Merry Christmas from Kalispell Montana

It was fun talkin to my family on Christmas! My blog doesnt have to be private anymore because that was just a rule in Ukraine, now that I'm in Montana I'd love to share my pictures, stories and testimony with all of you.  

We had a baptism on Saturday for Zairene and Zamuel. They are from the Philippines they are super funny. It was a great experience!  

we also made this huge snow man--pretty sick

ugly sweaters 

The family from sandy, Utah handing out a HUGE gift to random people! so cool! i totally want to do this when i get back!

Another transfer- Goodbye Townsend

Whell this week was fun, 

nothing super exciting other than the fact i got a call the other day saying i  was being transferred to Kalispell, so that'll be sweet! West side!! 

I went to Boulder and 3rd ward this week for baptismal interviews, and so that was good. When I was in boulder we went to the lady's house who was going to be interviewed and her mom answered the door and said my mom just got here not tonight, and the Elder I was with said well she needs to have her interview then the mom said my house my rules and slammed the door haha we were like well this is weird, so we got a hold of the girl and she met us at the church and had her interview. it is crazy how much bitter persecution people get from their family for joining the church. really sad, but more blessings for them for staying faithful. The other lady was super solid and so prepared. She has her own physical therapy and works with kids, i was like sweet! that sounds like something maybe I would want to do. 

When we were tracting then we ran into this lady and we showed her  "He is the Gift" and before it was even over she is like I am going to share that on Facebook haha it was awesome, so she said we could come back so we did. she said she posted it on facebook and got tons of like. we taught her the first lesson and she accepted a date to be baptized! we also invited her to church she said she would be there but didnt come. but she is still awesome and hopefully will come next week! kinda a bummer that i am leaving because she is solid. 

We gave talks yesterday and I spoke about tithing and fasting, and I am so grateful for tithing and fasting and fast offerings and the blessings that come from them. 

I am SUPER sad to leave Townsend because I feel like the work is really starting to pick up now. I am nervous and excited to go to Kalispell but it will be fun! 

love yall and hope you have a great week!  

you know you're in Montana when...

they are herding cattle down the main highway haha 

с рождеством!!

Love Elder David Witt

Not my Cafe Rio cards...

We have been sharing He is the Gift like crazy! I love it! It is such an awesome video! People are so much more open to it now than any other time of the year I fell. If you havent seen it or shared it you should on YouTube.com He is the Gift  OR christmas.mormon.org  find our how we can discover,  embrace, and share the Gift. 

We went to White Sulphur Springs 3 times this week, 2 times for investigators and once for church yesterday. The work is moving forward there but not too fast so we might have to skype or something with the people up there instead of driving, but who knows. we for sure go up there once a week and then every other for Sunday, but maybe for Christmas we will go up more. who knows we will have to see. 

So a couple weeks ago it snowed quite a bit and so we woke up early and helped a ton of people shovel their sidewalks, then afterward we built this snowman. we wanted a bunch of the youth to come but they had after school stuff. anyway i lost my wallet the day before then that day i took my gloves off and i lost my ring..we searched all over with a metal detector and no cigar. I really needed to find my wallet cause both of my cards were in there, drivers license and my cafe rio cards (heaven forbid not them!..but really haha)

i prayed about it and asked Heavenly Father if i should even bother looking for them because the day before we had spent a long time looking for them and i didnt want to keep looking if it was going to waste time, so i went to bed and i had a dream that i found my wallet. and so there was a heat wave and all the snow had melted, so i had a feeling that we should go over to the Mitchell's to look in their grass (i had already looked and lots and lots of other places too) and there it was sitting in the middle of their lawn. I was so happy! then later that day it snowed a ton again and it hasnt melted since. So i had just a small window to find it and I did. I love prayer and am so glad I found my wallet.

This past week we got to also go to the temple with the youth to do baptisms because Dylan went. It was SO cool and he is so solid and awesome! And we found another part member family and this really nice lady. We were driving and certain things happened, filled uip for gas, had to go in to get the receipt, turned on the wrong street and out of the corner of Elder Keith's eye and said we need to talk to that lady so we parked down the street and walked up to her and we were like hey can we share a video with you? we shared He is the Gift and she said wow that is so awesome that you guys stopped and talked to me I have had a rough day and rough week so this is awesome thank you so much! and so we bore testimony of Jesus Christ and that He is in charge of this work and loves her very much. It was so cool to see how it all played out and how the Spirit works. I love it! it is literally the best. I love Christmas! 

