock on the door and a stranger answered and the Elders introduced themselves and from where we were standing we could see into the house and we noticed it was a house we knocked the day before so we start offering him the gospel, and the Elders are looking at us weird and the guy is just smiling and Im trying hard not to laugh...anyway the guy finally was like "didnt you guys come by yesterday?". Hahaha. It was pretty funny.
3.We have one investigator that the stairwell up to his apartment smells just like "The Pirates of the Caribbean" ride....
4. I don't know if you all heard about this but apparently the world was suppose to end Saturday at 6?? IDK but that whole day people kept asking us about it and we were like ummm? What? The Bible says that no one knows..It was a weird day.
5. I have been studying about the Spirit and how to recognize it in Preach My Gospel. It is such an awesome chapter and at the end of the chapter it has some application things we can do. So I was reading them and one of the suggestions was to write about times we have felt the Spirit. One of the situations was when you just loved someone, and it hit me that I totally feel that way all the time and it really is a gift from the Spirit. Especially when I first got here and really couldn't understand much I still just loved everyone SO MUCH. hah, and then we have this investigator Maria who we found knocking and I just loved her from the very get go. Shes amazing. She told us in our last appointment that she had been praying for help and we showed up talking about the Family. She prayed for us...we showed up...shes taking the steps to progress...Its SOOO awesome. I can't even explain.
Yeah..thats pretty much my week. Being a missionary is so awesome. The Book of Mormon is amazing, we should read it EVERY single day. Its true and with out it we have nothing. Reading it will make every thing we do better.
Next weeks are transfers and there is a possibility that I will move...I don't think so, but I will let you know next week. But it doesn't really matter since we use the mission address stuff will still get to me and I'll still be able to email next week!
I love you all so much, tell the girls happy birthday for me!!
Hermana Tippetts
Anyway! It sounds like you all had a good week getting to drive up to Utah and all. We had a strawberry festival here this weekend so of course it reminded me of peach days (speaking of strawberries go watch the mary kate and ashley movie when they go on a road trip because it mentions oxnard and thats the whole reason I knew it exsisted before the mission haha)
So again I put a little sticky note in my agenda today to write random stuff down so I would remember to tell you stuff. So here comes the randomness of my week...
1.So we are knocking this street called Terrace. Its a street HIGHLY populated with Spanish people. TONS of apartments so we have been knocking it for a while. So one day we knock on this door and start speaking to the guy and he was like I dont speak spanish...so we started speaking to him in English about our message...and he was just like..."No....no....I cant...No...I dont like to bother Jesus...dont you know he's sleeping????" and we were like "ummm what religion are you?"...and he was like "I'm Catholic"..and we were like ok.....Then we just offered him a card and he was like "yeahhh when we sleep he sleeps and when we drink he drinks" and then he closed the door. So then we start knocking on his neighbors door and he opens the door again and says pretty loud "Jesus is drunk right now!!!!" Weird people...
2. So same street a day later we were knocking before our dinner appointment which happened to be on the same street. Well we had just finished up and the Elders drive up. So we started walking and talking with them to our dinner appointment. Well we knock on the door and a stranger answered and the Elders introduced themselves and from where we were standing we could see into the house and we noticed it was a house we knocked the day before so we start offering him the gospel, and the Elders are looking at us weird and the guy is just smiling and Im trying hard not to laugh...anyway the guy finally was like "didnt you guys come by yesterday?". Hahaha. It was pretty funny.
3.We have one investigator that the stairwell up to his apartment smells just like "The Pirates of the Caribbean" ride....
4. I don't know if you all heard about this but apparently the world was suppose to end Saturday at 6?? IDK but that whole day people kept asking us about it and we were like ummm? What? The Bible says that no one knows..It was a weird day.
