Ventura Ventura Ventura

I wish there was a way that you could see this view this morning the ocean and air is so clear...you can see the islands (channel islands) SO SO CLEAR! I love love love Ventura. So first I guess I will tell you about the pictures I am uploading. The first is of the girls in my district (last transfer) and our cool st.patrick's day bows. The second is from Hna Dalton's last p-day we walked on this walk way kinda near the beach. The third is a picture of us in a spanish neighborhood with a street sign..the sign means "you can do it!"..basically. Then there is a picture of me and a family we are teaching, then a family who feeds all the spanish missionaries frequently. Love it. I dont have a picture of me and my new companion just yet but Ill send one next week.

So I hope all is well, Im sure you are all very busy today or this week and thats why I didnt hear from you, its all good no stress I understand. Life gets super crazy.

So this week has just been great. So much cool stuff has happened.

Oh first I guess a crazy thing. Monday night (sister Daltons last night) we had an appointment with some of our investigators, we started walking up to the house and we noticed that there was a cop car in front of the house. As we were about to leave we saw our investigator getting led to the cop car in handcuffs. Awkward.

So the first day I had Hermana Vasquez with me was tuesday, Sister Dalton came out with us for one last appointment and then we were on our own. We had lots of appointments but for like an hour and a half we didnt have appointments and so we had planned to go by Bro Allen's house because he said we should visit his granddaughter who is now living with him. So we went to his house and he was home but no one else so we couldnt come in. Normally we are off because we want to find people but for some reason I asked him if I could have a glass a water, he went in, got one and we drank and talked to him a little bit, right as we finished and were about to leave she showed up!!! So we came in first Bro Allen wanted to show us a room he fixed up...he told me that building is his trade and I told him "oh my dad was a building inspector in Las Vegas" he said NO WAY! I built in Las Vegas for 14 years. Crazy. Anyway so we go to talk to Betsy his granddaughter WHO grew up in Las Vegas and went to Palo Verde. Super cool huh? Anyway so we started and taught her about the Restoration and she accepted to be baptized!!! We had another appointment later on with her that week and explained a little more about the Book of Mormon she told us that she is really searching for the truth for her son because she wants him to have the best., she would have came to church on sunday (she even bought a dress) but she has a 2 week old baby and it was pouring rain and freezing, BUT we are super excited. I also KNOW it was inspiration to ask for water. I am so grateful for the Holy Ghost


Then about 2 weeks ago a member that we were going to have dinner with called us and told us that she had a non member friend that would be joining us for dinner. So we had that appointment this week. First I wont lie it was a little awkward, she is this cute old lady who lives in a senior citizen mobile home park with her senior friend and then this like 40 year old man and us. Haha. So we start talking and he was talking about bullying and some movie that was out that talked about bullying and I was going through my head thinking how we could turn this convo to the gospel (Sister Dalton if you are reading this you would laugh)...so I was going through my head and the first thing that came out was like "Yeah and for that reason and I am so grateful for growing up learning about being a child of God and my divine nature"...that just kind of got brushed over...so then they contiued to talk about the effects of bullying and finally I remembered the story in Mosiah 24 where Alma and his people are living out in the wilderness because they have been rejected by their people for believeing in God. So they are out there minding their own business when Amulon and a little army come out, put them into slavery and tell them that if they pray they will kill them. Then they pray in their minds for help from the Lord. he then asks me "is that a true story?"...and I was like YEAH! Its in the Book of Mormon which was written about 600 years before Jesus Christ. Oh man...I was trying. Anyway we were able to teach the Restoration and he was so excited to read the Book of Mormon and then Sister Black invited him to take the lessons in her home and he accepted!!!

I decided Easter candy is the best. So many fun stuff....HAPPY EASTER..its so soon. I love easter and I am so excited for general conference and how it will help us prepare for celebrating the resurrection of our Lord.

We had a booth and the swap meet and it went over really well. We were able to talk to so many spanish people and share the gospel. We totally have to visit it when we come back to visit. So Mexico-ish. Oh and a American man was talking to me and he asked me if I was mexican...i was like no..why? and he was like oh you just sound like it. hahahaha. YES!!!!

Oh we had a great lesson with Andres and his family about the plan of salvation they were so excited about going to the temple as a family and I know Andres is getting more and more excited about his baptism. He was smiling so big as we told him "a year after you get baptized you will be able to go here with your family". Afterwards they were all hugging eachother and it was so beautiful. The gospel BLESSES FAMILIES!