Helena

Front:  Aller, Bateman, Elder & Sister Moffitt, President & Sister Kris J Mecham, Myers-Parraz, Storrs, Lasson, Draney

Back:  Witt, Sanders, Summers, Lynch (ZL), Keith, Decker, Memmott, C. Jones, Denslow, L. Johnson, Muir, Wiggins (ZL)

We also had Christmas Zone conference all centered around He is the Gift and it was really cool, thanks mom and dad for the letter(and that embarrassing picture just kiddin it wasnt too bad) I forgot to say last week congrats to Jackson for getting baptized! that is SO Awesome! 

good times at zone christmas conference 

Love you all and hope you have an awesome week! 

С Рождеством!

Love Elder David Witt 

#HeistheGift

this is our Christmas tree 

and this is elder keith 

I forgot to say last week we cut down a Christmas tree ha we went with President Saltzman and got one (kinda early but oh well) it was fun. Holy smokes it is already December! Love it! Kind of a little switcheroo, we were going to go on exchanges with the Boulder Elders but then the Zone leaders called and said make it a week long exchange, like whoa that is long haha then all of the sudden they were like well actually you are staying with each other til the end of the transfer. So I am now with Elder Keith, I have been in the same zone as him since Missoula and have been on exchanges with him. He is from Arizona, the Navajo nation. He has been out a transfer shorter than I have.

We found 2 part member families this week and have set up return appointments. in the first family the dad is inactive but the 2 kids have come to church the last couple weeks and his wife is not a member but probably will be here shortly. then the other family the dad is also inactive and has a wife with 2 boys, one boy is in college the other is a freshman. We shared the #HeistheGift video (which all of you should have already looked up and shared on your facebook.  Christmas.mormon.org) and it brought the Spirit so strong. we set return appointments and hopefully we can set them all on date this week! they seem pretty solid, we haven't been able to meet with that other family of 4 because they were busy with thanksgiving stuff. speaking of thanksgiving it was fine. not as good as mom's home cookin, I like the normal stuff not really new recipes  but it was good.

Dylan is doing well and I am loving Townsend. it got to the negatives this week but the sun feels good and it isn't as cold as last winter.

I feel like this letter is shorter than most, maybe not but hope yall have an awesome week and don't forget to checkout and share that video!

love you!

Love Elder David Witt

We also built a snowman and I lost my ring and wallet, I will send that picture and tell that story next week..

Happy Thanksgiving!

Wow what an awesome week! Dylan got baptized and confirmed yesterday! It was so cool, the Spirit was so strong and he and his family were so happy! now they have all been baptized and are going to go to the temple to be sealed next year!! so excited! everything I have done has made it worth it to see their happy family. We were so blessed to be a part of this since he was so prepared. 

It doesn't get better than this -Happy Families 

Dylan is the one in the back next to Elder Decker and me

We found a few new less actives and part member families this week, when i first got here some people said dont visit them..not sure why but they are super nice and hopefully we can get the ball rollin with some of them! It is pretty exciting!

We also found this family of 4 who said we could come back and hopefully we can go over there tonight and put them on date! super exciting! 

our ward goal for this year was 12 baptisms and they are at 6 so they have 6 more to go, so that is our goal for December! It will take lots of faith and lots of work, but we know we can do it! 

I love the Holy Ghost and the power it has.

 

I am thankful for so many things. I couldnt even make a list that could include all of the things I am grateful for all I know is that we need to cultivate an Attitude of Gratitude and I am so grateful for a loving Heavenly Father who has given us His Son Jesus Christ and His atonement and for the blessings and joy that this gospel brings to peoples lives, they just have to try it and they can find out for themselves that these things are true. I love it. I am grateful for such good family and friends. I am so grateful to have been born in America, if you havent walked the ghetto streets of another country we have no idea how many blessings we have and the things we take for granted. We are blessed with so much, what a great time to ponder all of our blessings. 