5. I have been studying about the Spirit and how to recognize it in Preach My Gospel. It is such an awesome chapter and at the end of the chapter it has some application things we can do. So I was reading them and one of the suggestions was to write about times we have felt the Spirit. One of the situations was when you just loved someone, and it hit me that I totally feel that way all the time and it really is a gift from the Spirit. Especially when I first got here and really couldn't understand much I still just loved everyone SO MUCH. hah, and then we have this investigator Maria who we found knocking and I just loved her from the very get go. Shes amazing. She told us in our last appointment that she had been praying for help and we showed up talking about the Family. She prayed for us...we showed up...shes taking the steps to progress...Its SOOO awesome. I can't even explain.
Yeah..thats pretty much my week. Being a missionary is so awesome. The Book of Mormon is amazing, we should read it EVERY single day. Its true and with out it we have nothing. Reading it will make every thing we do better.
Next weeks are transfers and there is a possibility that I will move...I don't think so, but I will let you know next week. But it doesn't really matter since we use the mission address stuff will still get to me and I'll still be able to email next week!
I love you all so much, tell the girls happy birthday for me!!
Hermana Tippetts
Welp...I'm still here in good ol' Oxnard
Buenas Dias familia! I hope your week was fantastic! Haha so this week I put a sticky note in my planner so if I thought of anything to tell you I could write it down and remember to tell you. I used it, but not as much as I should have. Haha sorry. How is the heat? Someone told me it was like 96 there the other day. Must be nice, but Im good with living on the beach (sort of) for right now. (watch im going to get sent to bakersfield now haha).
So I actually randomly thought of something I might need...so I eat smoothies every day for breakfast ( I know Dad...be proud), and for a while I was drinking them with the straw that goes inside my water bottle. But I stopped....and its just not as fun to eat smoothies with out a straw. So I would like to be a proud owner of like a really cool disney straw..or something like that. Something to give breakfast a little kick. :) haha.
So we had zone conference last week and I think I already told you about that but one of the things I think I forgot to tell you is that we are getting a new mission president in June. Crazy, this doesnt happen to a lot of people, but it should be exciting and different. They actually have kids too so the mission home will be a lot different. I'm excited that I get to go to the last transfer meeting with President Murri (I get to go because Hna Frost is going home). Having a companion that is "dying" (going home) is really weird. Like she is suuuuper focused still and diligent but shes going home...and it just reminds me how short the time is here and how badly I just want to work as hard as possible. Crazy.
Oh so if you guys want to get involved in missionary work I found a really cool and easy way. Well actually the stake president here encouraged us all to do this (the members of the stake). If you go on mormon.org you can create a profile of your beliefs and stuff about your life so people can see how different we are and maybe your profile can touch them and they can connect with you. You could also put your link on your facebook/blog/whatever so people can read your testimony. I would encourage all you to do. President encouraged us to have our families do it so our investigators could read about our fam...but that wont work for us unless all of a sudden you all speak spanish. Haha. But its still a good thing to do...DO IT! Haha.
So this week we had a wedding/baptism. It wasnt our investigator but it was an investigator of the Elders that serve in our ward and we eat dinner with the family a lot. Also another family in our ward got sealed so they had a huge fiesta at the church. We went to eat and they were all dancing...and I leaned over to Hna. Frost and was like "that happened to me in Mexico when I was 14....." hahaha. Because it was totally the same type of dancing hahaha. Flashbacks. (I hope Missy reads this haha). Then we were going around saying our goodbyes ...because in Mexican culture when you leave you go and say bye to everyone....a little girl came and asked me if I would dance with this guy. Ha. Obviously I could not...but it was just funny.
I like Spanish people.
Soo..I was reading Helamen 14 the other day and really liked a few scriptures where it talks about spiritual death. We know that through Jesus Christ we can over come spiritual death and when I thought of this before I always thought about repentance and the atonement. But these scriptures explain it a little differently and it made a light bulb go off in my head. Because Jesus resurected (is that right?) we WILL come into the presence of God again, therefore we wont be cut off from his presence...BUT if we dont use the atonement we will have a second spiritual death. You probably all knew this but it was sweet for me. The atonement is amazing!
We have been teaching a lot of people lately and just going going going. I love the people here and I love teaching them. I cant wait until my spanish is AWESOME and I can totally express what I feel. But luckily its really the spirit that does the teaching so Im good to go. :)
I hope all is well and I hope everyone is busy and having a good time. Let me know how everything is!