Another thing that happened....and I cant remember if its a scripture or a quote from a general authority but I can just hear Elder Holland saying it in my head but it goes something like "as you stand in hostile venues"...something like that. Yesterday we went to visit one of our investigators and she was having a birthday party for her son and had a ton of friends over. She invited us in for a second and her friends all just started bashing us as we were standing there in the midst of them. We decided to just sing a song for them and we choose to sing I know my redeemer lives. The spirit was so strong and afterwards we bore strong testimony that Jesus is the Christ,the Savior of the world. It was so awesome. I am so grateful for the power of the Holy Ghost!

Lots of great stuff is going on here there just isnt much time to write about it all! But I also had an idea that maybe we could start today. We can read the Book of Mormon as a family you all, jed chrissy jaden, jamie jeff brandon kendall ryanne erika, dave lisa and millie, and if we all read 5 pages a day we will be finished on the day I get home. I think that would be a really great thing for our family and it will strengthen our own personal testimonies and bring us closer as a family and we can share in emails and letters verses that we liked a lot. Will you do that?


LOVE YOU ALL! HERMANA TIPPETTS!

NO QUIERO MATAR!!!!

Well I think I failed to mention last week that today is transfer day. Oh man it feels like I blinked and now we are in a new transfer. NOT COOL. My companion Sister Dalton is going home. BUT I am staying here in Ventura and I will be getting Sister Vasquez as a companion. She is a transfer older than me, she is from Hondoras and is just super great. Im really excited. Today is going to be crazy getting Sister Dalton all ready to go. Luckily we havent had exchanges this week so that has made the week a lot less stressfu BUT YAY NATIVE COMPANION!!!! SHE IS GOING TO HELP ME WITH MY SPANISHl.

Sooo..I did get your letter and the card by the way. Have you gotten an email from BYU-I yet so I can know what track I will be going to. Thanks. I was really shocked and sad to hear about the news in the ward. I have had them in my prayers and will send a letter to the ward soon but I will have to wait until next week because today will be crazy.

This week has been so great! We were able to set 5 new people with baptismal dates!!! It is a direct blessing of applying all that we have learned in the last weeks to the work. We are just feeling so blessed for all the constant training and instruction we recieve.

One of my favorites was Andres. So Andres is a husband of a woman who is returning to activity. He has been coming to church for a while but the missionaries have never really been able to catch them at home, so we really didnt know what was going on with them. FINALLY last week we were able to set up an appointment, they we were running late and so were we so it was a short lesson. But it was evident that the wife did NOT want us to push him AT ALL. So we were a little nervous. I have just run into this so much lately...instead of it being "they are kept from the truth because they know not where to find it'..."they are kept from the truth because their families are too scared to invite them"...BUTTTTT...thats ok. I understand. So we come in to teach the whole restoration but we were feeling confident. He has been reading the Book of Mormon for a while and coming to church and those who do that will have their heart softened. So we were asking him to set a baptismal date for the May and his wife was very literally shaking her head at me...like dont you dare and I did it anyway because I felt the spirit...so she jumps in and is like no...he doesnt like to feel pressure or be pushed....im so happy that he is reading and coming to church on his own...so I looked at him and asked him if he felt pressured or pushed and he said no...so we were able to talk to him about making that goal to be baptized and it was SO GREAT! I am so grateful for the Holy Ghost in my life!! (this is a spanish investigator btw)

Then STEVE. He is so great. So he has had a billion and a half baptismal dates (like 2) and so many witnesses that these things are true but for some reason is dragging his feet. His girlfriend was suppose to move and he wanted her to to make sure he was doing this for himself and not for her. SO then out of no where her job in Salt Lake got terminated and she is staying here in Ventura. Crazy. SO then we really just recieved revelation that we needed to drop him. So we found this perfect article to read with him called "Start moving" from the July 2011 ensign and we were going to drop him. We get there and we tell him we are going to read this first before anything else happened. We read it and told him we felt like we have gotten to this point where we have to convince him and that is NOT RIGHT. So we needed to give him some time, and he pulls out his calendar and he was like "april 14th" looks good to get baptized. He said that he had resolved a lot of his concerns and was ready to take the first step. What the??? So we told him we still need to give him a few weeks off to really think and pray about this. Sooo it was intense

The rest were really awesome too but I dont really have time to go into most of them! Sorry :). I had pictures to upload too but I forgot to bring in my camera so I will attach them next week.