I love you all and hope you have an awesome Thanksgiving!
Love you

Love Elder David Witt

if you get the chance on November 28, 2014 go to christmas.mormon.org and share that video

LEAF out distractions and focus on things that matter most

Wowzers its already November, it was November last time I emailed but hey It came up fast and before we know it it will be gone! anyway

this week was a good week

We went up to white sulphur springs, we cover that area too (there are like 20 people who show up for church and we meet in the community building, weird but it works) 

Anyway Michael Walth, is a husband of a member who was just reactivated and Is now taking the discussions, He is also on date for the 19th of December so that is some exciting news! The members taught the lesson and it was all over the place so it wasnt what we wanted..but it ended up being okay ha  

Dylan is doing awesome and is just progressing well, we are looking forward to his baptism in a couple weeks! 

Good news is Elder Decker and I are staying here another transfer so that is exciting! finally I will be in an area for more than just a couple of weeks! haha 

We have driven a lot this week for baptismal interviews and such for other missionaries in our district,(side note it is awesome to hear peoples testimonies when they are being interviewed, people are being prepared so well!) so we are limited on miles so we rode our bikes the other night (it was chilly!) and we passed by a members home on the way to dinner and felt like we should stop there after dinner. So we did (the member we ate dinner with put our bikes in his truck and we went and got our car haha) and when we got there she was super happy to see us and we had a great discussion about our Savior Jesus Christ and all of the things that he did for us. Then she gave us 2 referrals, one was her son a less active and the other was a friend who said she had had missionaries there before but wasn't too interested but it was quite some time ago. So that was awesome! We got a referral and helped her feel the Spirit more powerfully it was cool! 

When on exchanges a couple weeks ago Elder Decker and the missionary he was with went tracting, when they knocked on a door and the lady was not a very nice lady haha (of course this is a rare occasion..:)) but then Elder Decker felt prompted to ask if she would be interested in some service. Which she was. So we went over to her house this week and raked her leaves. and boy was this the BIGGEST leaf pile I have ever seen in my LIFE! in my life! But we finished and said well we dont have enough bags for these leaves so we will find someone with a truck to come pick them up in a couple days. While we were in her house she had us hang up a picture and proceeded to talk to us for 30 minutes about her life and we talked about the Plan of Salvation and such and we said hey we will have to come back over some other time and talk more and she said oh yeah that would be fine! SO it was cool to see her heart change. Even if she doesnt want to hear more, the positive impact it had on her was great, and the many people that drove by saw us too so service is awesome! 

our leaf pile

 her daughter came and we helped fill up bags the next day... bags for dayzz! 

oh yeah we posted on facebook some things 


my post was "LEAF out distractions and focus on things that matter most"

Elder Deckers was "dive into the gospel"  haha it was great

I love being a missionary, it brings so much joy and not only in helping others come unto Christ but myself as well. I love this gospel and the truthfulness it has especially when we apply it's principles.

Love you all and hope you have a great week! 


Love 

Elder David Witt 
день без улыбки потерянный день

This is the Lord's work

This week was a good week! Dylan is progressing well, We found some people in the trailer park we went tracting in so hopefully we will start to teach them soon, we have found a couple new less actives and William Bentley the less active we found when I first got here is progressing, hasn't come to church yet but he is reading and praying and such so it is cool!

When we were tracting we met Pastor Mike (Pastor of the trailhead church, breakoff of the Baptist church and other churches..) he said he has seen us raking leaves a bunch of times and he says he is proud of us, for some reason our minds didn't register it but we felt like we should go back and give him a book of Mormon, hey maybe he can use it for one of his sermons or something..? you never know ha 

It is getting chilly here. Some days it has been smoking and cold and smells like ukraine it is so weird and makes me feel weird, sometimes Ukraine feels like it was just a dream, it felt like it happened so long ago..

Happy Halloween thanks Sab for the Mustaches!

Elder Decker and I

Halloween was good, we went to the Mitchell's and passed out candy with bible scriptures on them and Mormon.org cards, maybe someone will read it and be interested, you never know. I love Townsend and Elder Decker and I are being blessed with so much work. This is truly the Lords work, why else would and could anyone do it if it wasn't HIS work? He is in charge and He wants these investigators to be joyful more than we can imagine. It is great! Love you and hope you have a great week!