So I actually randomly thought of something I might need...so I eat smoothies every day for breakfast ( I know Dad...be proud), and for a while I was drinking them with the straw that goes inside my water bottle. But I stopped....and its just not as fun to eat smoothies with out a straw. So I would like to be a proud owner of like a really cool disney straw..or something like that. Something to give breakfast a little kick. :) haha.
So we had zone conference last week and I think I already told you about that but one of the things I think I forgot to tell you is that we are getting a new mission president in June. Crazy, this doesnt happen to a lot of people, but it should be exciting and different. They actually have kids too so the mission home will be a lot different. I'm excited that I get to go to the last transfer meeting with President Murri (I get to go because Hna Frost is going home). Having a companion that is "dying" (going home) is really weird. Like she is suuuuper focused still and diligent but shes going home...and it just reminds me how short the time is here and how badly I just want to work as hard as possible. Crazy.
Oh so if you guys want to get involved in missionary work I found a really cool and easy way. Well actually the stake president here encouraged us all to do this (the members of the stake). If you go on mormon.org you can create a profile of your beliefs and stuff about your life so people can see how different we are and maybe your profile can touch them and they can connect with you. You could also put your link on your facebook/blog/whatever so people can read your testimony. I would encourage all you to do. President encouraged us to have our families do it so our investigators could read about our fam...but that wont work for us unless all of a sudden you all speak spanish. Haha. But its still a good thing to do...DO IT! Haha.
So this week we had a wedding/baptism. It wasnt our investigator but it was an investigator of the Elders that serve in our ward and we eat dinner with the family a lot. Also another family in our ward got sealed so they had a huge fiesta at the church. We went to eat and they were all dancing...and I leaned over to Hna. Frost and was like "that happened to me in Mexico when I was 14....." hahaha. Because it was totally the same type of dancing hahaha. Flashbacks. (I hope Missy reads this haha). Then we were going around saying our goodbyes ...because in Mexican culture when you leave you go and say bye to everyone....a little girl came and asked me if I would dance with this guy. Ha. Obviously I could not...but it was just funny.
I like Spanish people.
Soo..I was reading Helamen 14 the other day and really liked a few scriptures where it talks about spiritual death. We know that through Jesus Christ we can over come spiritual death and when I thought of this before I always thought about repentance and the atonement. But these scriptures explain it a little differently and it made a light bulb go off in my head. Because Jesus resurected (is that right?) we WILL come into the presence of God again, therefore we wont be cut off from his presence...BUT if we dont use the atonement we will have a second spiritual death. You probably all knew this but it was sweet for me. The atonement is amazing!
We have been teaching a lot of people lately and just going going going. I love the people here and I love teaching them. I cant wait until my spanish is AWESOME and I can totally express what I feel. But luckily its really the spirit that does the teaching so Im good to go. :)
I hope all is well and I hope everyone is busy and having a good time. Let me know how everything is!
Two Days Later...
Hey Family!
Its been a whole whoppin two days since I talked to you. But thats ok because that phone call was just weird, I feel like I didnt get to really talk to anyone but I was still grateful for the opp. The 30 min just went by so fast. I wish I had like 30 min to talk to each person..sorta. Idk. Its weird. Im glad you got my note Mom because after I hung up the phone I was like...hmmm I dont think I said Happy Mothers Day! Ah. Sorry about that. Haha Also I hope Grandpa isnt too unhappy that I invited him to take the lessons...but he did say yes...sooo Im just sayin, send those missionaries over. They will be over joyed.
I dont really know what to say, I should really start writing stuff down, I do think of stuff I might need/want but then I forget as soon as I sit down. Same with stuff that has happened through out the week.
So I guess some big stuff that is going on..well my companion is going home in 3 weeks so I just want this to be a power house 3 weeks and we have been talking about the things that we could do to make it the best 3 weeks or whatever. Ive been praying about it and we've been talking a lot about it and we both feel we already work super hard so its not like we can say work more...so we have decided we are going to pretty much speak spanish all the time. Which terrifies me. I love spanish and I am getting better every day, but you all know how much I like to talk and express my thoughts and feelings in words, and I still can't completely do that in Spanish. So..yes I'm scared..but I can do it and it'll do me a lot of good so I'm really excited about that.