I have such a huge testimony of the restoration of the gospel. For many different reasons but this week has really affirmed it for me. In EVERY lessons (except Andres). Something has happened as we were reciting the first vision.
Mike and Mindy- He started taking pictures of something the dog was doing
Patricia and Kristi- Patricia blew her nose
Phil-pretty much just cut her off (regardless he had heard it before)
Robert and Craig- ROBERT FELL ASLEEP!!!!!!

I swear it is the advesarys last little low blow.

Anyway I love love love you all so much and am so glad to hear every one is doing well!!! KISS AND HUG EVERYONE FOR ME!!!!!!


LOVE HERMANA TIPPETTS!

and it just keep moving...

Buenas! So today starts the last week of my companion's mission. I think I have been freaking out/stressing out about it more than she has. Maybe thats good, helps her keep her mind off it. Haha. I hate having my companions go home because it makes going home a reality and it makes me want to jump off a bridge. This is just too good. ANYWAY....

So good to hear about your date night to the temple. I love the temple. Soak it up for me please. (Random thought, you never told me who Katie Johnston is getting married to). Jaden just sounds like such a cutie pants. Does Mariah want to go to school soon or keep working for a while? Me and Sister Dalton decided that Mariah and her little sister would get along great and I think I already told you that you(mom) and her mom would get along. So we decided that we are just going to have a big Dalton/Tippetts party. Woo hoo.
It sounds like the missionaries in the ward are "doing work". That is so great! Tell the ward I love them. I will write soon when I get a chance to sit down.

So this week has been pretty great (as all of them are). Last Monday we went hiking and it was SO fun. It was our whole district, the assistants, and Elder Curtis (one of the senior couples). Unfortunatley my companion has been suffering from bug bites from the trip. I guess she has sweeter blood than me. Mike is a husband of a member and he is going nice and slow. He did not trust the elders at all but is trusting us. He has started praying and simply asking God if he is there. He prayed before their garage sale and they made more money than they have in a garage sale! YAY!

Bruce..he does remind me of grandpa a bit. Funny guy. This week he gave us his speech and instead of giving us a speech on chapter 8 of 1 Nefi he gave us a speech of how he would approach people at the door about the Book of Mormon. He had done all this research about the plates of Nefi...ext. it was so cool. I just felt the spirit and felt so proud of him!!!

Raquel and Raymundo- we are finally getting back into the groove of teaching them after their move. This week we were able to teach them twice. Once about the Holy Ghost and how it will help them after they are baptized. It was such a solid spiritual lesson. I can't wait for them to be baptized and go to the temple.

We had exchanges with the Ventura sisters this week. It was my favorite exchange the sister I went with is so solid and we had lots of miracles that day. We were able to drop by and see Chris and teach her about the Restoration and use the skills that we had just learned in district meeting (we talked about how we can not take peoples bait and just keep teaching them..obviously directed by the spirit). The spirit was so strong and she is such a seeker. She has been seeking for the truth and I know Heavenly Father sent her to us.

We also picked up another husband of a member and he is so solid. He studies the Book of Mormon a lot and when we asked him to be baptized he said "I know its necesary because of that chapter in the Book of Mormon where the people get baptized by Alma...like the waters of Mormon"...super great. HOWEVER...his wife is super scared to push him at all. AH. Its ok.


OH and one of the BEST parts of this week was........ELDER L. TOM PERRY came this saturday and we got together as a whole mission to be instructed by an apostle of the Lord!!!!!! It was so amazing. With him was a member of the 70 and his talk was so amazing. As I was preparing for their visit these last couple of weeks I was able to write down questions I had about how I can be a better missionary. How we can help people prepare for baptism. ext. All of my questions were answered in that talk. Question after question. It was so amazing. Sister Dalton and I are just so excited to put these things into practice this week to just weed out the unelect and not waste our time on them. Then Elder Perry's talk was just so powerful. It was on the priesthood and I had been thinking about the priesthood a ton this week and I was just so overwhelmed with the spirit. The church is true and it is lead and guided by our Savior Jesus Christ through priesthood authority. That is what makes us different. I am so grateful that I have the chance to help people gain a testimony that there was a need for a Restoration of the priesthood. He spoke with such power and authority that can only come through the Holy Ghost. It was so great and I am so looking forward to general conference. I hope you all are preparing for it too!! They also talked about members being the real finders. Which was great because I had been reading Elder Perry's conference talks this week and there was one that talked about that. I think it was in 2009. You should read it. Also there was another quote.."the Missionaries are to be the full time teachers, the members are the full time finders". I challenge you all to pray to know of someone and then have the confidence to give a referral to the missionaries.