There might be a Russian investigator I start teaching over Skype..we will see he is kinda weird but we will see if he has potential! love you

Love Elder David Witt

I forgot to mention we ate at a truck stop I white sulphur springs and the portions were HUGE!!! we ate them all and the owner gave it to us for free!

Elder Decker and I

Happy Halloween

Wowzers 

this week flew by but it was pretty good!

We got to go to Billings to go to the temple this week with some people in our ward. so that was awesome! 

Dylan Saltzman is doing great! we had a couple lessons with him last week and we are going to have one with him again tonight. He is on date forNovember 23. SO awesome and exciting! their whole family is so happy he's doin this and so are we! cause the Saltzmans are awesome! When we taught the Restoration the Spirit was so strong and it was just awesome. We left and were like this is what being a missionary is all about! experiences like this! 

Everyone else, not progressing haha we are finding others though we may potentially be ready. We are going to tract a trailer park this week, so that should be fun. Always good stories from trailer parks, like this past week a drunk dude gave us a couple bucks haha 

We also had a music jam this week. Something we had been planning for quite a while. It was successful, we had missionaries form Helena come and help us sing Come Thou Fount, How Great Thou Art and others, then people in the community sang. It was fun. They made Elder Decker and I sing a song! hahaha we sounded awful but hey they requested it haha It was fun though.

Hope you have an awesome Halloween and a good week! love you lots! 

люблю всегда , 
Cтарейшина Дэвид Витт

I have some great  You know You're in Montana When's this week! 





   You know You're in Montana When: Elk cross the road right in front of you









   You know You're in Montana When: When a horse is walking down the street


If you dont want to be grossed out close your eyes and scroll down for a few seconds before opening haha...





You know You're in Montana When:  Elk are being butchered in someones garage  

How does the Holy Ghost communicate with YOU

This week has been crazy going on exchanged with the other Elders in the district. One night when I was in Helena things fell through so we didnt have anything, so the other Elder I was with said we should go visit this guy they had tracted into and was super nice and told them to come back. He didnt know where he lived since he hasnt been in the area too long, so he relied on the Spirit and we ended up on this guys door step! it was awesome! We went in and he and his wife were super nice. We taught him the Restoration, invited him to baptism and answered questions. he wasn't ready to be baptized, but he is sure close! The Spirit was super strong and it was awesome! (we need to find one of those here in Townsend haha) 

We did some service this week, raked leaves and such and I think we really planted some seeds and softened some hearts so that was good!

sometimes you gotta have some fun (even though I have never seen star wars haha)

pumpkins we carved today with the Mitchell's

(brother Mitchell is blind and still carved his pumpkin)

i carved the temple and choose the right and выбрать истина  and Elder Decker did God is Love..we are going to hand out pass along cards for Halloween haha and of course candy 

We also helped this lady in our ward move, she had a suit in her house and said I could have it! it was a little big but I am going to get it altered so it should work perfectly! what an awesome find! 

Last night we went to a less active part member house and last time we went they were really rude, but Elder Decker felt like we should go to their house and they let us in we talked about the Book of Mormon and the less active said he would come to church and the wife said she would read the Book of Mormon if it was bigger print or audio, so we will have to get her either one of those. It was cool becasue I let Elder Decker choose what we were going to teach and he wanted to teach about prayer and I felt like we should teach the Restoration but didnt say anything since he was taking the lead, so after a while Elder Decker said you know what I feel like we should teach the Restoration instead! I said thats what I was thinking too! and it was awesome to see the Holy Ghost working. 

I love seeing the Holy Ghost work, it is important that we know things in our minds but also in our hearts and the Holy Ghost can do that for us. It is something that I am still trying to figure out, how Heavenly father communicates with me through the Holy Ghost but it has been cool to see these few things work out this past week how they did! 

our investigators are doing well, one of the members son in our ward wants to be baptized, he is 20 and chose different paths, but now wants this in his life, so hopefully our first lesson with him goes well tonight! 

I hope you all got to watch Meet the Mormons!

