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

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