Sooooo...

Hello family, can I first say that everyone is laughing at me as I write me email because I was going through so many emotions. I was reading Mariah's letter first and got all excited that she will be going to BYUI(woooo hooooo)...then I was reading yours and was tearing up reading that Jamie's parents are taking the lessons(awwwww), and then I was like (nooooo its not time for that......!!!!!!!!) can you guess which part that came for? I leave it up for you interpretation. Hahah just kidding I cant believe they are already asking you for that stuff.

No none of my stuff got ruined in the flood. We are back in the apartment with only a minor stink.

This week coming up is going to be so crazy. So we have had a sister in the mission from temple square and she is going back to temple square on wednesday. Which leaves her companion....companionless. So my companion Sister Vasquez will be heading up to Bakersfield tomorrow and I will be here with the SLC sister until wednesday, when me and one of the sisters from a tripan close by will drive her up to the Santa Barbara airport. Then we have Steve's baptism on wednesday (hes getting baptized in a river up to canyon)...then on Monday we have the incoming missionaries. We have 3 sisters coming in so we need to take them out for their first time and then they wil be staying with us over night. Then Wednesday we will have the departing sisters stay with us. CRAZY life. So next week is transfers, I shouldnt be leave BUT you never know. Hahaha. I keep telling Sister Vasquez I'm going to leave. haha.

This week has been really good. Last monday we had this AMAZING lesson with Steve, we decided that we were going to have a lessons about the life of Christ so he could really have the spirit testify to him of Christ as he prepares for his baptism and it was so strong. I know Christ lives!!!!!!

Im awkward....hahaha. So we were getting out of correlation meeting thursday night with the spanish branch and we were saying hi to the sisters, with the traditional half hug/cheek to cheek kiss thing. Then as we were walking away one of the single adults from the ward who were out with the elders said "hermana deme un besito"....or give me a little kiss. He was joking but I think I almost died and ran away.

I met this guy from Spokane Washington who use to be a Hells Angel and it was a really good lesson. The thing that was really interesting was that after talking to him for a little bit I realzied the Eldon Nelson went to the Spokane and I remember him telling me about an ex hell's angel. This guy then told me that missionaries use to show up to his house and his mother in law told me that one was from Las Vegas. Maybe Eldon???

We are teaching this really great family. The father is a less active and the wife is a non member. She took the lessons before but just wasnt ready. She was so excited to read in the Book of Mormon and asked us where we wanted her to be by the time we came back. So great. Then the whole family came to church on sunday and she LOVED it. Sister Vasquez and I taught the lesson in gospel principles about the Priesthood and as we were talking about the need to have authority to baptize I saw the husband nudge the wife. Haha. So great.

We finally got to go by this potential that I have been wanting to go by for a while and it turns out that just the day before they were talking to some members of the church at a scout camp and were invited to the 5 de Mayo party that the branch is having. Heavenly Father really works with people and I am so excited tocome back and teach them.

I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY and I am so proud of you all, it seems like you are really doing missionary work. Keep inviting people over when ever you have the Elders over for dinner.

How is your scripture reading going? This week I really loved reading 2 Nefi 2. 26-29 are some of my favorite verses in all the Book of Mormon and Iknow that through the Restored gospel we really have the chance to choose eternal life!


LOVE LOVE LOVE
con carino,
Hermana Tippetts

Homeless....homeless...Like the christ child was

What a week in the great california ventura mission!!!!! Hahaha. It has been so crazy. But first let me tell you thank you for the easter packages. I got one on Monday (the basket) with candy. Yum. And then the next day I got the package with the easter clothes. I loved the skirt a lot!!!! So cute. It might be my favorite skirt now. Thanks so much! I loved it. I then also got another package a few days later from Chrissy with pictures candy and a stuffed rabbit from Jaden. I loved it all!!! I have the best family ever!!!

So Ill explain the pictures first... The first one is from our trip last weekend to bakersfield with Hno Viellgas (Anastacio) that I told you about last week, the second is Sister Vasquez hunting for eggs, and the third is us in our car/home driving back from Lompoc sunday morning.