I love you all so much! Hope you have an awesome week!

love Elder David Witt

General Conference was Awesome

Privet Familia 

(spanish and russian mix)

This is my last district LOL 

BACK:  Sister Parr, Elder Wiggins, Elder Egan, Elder Kinard and you can barley see Elder Hammonds face (i told him we lived on Hammond Dr, and he laughed)

FRONT: Sister Black, Elder Bupp, Elder Memmott, Elder Witt (me) and eElder Keith

This week has been crazy! Said good bye to Elder Egan he is now in Great Falls and I stayed with the zone leaders for a couple days while my new new companion came in. His name is Elder Decker, he is from Albuquerque, New Mexico. He is excited to work so that has been good. It is hard explaining so much and not just doing things and getting them done quickly, but learning patience is always good. He is a good missionary and wants to work hard, we are going to have lots of success here, i can feel it.

Conference was awesome. I loved it so much. All of the talks were awesome and all my questions answered. I loved Elder Klebingat, and not just because he was my mission President, but he was so bold and spoke about exercise ha he loved to exercise. I loved his 6 things we need to do to prepare ourselves if we were to have an interview with the Savior in one minute. obviously we need to work on those 6 things to prepare ourselves for when we do meet our Savior. 

I also loved Elder Scott's talk, I hope you are all having family scripture study I mean like he said, it is more important than food and sleep. 

So much has changed in the past year. I wouldnt have wanted to be anywhere else than serving Jesus Christ and helping our brothers and sisters come unto Him. There is so much change happening everyday and we are either moving forward or backwards, so we choose which one it is.

Hey love you all

люблю всегда,

Elder David Witt

Meet the Mormons Movie

Alrighty So what is up?

This week we got to see Meet the Mormons!

it was AWESOME!! I exhort all of you to go watch it, and invite a friend, family member, less active yaddy yaddy ya..someone who will go with you, take them. This movie is going to bring down walls and misconceptions of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints. So please please please go to it. We are trying to get it showing here in Helena..so you have it right there at your movies so go watch it October 10!! It is awesome.

watch the movie trailer here

Richard Paul came to church again so that was superb. The Colangelos are doing alright, everyone else is doing fine and I love Townsend. other news in Townsend, Elder Egan is being transferred. I guess I just need to learn a lot from a lot of different companions lol

So I was reading in Helaman this week.  

and wanted to talk a little bit about the chapters that I read.

Chapter 9- people don't like Nephi. By revelation Nephi identifies who killed the chief judge. Only some people believe him and think he is a prophet. Even after all of that only some of them think of him as a prophet, showing that we cant rely upon signs to testify of things. They are great miracle builders but we need to rely upon the Holy Ghost to testify of truth to us.

Chapter 10-That authority was given to Nephi-just as prophets in the Bible were given that power and authority, he also received that.

Chapter 12- How quick are we to forget the Lord? We forget the Lord so quickly and it takes a while for us to remember Him. Even the dust obeys God better than we do.

 

So what do we learn from these chapters?

God speaks through Prophets who are called by Him and given power and authority to do His work and by the power of the Holy Ghost we can know that the Prophet speaks the words of God.

kak raz I read this and what is coming up? General conference! We have a prophet on the earth today who holds that Power and Authority from God to be the mouthpiece for Him for the entire world. I know President Monson is a called prophet of God.

what a treat it is that we have such quick access to the words of God.

I hope that we all take the time to prepare ourselves for conference. Prepare ourselves with questions that Heavenly Father can answer through His chosen servants.

I love you all and hope you enjoy conference!

Любовь всегда, Cтарейшина Витт

Time goes by Fast

The weeks are going by too fast. 

We went back up to white Sulphur Springs and the guy we had a lesson set up with wasnt home so that was a bummer, but we taught a less active couple and talked to Barb and Wes. They were excited to see us so that was good, they showed us their old cars and old bikes and such so that was good, they were going to eat dinner so we dint get a chance to share a lesson with them but we are going back up this week, so hopefully we can when we go again. 

The Colangelos are doing better, not ready for the date we set a while ago but they are making progress so that is awesome. they are doing stuff to help them overcome their word of wisdom issues on their own so that is much better for their conversion rather than having someone tell them they have to do something. 

We have been working with a recent convert and less active couple who have prepared themselves to go to the temple, so they are going tomorrow! we wanted to go but since we already went this month, we couldnt go again. But how  exciting it is for them! 