We went to IN-N-OUT today..felt a little like home haha.
We are going to a park to have a district activity today, fly some kites, play sports, ext. I'm excited.
We have so many appointments right now, a lot of first timers, so tonight we double booked ourselves twice so we are going on splits with ladies in the ward. Its my first time and I'm a little nervous but I think it'll go great. I LOVE the sister I get to go out with.
It was soo good to hear from everyone, I felt like I didnt really say much so I felt bad that everyone had come over but I hope that you all had fun :). Lisa sent me some pictures from them at Disneyland and Millie looks so tall! I bet everyone is changing so much!
Ok sorry this is so short, the work is amazing here, the weather is great (if not a little chilly), and life is good. I guess I should have written my back pack story huh? Oh well. Hahaha. Love you guys so much!!!
Its been a whole whoppin two days since I talked to you. But thats ok because that phone call was just weird, I feel like I didnt get to really talk to anyone but I was still grateful for the opp. The 30 min just went by so fast. I wish I had like 30 min to talk to each person..sorta. Idk. Its weird. Im glad you got my note Mom because after I hung up the phone I was like...hmmm I dont think I said Happy Mothers Day! Ah. Sorry about that. Haha Also I hope Grandpa isnt too unhappy that I invited him to take the lessons...but he did say yes...sooo Im just sayin, send those missionaries over. They will be over joyed.
I dont really know what to say, I should really start writing stuff down, I do think of stuff I might need/want but then I forget as soon as I sit down. Same with stuff that has happened through out the week.
So I guess some big stuff that is going on..well my companion is going home in 3 weeks so I just want this to be a power house 3 weeks and we have been talking about the things that we could do to make it the best 3 weeks or whatever. Ive been praying about it and we've been talking a lot about it and we both feel we already work super hard so its not like we can say work more...so we have decided we are going to pretty much speak spanish all the time. Which terrifies me. I love spanish and I am getting better every day, but you all know how much I like to talk and express my thoughts and feelings in words, and I still can't completely do that in Spanish. So..yes I'm scared..but I can do it and it'll do me a lot of good so I'm really excited about that.
We went to IN-N-OUT today..felt a little like home haha.
We are going to a park to have a district activity today, fly some kites, play sports, ext. I'm excited.
We have so many appointments right now, a lot of first timers, so tonight we double booked ourselves twice so we are going on splits with ladies in the ward. Its my first time and I'm a little nervous but I think it'll go great. I LOVE the sister I get to go out with.
It was soo good to hear from everyone, I felt like I didnt really say much so I felt bad that everyone had come over but I hope that you all had fun :). Lisa sent me some pictures from them at Disneyland and Millie looks so tall! I bet everyone is changing so much!
Ok sorry this is so short, the work is amazing here, the weather is great (if not a little chilly), and life is good. I guess I should have written my back pack story huh? Oh well. Hahaha. Love you guys so much!!!
Monday, May 2, 2011
a smelly child or god
Ok...first off ive gotta ask so I remember. Did you get my email last week? It sent me a lot of failure notices but I never know. So can you let me know if you are getting emails every week? You should be...I write them.. Anyway ok also yes I will be able to call next Sunday, we totally spaced that Mothers day was so close until a couple of days ago when some Elders reminded us. Whoops. So I should have started coordinating with you last week. I think your church is at 1..but Im not sure. So I'm planning to call at 5. The mission president has emailed us and reminded us to remind our families that the phone call can only be 30 minutes. So yeah we can talk from 5:00-5:30. I hope thats ok. Sorry I wasnt able to ask last week. Uh. yeah. I dont really know who to call...so I guess Ill just call until I find one that someone answers haha. Im the only one who didnt have to figure out the time difference. Hahaha. I dont know why its so funny to me.