So about being homeless....so last week on wednesday we were coming back to our apartment for lunch and and we saw a little bit of water near our apartment (it had rained the night before so I thought nothing of it), but sister Vasquez jokingly said, "Maybe something happened to our apartment"..not only a second later our apartment manager came running around the corner into our apartment...we turned the corner to see our door open and steam rolling out of it. SO we got closer and noticed a bunch of water in our apartment, so we took our shoes off and waded in. The water came up to our ankles. So we did some quick inspection and none of our stuff was damaged but the carpet was pretty wet. A hot water pipe broke and they needed to do lots of repairs. So we had to stay with the Oxnard hermanas for a couple of days...then we went to Lompoc to do exchanges with them. It was like a full week sleeping on couches and mats. I often was singing "homeless...homeless...like the christ child was.." So funny.

However...I was SOOO grateful to be sleeping in our beds last night. I LOVE ADVENTURES.

This week has been pretty good. We have been able to talk to a ton of people and declare the gospel of Jesus Christ to them! So awesome.

Andres and his family are doing so great. Every time we come over and teach them they are getting more solid. He is totally ready for his baptism and would be getting baptized sooner but they only have time to have us over once a week. He'll be baptized next month!! The reason they are progressing so much is because everytime we invite them to do something...they do it and Heavenly Father blesses them. I love this family so much!

Steve is on track to be baptized next weekend (the 28th). He is doing so great and is so diligent in reading his scriptures daily. Everyone at church thinks he is a member. He will be getting baptized in a river. Its going to be so awesome. Tonight we are going to have a lesson about Jesus Christ, it is going to be super powerful. Then we will head to thousand oaks to do an exchange with the sisters from simi valley. I LOVE THIS!!

Haha oh man, I am just so tired...but that is good. I fully expect and want to go home in a body bag!!!!

We have just had SO much drama the last couple days/weeks with people but that just means heavenly father is preparing to bless us so much! We are still seeing miracles daily and I know this is the Lords work.
I have such a strong testimony in the scriptures. Any time I feel down or overwhelmed I read the scriptures and am filled with the spirit. I know the Book of Mormon is the word of God. I must admit I am pretty behind with reading because of all the craziness but I have still read every day, it has just been a little shorter but I really LOVE the story of Nephi building the boat. It reminds me so much of people we teach and all the oposition they face as they try to do what God wants,. (just like laman and lemuel were harrassing Nephi for wanting to build a boat). I know that as we strive to do what the Lord wants us to do that they Lord will bless us and he will also bless those around us (because after they built the boat laman and lemuel were humbled). Keep reading and I will catch up eventually. In my normal studies I am in 3 Nephi 28, In spanish I am in Alma 36, and with you all I am in 1 Nephi 19.

Oh ok, well the only reason I was so worried about housing is becuase I was talking to Hna Clark (who went to BYUI for a long time) and she asked me where I was going to live and I said I had no idea nad she was like you need to get on that or you wont have a place to live. But Vanessa is there right now so Im sure she knows the best.

Love you all so much and I hope all is well with dad and his procedure. Let me know if there is anything I can do. Love you so much and take care!!!!

Happy Easter!!! He is Risen!!!!

Hello family, it was great to hear about the easter sacrament that you all had. I love easter!! Our choir also sang, it was super touching. I just love when everything is really focused on our Savior Jesus Christ. When reality everything we do in the church has to do with the Savior but I think we tend to forget or mention that. Our Easter Sacrament was really great. In the spanish branch it was fast and testimony meeting and so many people bore beautiful testimonies of the Savior. Then in our english ward we had a choir and they read things about Christ between each number. Then in gospel principles we talked about the life of Christ. We had easter dinner with a member who invited a friend over and we were able to teach about Jesus Christ and how we can use his atonement using the Book of Mormon and and we invited her friend to learn more. We have an appointment with her this week. I love members that understand the need to be a member missionary! So great. The rest of the night we were out talking to everyone about Jesus Christ. We had a powerful lesson with one of our investigators that really really really needed to feel that spirit. Oh I also almost forgot to mention that we were in Bakersfield this weekend and drove home sunday morning but right before we went to bed I hid some eggs that a member had given me for Sister Vasquez, so in the morning she went for a little hunt. ( I love sharing American traditions with her! so great)

Now for this week...oh man. So when we go to Bakersfield we leave Wednesday night at like 630 and come home Sunday morning. So we are only in our own area for a very short time and we always want to use that time the most effictively. Ha. Well Monday we had an appointment with Betsy but before the appointment she texted us and told us she didnt want to waste our time because she really wasnt that into it, that she wanted to be able to spend time with her family. We then told her we understood but asked if we could come over anyway and talk about it. She said yes. We went over and it pretty much broke my heart. Her boyfriend isnt in to church and she really feels like this could put a wedge between them and so forth. We shared some scriptures that she really needed to hear and I know the spirit was so strong. But at the end she still told us that she would come to church when she was ready. My heart was soooo broken. Luckily we have the atonement to rely on. We are still in good contact with her, so Im hoping soon she will want to learn more.