Last night I gulfed down like 5 enchiladas. Spanish people feed us way too much. Never doing that again. Haha.

Also we are creepers. Last night we tracked down Steve so that he could meet some of the members from the ward. It was great.


Being a missionary is so super great!!! I love it! I love you all and hope you have a great St. Patricks day!!!

When in doubt about eating or getting on the freeway....eat

Hello family! It is a great Monday morning in Ventura! I love Ventura. It is the best city ever. I love going and seeing other parts of the mission but it is always super rewarding to come back home to Ventura. Today we are going hiking in Ojai, a little town connected to Ventura. Super excited.

This week was great. We had an exchange with the sisters in Simi Valley. Mom, I know you have questions on how all this works so I will explain. What happens is there is 12 companionships on sisters in the mission. So we go visit them. I go with one of them and Sister Dalton will go with the other sister. If the sisters are close enough to Ventura one comes here and one of us goes to their area. I travel if its spanish and sister Dalton travels if its english sisters. So it doesnt really matter if they are old or no we do it with everyone. Since Simi Valley is pretty close Sister Vandenhazel came with me in Ventura. That was an adventure because it was my first time staying in my area without Sister Dalton and I got us around pretty well. WOO HOO. Im learning.

So lets see...oh a precious tender mercy of the Lord. So I think last week i told you that we went and visited the former Elder Finkle in the hospital (he had a heart attack and worked for the mission for 13 years) and as we got their the Assistants were there too. We skipped dinner so we could see him and we were pretty starving. The assistants told us that they had apples and oranges in the car that they would give to us. Well as we were leaving the hospital Sister Dalton and myself started talking to this man in spanish and the assistants left. So later that night we had a meeting with President at the mission home, so we went and the assistants were leaving. So as we leave we are driving the car when I notice there are apples on our windshield. So nice.

Cool thing that happened this week. We were in an appointment with Bruce and he just keeps getting confused between the Holy Ghost and the Light of Christ so we were trying to explain that as well as our lesson which was on obedience and prayer. Now we have been trying to get Bruce really studying the Book of Mormon, he was doing well a few weeks ago and then it dropped off again. Now side note....Bruce is this 84 year old man who is super active in all these clubs and he LOVES speech writting. He is part of toastmasters club. So as we were about to invite him to read the Book of Mormon a very clear thought came into my head to invite him to write a speech about a chapter in the Book of Mormon. So we invited him to do it and he was so excited. I know that the spirit guided me and I am so grateful for it because I have no idea how Bruce will get excited to read the Book of Mormon but the Lord knows.

Chris Star!! She is so elect. Now remember how she came to church last week? Well we had an appointment with her this week and it was amazing!!!!! It started out super awkward but once we got into the lesson it was amazing. She told us that she felt that the Lord told her to get baptized but she has been searching this last year on where to go!!!! We invited her to be baptized and she accepted. She is just so open and prepared. She brought up the scripture in John 15:16 and was really confused if that meant she wasnt saved. We werent able to jump ahead and explain that because we want to give her milk before meat and start from the begininning of the restoration until the end but I know she will totally understand it when we explain authority.

Michelle. So the other day we had just been praying our guts out for people to find and as we were walking/knocking we saw Michelle. We talked to her and taught her the full restoration. She also committed to be baptized. Its hard to just teach the full restoration on the door step but you could just see her countence brighten and in her prayer she was so sincere about asking if the 14th of April was the day she should be baptized. She is in her 20s and lives at home so we are really hopeful that when we come back we will be able to teach the whole family as well.

It has been a really great week. I just love being a missionary and testifying of Jesus Christ. I love that everyone I talk to I have the calling to invite them to come unto Christ. That is not something you really get to do all your life. Stop every person and talk to them about the good news of the gospel. Once you get a taste of that you never want to go back!

I am so glad to hear all is well at home. Chrissy also emailed me and it just seems like things are trucking on and going great! Love you! Be good!

P.s. Mom I feel like you and my companions mom would really get along haha.