The Hoffs are a really awesome couple that we have also been working with. The husband works in Alaska so is here for 3 weeks and there for 3 weeks. He was recently baptized so we are teaching him everything again. he is so prepared and awesome and is really working to go to the temple in a year so it is so cool that the Lord prepares such awesome people. 

Richard Paul is an awesome guy. He is from the east coast. We were riding our bikes past his house one day and we both felt like we should turn around and talk to him, so we did and we started talking about family history and that got him excited since he has been working on it himself for a while. He loves the civil war and has 371 civil war books, and he has read all of them. We taught him the Restoration and he liked that and said he would read the Book of Mormon (he reads super fast so hopefully he reads the Book of Mormon!) Then he said he would come to church and he did and he enjoyed it! he said he would give us an answer if he wants to be baptized sometime this week so we are looking forward to that! 

I am excited that general conference is coming up! what a good missionary opportunity to invite someone over to watch it! 

I love you all and hope you have a good week!

Open Your Mouth

Familia,

 

it was a good week
we just got back form hiking the "B" (for Broadwater County) it was super steep but had a nice view of the town so that was good 

Yesterday was a good day we went to White Sulphur Springs and church was good then we went over to have a lesson with a family that we had set up with but they werent home. you know you are in Montana when you just open the door and say hello is anyone home? haha President Saltzman did that, he is the branch President for the area. He is super funny and a very good missionary. It is quite the drive from town so he tells us stories and ALL of his missionary experience have been from OPENING HIS MOUTH and not from just being a good example. If we want to be successful missionaries (and I am not saying just me, when we were baptized members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints we promised we would always be missionaries) so we need to open our mouths and not be afraid to share the gospel.

but anyway back to White Sulphur, we tried a potential ho the missionaries had tracted into, he was busy but said we could come back Tuesdaywhen he doesnt work, so that should be good. Then we wenyt to some other peoples home and when we pulled up the husband was working on the car and when we got out he siad "whatever you are selling I am not buying" ha we said we werent selling anything but would like to teach him 5 short lessons, he said he wasnt interested but introduced him to his wife, who was really nice and so we, all 5 of us, talked on their porch, they werent really interested but President Saltzman started sharing experiences and how great the Book of Mormon was and then by the end we gave her a copy and she said she wouldnt read it but then her husband took it out of her hands and said I havent been baptized I'll read it!" so that was awesome and they both totally felt the Spirit so we will start working with them here shortly. They are great. 

We had zone conference this week as well, just being better missionaries, how to be better at finding people, using our time wisely and improving our teaching skills so they were all really good break out sessions. The assistants and President and Sister Mecham are great.

I love you all hope you have a good week!

love Elder David Witt

The Temple is INCREDIBLE

You know you're in Montana when you Kiss Fish

(this is a fish that brother Mitchell caught earlier that day with his friend and wanted us to clean for him (he is blind))

So basically all I want to talk about this week is the temple, so I will get the other stuff out of the way

Today we went to Helena National Park with the Mitchell's (an awesome couple who joined the church not too long ago, but they always help missionaries and we eat dinner with them every Thursday night and they invite less actives and non members so they are awesome) but we went up there and had lunch then Elder Egan and I hiked some place and it was good to get out of the city (even though we aren't really in a city haha) 

We had exchanges this week and it is good to be back with Elder Egan. However on the exchange the Elders in Boulder (where I was) get to study in the cave right by their house every morning. This cave is a radon cave and cures all kind of sicknesses and problems and such (I didn't feel any immediate affect but hey it was cool ha and we heard stories of people feeling better after spending a few hours in there) 




But anyway the temple is INCREDIBLE. I loved it so much and was so glad I got to go. It was the most beautiful, uplifting, positive, joyful thing I have done. The temple is just awesome It is truly one of the few places where we can feel so close to God. It is real. the temple is the real deal, this is real life the real thing and just amazing. I am so grateful for it. I love how cool it is to be reminded of the big picture, Eternal Salvation. President Mecham was there and he was who I talked to before going into the Celestial room, so when I heard his voice I knew it was him and it was really neat. President Mecham is just awesome I love him.  