Anyway this week has been good. We have two people with baptismal dates and one family that is progressing really well. Hna Frost goes home like the last day of May and we have really been praying to find someone for May. Well time is getting short and they have to go to church 3 times and we have toteach all the lessons and they have to keep the word of wisdom for atleast 3 weeks. So yeah. Anyway so the other day we get a call from the Hermanas in the ward near ours...they had a refferal for us. I guess a guy from Oxnard got baptized 3 years ago and moved to Utah and is married and everything. Well he was visiting and gave the spanish missionaries his moms name and number. Well she lives in our area. So we went to visit her. When we went she answered the door but she was crying because I guess she got in a fight with her son or something. Well we talked to her a few minutes, gave her a hug and asked if we could come back. We set up an appointment. A few days later the daughter-in-law called (who doesnt speak spanish..so sad) and said that her mother in law had written and was really excited to know more. I guess she has been wanting to know more for a while. So anyway we had our appointment with her that week and we just kinda got to know her and told her what we do as missionaries. (OH side note she has a hearing problem so we have to make sure she can see our lips when we are talking to her). Finally we asked her if after she knew these things were true if she would get baptized. She said yes, and not only did she say yes, she LIT UP! Ah! It was so awesome, she said she would prepare to get baptized on the 28th of May. WOO HOO! She is a heavenly gift and she is just so amazing. I just love her.
Another miracle we had this week was one of the new converts Antonio...well he works 2 jobs and he can come to church because one of his jobs gives him 2 hours to come to work. Well Sunday he came up to us and told us that he was going to the 3rd hour and that he had quit his job and got a new one so he could go to all 3 hours of church. Now his only day off is Sunday and he is working in the strawberry fields which is such HARD work, and he had away better job. Its such a faithful sacrafice and I was so amazed from someone who had just got baptized a month and a half ago!
We went down near the ocean today, we can't go too close but its amazing!!! I love the ocean so much.
Sorry I dont have much time right now! I love you all very much and Im so proud of the family I have! So I guess I'll be talking to you next Sunday! (weird).
Tell the Ward I said Hi!
Hermana Tippetts
Anyway this week has been good. We have two people with baptismal dates and one family that is progressing really well. Hna Frost goes home like the last day of May and we have really been praying to find someone for May. Well time is getting short and they have to go to church 3 times and we have toteach all the lessons and they have to keep the word of wisdom for atleast 3 weeks. So yeah. Anyway so the other day we get a call from the Hermanas in the ward near ours...they had a refferal for us. I guess a guy from Oxnard got baptized 3 years ago and moved to Utah and is married and everything. Well he was visiting and gave the spanish missionaries his moms name and number. Well she lives in our area. So we went to visit her. When we went she answered the door but she was crying because I guess she got in a fight with her son or something. Well we talked to her a few minutes, gave her a hug and asked if we could come back. We set up an appointment. A few days later the daughter-in-law called (who doesnt speak spanish..so sad) and said that her mother in law had written and was really excited to know more. I guess she has been wanting to know more for a while. So anyway we had our appointment with her that week and we just kinda got to know her and told her what we do as missionaries. (OH side note she has a hearing problem so we have to make sure she can see our lips when we are talking to her). Finally we asked her if after she knew these things were true if she would get baptized. She said yes, and not only did she say yes, she LIT UP! Ah! It was so awesome, she said she would prepare to get baptized on the 28th of May. WOO HOO! She is a heavenly gift and she is just so amazing. I just love her.
Another miracle we had this week was one of the new converts Antonio...well he works 2 jobs and he can come to church because one of his jobs gives him 2 hours to come to work. Well Sunday he came up to us and told us that he was going to the 3rd hour and that he had quit his job and got a new one so he could go to all 3 hours of church. Now his only day off is Sunday and he is working in the strawberry fields which is such HARD work, and he had away better job. Its such a faithful sacrafice and I was so amazed from someone who had just got baptized a month and a half ago!
We went down near the ocean today, we can't go too close but its amazing!!! I love the ocean so much.
Sorry I dont have much time right now! I love you all very much and Im so proud of the family I have! So I guess I'll be talking to you next Sunday! (weird).
Tell the Ward I said Hi!
Hermana Tippetts
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