THEN We called the Callahan's, they are a less active family that recently had been activated and then had a huge crisis. Well we hadnt seen them for a while so we called them and she told us that they were going to a new church now and bla bla bla. No matter what we said she just kept saying "we are happy now" "we are happy where we are". So there wasnt much we could do, but it gave us hope when she said, "but you can stop whenever you want". YOU ARE NEVER TO FAR TO COME BACK! (I lovedddd conference)

THEN..a really great girl we met and set a baptismal date with last week called us and said that her grandpa now decided he doesnt want her to learn. ..


I guess things happen in threes right? haha. But it made it hard for me to want to leave our area, but we had so much faith that Heavenly Father will bless us as we keep working hard. We had and have hope.

SO..then we headed to Bakersfield, and it was SO GREAT! I LOVE love LOVE it.

We had this cool experience when I was in Taft. In planning we were praying to know what street to knock and we saw a street called Hope. So we planned to go there. Well we got caught up in other things and didnt have the chance to do so. So at one point we had an appointment and they werent there. Since we were on the street we decided to try to knock a few houses. As we were walking to a house we saw two teenage girls walking across the street and we decided to talk to them. They were so elect and so excited aboutthe gospel and the one girl said that her dad has a lot of sins that he wants to take care of but doesnt know how! We were making an appointment with them and they told us they lived on Hope street!!!!!!! I know Heavenly Father sent them to us because we werent able to make it to hope street. THE CHURCH IS TRUE!! It was really wonderful.

Another really cool experience is that I went back to Arvin (I LOVE ARVIN SOOOO MUCH), and I was with Sister Anderson (she is sooo great), anyway as we were leaving the apartment, we were planning to walk so we were just getting some books out of the car and this man stops in his car and says "hey hermanas can I have one of those books that you give out"...we were like "umm...sure?" So we started talking to him...turns our he works for hermano anastacio (I dont know if you remember him but he is someone I taught when I was in Arvin), and he says that he has seen him change as since he started going to our church and he really wants to learn more. He wanted us to come over and teach him. We gave him a Book of Mormon and got all the information. I was just so proud of Anastacio and it was just a huge testimony to me that people will want to learn about the gospel as we talk about it and as we they see our example. They will want to know Christ because they know you!!!! Love it.

Oh man so many good things but I am just running out of time. You would think 30 mintues would be enough time to talk about stuff haha.

One funny tidbit. Do you remember the story about the man that me and Sister Hunter met when we walked to thousand oaks? Well Sister Hunter just sent me a letter this week telling me his address in LA, I guess they sent the missionaries there but he wants us to write him, Oh and that he wants to donate a bunch of money to the church hahahaha. So great. I cant wait for him to get baptized!



So things are super great. I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY!!!!! There will never be another time in my life where I can just walk up to strangers in the street and tell them that Christ lives and that He loves them. I also love being a traveling sister and getting the chance to work with all the sisters. I am just learning so much!!!



LOVE LOVE LOVEEEEEEE,
Hermana Tippetts

He has Risen!!!

HELLO! Happy April! Such a pleasent time of year. The weather today is SUPER great. It had been cloudy for the last couple of days but the sun is shining brightly. My study desk is right by a window and I was just getting soaked with sun rays this morning. So wonderful.
Wasnt general conference SO GREAT???? OH man Elder Holland's talk...just had me sitting there silent for a moment. It was so good. I loved all the talks. I dont have my notes on me right now but I felt that as each person was talking I was like AMEN to that! So great. Next week I will bring my notes so I can tell you about all the things I loved about conference. We had a few investigators come and watch and I know they felt the spirit, but my heart broke for a few who didnt come because I know there were so many talks that would have blessed their lives. Im sure thats how our Heavenly Father feels when we don't watch conference.