I love you all and hope you get to go to the temple as many times as you can. We are so privileged to have temples so close and be able to go to them whenever, so please go as often as you can. 

Hope ya'll have a good week. I know families are forever and that through the sealing power through the Priesthood in the temple we will see our family members again and I know that Shauna is resting in a state of happiness. 

Love you 

Love, 
Elder David Witt

Purification Edification Perfection Exaltation

Purification Edification Perfection Exaltation
Make clean- improvement - free from flaws - highest praise

This past week president Mecham has asked that we purify ourselves, (as you already know you got a letter from them) in his weekly letter last week he wrote:
"A covenant is a sacred agreement between God and a person or group of people (missions). God sets specific conditions, and He promises to bless us as we obey those conditions. In these divine agreements, God binds Himself to sustain, sanctify and exalt us in return for our commitment to serve Him and keep His commandments.

A sample of the blessings God desires for us to receive are found in the Doctrine and Covenants section 82:19-20. We are promised that our talents can be improved upon. Further, we are encouraged to seek other talents, even an hundredfold. In section 88:78 -79 we are blessed with His grace to attend us as we instruct more perfectly in theory, in principle, and doctrine and in the law of the gospel. We are further blessed with understanding concerning things in heaven and in earth, things which are at home and which are abroad, the complexities of the nations and the judgments of the land.

The above-mentioned blessings of covenant keeping will ensure that your mission is satisfying and rewarding to you personally and more especially to the Savior. As you maintain and magnify the talents that you have received or will receive, you will experience rich blessings as a builder of the kingdom, a contributor to your family, to your career and to your community. You will truly be recognized and valued for your good works."

I love that so much and it can apply to us all. 

This is Stephan from Missoula

Eric from Missoula- he is awesome 

good old Townsend 

I love serving with Elder Egan. We have both been out for about the same amount of time and we have similar goals and desires regarding missionary work so we work so well together, its awesome. We have been improving our language, trying not to use euphanisms or slag. I read a scripture this morning that talked about language so it was really cool. Zephaniah 3:9 look it up it's great. We also both read the 4th missionary and that is a super good talk, I recommend that to everyone who wants to serve missions, and I wish I would have read it sooner cause I dont want to have a 12 month successful mission, but it can all go up from here. We have been running in the mornings, not the funnest haha, but once we get going it feels good and we tend to have more energy throughout the day.

We went tracting last night and there were many nice people that we met, we met one guy who said we didn't believe in Jesus Christ and that the Book of Mormon should be burned so that hurt, but we read 2 Nephi 25:26  "And we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins" and he didn't have much to say after that and our testimonies that we shared, it got kinda fiery so I feel bad on that aspect but I wish people wouldn't assume and make judgements on stuff they don't know what they are talking about. We did service and loaded about 12 trucks full of wood for widows and if needed, people in the community, to use for firewood. The Colangelos still have a ways to go but we are fasting and praying for them and trying to help them make and keep commitments, we will be more bold with them this week so hopefully they are ready for it. We also put another lady on date for the 20th of this month, she is an older lady super nice, Audrey, so hopefully she will also keep her commitments as well. basically we are going to be bold and go crazy this week with our work and find new people and bring fallen away people back to Christ. It will be a good week. 

I am grateful for the temple and super excited to go this week, we as missionaries and even as members of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and even as Christians or even human beings,need to always be purifying and perfecting ourselves, becoming better people, loving, helping, serving one another. We won't be perfect in this life but we are commanded to be perfect, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." We can't be perfect all at once but line upon line precept upon precept we can be. We can be perfect in our daily prayer, daily scripture reading, perfect in our home and visiting teaching, so there are some things we can be perfect in.

 

I love you all and know we can all be more Christlike as we purify ourselves.

Have a wonderful week 

Love,

Elder David Witt

Small Town

Well familia,

I said goodbye to Missoula it was sad but that's alright more to this journey ahead of me. Even though today is the first day the sun has been shinning I love Townsend. it has been rainy and there is snow on the mountains, I am not ready for that! but yeah there are some cool people here.

There is the Colangelo family (like michael Angelo..lol)  so the missionaries fasted for a family to find, and on Easter they knocked on their door, turns out the grandma is less-active and is now reactivated and then a few weeks later the 3 boys(9th, 6th and 2nd grade) got baptized not too long ago, the parents are working on stuff but have a date set for the end of September so that is pretty awesome, all of the members I have met are pretty awesome too and I like the city but I like the small town feel too, where everyone knows everyone and you wave to your neighbor and everyone is just nice ya know? its nice. anyway

We actually cover a branch as well, white sulphur springs and is about 40 miles away form here. We go there every other week and there are only like 3 families that go..so it is super small ha we meet in a community center. It was interesting after church people from White Sulphur gathered at the building we meet in and we had a pot luck to welcome in the new Catholic Father, so that was interesting ha he seems like a nice guy though.

My new companion Elder Egan is from Cedar City (enoch) and has been out for about the same time that I have been out. He is pretty awesome and wants to do cross or track for college at UVU (no we dont run in the mornings ha though we probably should) 

We are going on a temple trip as a zone next week so I am super excited about that, I havent been since the MTC so it will be good. 

but yeah so far so good. love you all and hope you have a superb week, hopefully my ipad sends these pics to my email so I can send at least one to yall. 

love Elder David Witt

Another Transfer.....

Holy smokes, I totally thought Elder Horsley and I were going to spend another transfer together, but it looks like not, he is gonna be training someone and I will be in Trailsend..not sure where it is but I know it is east of Helena and really small haha

but it was a nice week this past week, we taught Amber again and hopefully she read the Book of Mormon she has been super busy packing and getting ready to move (she moved this saturday) but thankfully she only moved a few streets over (she now lives on Amber Court how fitting haha) we felt like we should go visit someone on the ward list who we had tried before but didnt answer and this lady answered and said she is from arizona and is here to help her son and his family for the summer, she said she was having a super hard day and was stressing out and saw us walk by earlier through the window and was hoping that we would stop by and low and behold we did, it was cool. we told her that even though she lives in Arizona (she still calls her visiting teaching people and such while she is here) that she needs to come to church here. she said it is hard when everyone's work schedule is so crazy but she would try. 

sayin bye to Mike

We did some service and laid sod, which was a first haha at first it looked awful cause we didnt really know what we were doing but towards the end and when we finished it looked pretty dang good! haha  

We sang at a funeral this week for someone in the other ward, they wanted all of the missionaries to sing, it was actually pretty cool though because most of the ladies family were not members. I am so grateful for the knowledge we have of the plan of salvation and for the priesthood authority which we have to seal people on earth and in heaven so we can live with our families forever. 

We read with Eric this week since he said the Book of Mormon was kinda hard to understand, so that was good. He is awesome and at the end he is like I bought this pizza for you guys haha He is shweet! we also went over to his church because they were doing a little party carnival thing so we went and he gave us a tour and it didnt really feel like a church, it was a super nice building but yeah it was different ha 

Saturday we went to the farmers market and I was wearing my Russian nametag, we went up to this one lady (she had a scarf on her head) so i asked where she was from, it was super hard to understand her russian haha but she was nice, then i felt like we should go over to this other booth and we were lookin and we bought some cinnamon rolls and she said so do you know russian so i talked to her for a sec then we kept walking and I asked this other russian lady if she was Pasha's mom (I have an awesome story about them in one sec) and she was and she was super excited to see us and we bought some bread and rolls and she gave me an extra one for free, it was AWESOME! it was cool to speak some russian. So back to Pasha and Stephan, they called us one night and invited us over for dinner for the next day so we were super stoked and it was so good, they made borscht and I loved it. they are such a cute little family (hopefully i can get a picture with them tonight) they are super involved with their church so not too much progress but hey you never know, they are nice though and we were glad to hear from them! Pasha told us her mom sold stuff at the farmers market so she told us to look for her. 

Then saturday night we got to go to the Osprey game. Our stake was having a "mormon night"  so we had a bbq then went to the game.  They are about as good as the Bees (not very haha) but it was fun though and it was good that other people got to see us doing something normal.

Karyn and Jeff- awesome less active people who will one day be sealed, and of course their cat..peter parker

I am nervous and excited to get transferred it is weird companion 9, city 6 and almost a year, change is life. 

Love you all and hope you have a great week.

Love,
Elder David Witt

ps i hope you havent sent anything i will get you my new address next week