How is the whole reading 5 pages a day in the Book of Mormon going? I must admit Im like 10 pages behind of where I should be but that is because I have a ton of other studies to do for my investigators so I have decided Im doing this reading when I have any extra time as I am stretching in the morning after our run and my companion is showering..or right before bed, ext. We dont have very many of those minutes so Im trying. I really was pondering on the story when Nefi, sam, laman and lemuel went back to jersulem and Lehi's wife was murming a ton and calling him a visionary man and doubting. Then when she had the proof (her boys came back), she was all happy and thankful. I was just thinking about how I want to suffiently develop spiritually that I have more trust and faith than to quickly be discouraged. (Discouragement weakens faith says page 10 of PMG) So Id love to hear about everything you all have been reading. I mean I guess I have extra motivation too because me and Sis Vasquez (picture attached) are trying to do all the commintments that we leave with our investigators in our own time (driving, before bed, before studies,ext) so we know how they feel. It is going GREAT!

This week has been really good. I guess I will tell you a funny thing first. So yesterday was April Fool's day and the holiday had been brought up a couple of days ago and I explained to Sis Vasquez was it was and she really wanted to do it. So yesterday we were coming back for the second session of general conference and we decided we would tell the elders that sis vasquez needed to go home. I couldnt stop laughing so it wasnt really believable (i kinda felt bad telling them that), but one elder came over and saw her "crying" and you could tell he looked super awkwarded out and was like is she ok? Ha and another elder was checking his white handbook seeing what he was allowed to say. We then told them and it was super funny. Sis Vasquez was laughing about it all day :).

So cool thing that happened this week. We were teaching Betsy about the plan of salvation and we get to adam and eve. We explain the very basics of what happened and she was like, "its actually kind of weird I was pondering about Adam and eve this morning and how God knows everything and it had to be part of his plan". I really felt the spirit so strong. She is just being so prepared by the spirit. I love teaching her, BUT she didnt come to general conference. I was sooo sad. There were so many talks that were perfect for her. However she did come to the ward talent show this friday which was so fun. One guy did the Napolean dynomite dance and Hna Vasquez has never seen that so she was super confused. She thought his 'vote 4 Pedro" shirt was so funny. Also random side note, our spanish investigators came and she was, at first, soooo offended by that dance, she though he was making fun of spanish people. It just goes to show you what happens when we are quick to make judgement (Elder Holland and Elder Uchdorf's talk)

Andres and the evangelista family are doing so good. They are taking all of our invitations and running with them. They came to all the sessions of general conference on Sunday and stayed with the spanish branch for lunch. He is looking forward and preparing for baptism. We are just praying that they will decide to come to the branch instead of the english ward.

We knocked into this awesome lady last night. There was a court that I have wanted to knock for a long time, so finally we had a moment to do it yesterday. The first house wasnt home but then we came up to the second house and found a young mom. At first she was just like "we are christian, thanks" but we continued to talk to her and taught her about the Restoration. YOu could tell the spirit touched her and she was really listening to what we were saying. She was really confused about why we would need a prophet on the earth but she intently listened to our answers. She said "well now my faith is questioned and I really need to take this to the Lord", she said we could come back next week and check on how her study went. She also lives really close to the Bishop and knows his family. WOO HOO!

I love Elder Oaks talk about sacrafice and I am just soooooo incredibly grateful for these 18 months. When I was watching the MTC choir sing I was thinking about how badly I wish I was in there spot again. There is nothing better than serving a mission.

The stuff from BYU-I should be coming through email. I had it sent to kaylacollege@tippetts.org. So I hope you get it soon...it should have been sent? I havent been able to have much communication with Vanessa, I mean we are relying on snail mail here. Ha.

Also I was just thinking the other day (because I was wearing the dress you sent me for easter last year), that how awesome that dress is and I have worn it so much, so I wanted to make sure I said thank you again. so thanks!

Sorry this is short but weve got lots to do, but I love you lots and I hope you all have a great easter. He has risen! I know Christ lives, and I know He is our Savior. I know because of Him we will be able to live again, and we can beat spiritual death. We can, through the atonement of Jesus Christ that he so loving did, we can repent and be washed in His blood. I love Him and I am so grateful for my knowledge of his great sacrifice and His gospel which allows to tap in to that sacrifice.


HERMANA TIPPETTS.