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

Howdy Partner

Привет

So basically hillside came crashing down. Tamie moved and when we went to see them on Wednesday, mike was like I need a break and lee hasn't been interested after his accident. We went for sacrament yesterday no one showed up and no one wanted to come when we asked haha but Elder Horsley and I both did our studies after that and we both read stuff  and were able to relate it to them and how I guess it's not their time and we have to love them no matter what, so I think we will give them some space then meet with them in a couple weeks. So that was all a bummer haha

Eric is awesome though, he said he was confused about some stuff but still wants us to keep coming over and he still wants to read the Book of Mormon so that's awesome! It doesn't help though that he reads a modern text Bible, but that's alright at least he is reading that too. He's super awesome though.
We taught Amber half of the plan of salvation and she liked it and wanted to know more about eternal families and such and we said perfect we will talk about that next time! She also felt bad she didn't do any reading and said she will, we have a lesson with her tonight so hopefully she did.

We went to lunch with Sister Hardenberg, the less active whose daughter is on a mission in California, someone else paid for us though so looks like she will have to take us out again haha but she is super nice, too bad she works out of town Sundays so it is hard for her to come to church, but maybe someday!
Stephan's lesson was better since I tried to control the conversation but he doesn't want to come to church or read the Book of Mormon and he said he doesn't know anyone else we could try to teach(Russian speaking) so we might not be meeting with him too much longer, so that kinda blows.

We went tracting last night and met some nice people who said we could come back then the last door we knocked on was a less active who hasn't ever had his records transferred and he said he wants to feed us sometime  so that was a good find!

We've been doing family mission plans with some members and that has been good, hopefully y'all have been doing some sort of missionary work.

We also got to help at the fair which was super fun! We helped at the Family history center, taking their pictures (western style) and helping people find some ancestors, so it was good. I traced our line all the way back to Adam and Eve again so that was sweet! And I had my fan chart pulled up and this lady walked by and said hey I know a J Burton Dickson and a Forde and Albert Dickson! Haha so I think grandpa is her uncle or something and turns out she has a granddaughter in our ward, (a family who we ate dinner with earlier this week) and so I guess we are related they said next time we go over for dinner we will have to compare our lines haha such a small world. Family history is cool in that aspect, kinda boring, but the stories are cool, hopefully I will be more involved when I get back home and maybe find some work to do for our ancestors (even though most of it has been done, I mean I went back to Adam and Eve! Ha)

there was a candy booth right across from us so i bought this humongous jawbreaker, I am still workin on it but 'll keep you posted on what happens with it! haha 

Love you all and hope you have a gr8 week!

с любовью,

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You know you're in Montana when...

Well folks, I cant believe it is already August. I have been awful at writing in my journal so it is hard to remember what I do specifically each day.(I am getting a voice recorder to just record what I did each day, hopefully that'll be faster than writing it down everyday. But anyway the Hillside people are rollin. lol they are doing well though, Tamie is moving this week, Lee came back from the hospital (he isnt too interested in meeting with us but he still came to sacrament!) Gloria came to sacrament, she said she would read this week, Marie was there, Mike, the less active who is becoming reactivated, was there and a new lady came, Velma. we usually have a mini sacrament meeting then have a lesson afterward, but I think we might have the sacrament and have it with talks and such then come back another day to teach a lesson, most of them like doing stuff in segments. Speaking of Hillside we totally played Bingo with them haha it was fun, every time someone wins they get a quarter and so I got Bingo and so the lady in charge was going to give me a quarter, but then someone playing started freaking out since I didnt live there but still was getting a quarter haha so I was like okay never mind ha but it was fun.

Bingo at Hillside! Mike (LA), Me, Lonna(LA) Gloria, Tamie and Lee ( the rest investigators) 

they do not mess around at Bingo! haha 

thankfully we get the car this week, no more riding up steep hills to only find the people we want to teach are not home haha 

I was on exchanges in Frenchtown again but with Elder Anthony. He is so funny we had fun plus I got to meet a bunch of people that I hadnt met before less actives and other people and stuff so that was really good! 

I am starting this new thing that Elder Anthony does.. and it was funny ..its

You know you're in Montana when..

so here is this weeks..

you know you're in Montana when this is the prettiest girl you see

Eric brought us a pizza for dinner one night, it was HUGE! and it was so good, he is the one who is awesome and gave us water and stuff (did I tell you about him?) It was cool cause Elder Horsley was fasting and Eric was one of the reasons, and lo and behold Eric brings us pizza pretty cool. 

Yesterday we walked from dinner to go find a less active person, turns out this person lived a lot further than we thought haha so we were walking down this street that turns into a highway and we are just walking into the middle of nowhere basically haha then this dude pulls up and is like hey you need a ride? we were still like 3 and a half miles away from where we thought it was haha so this guy was a member of the church but then they didnt feel comfortable so they moved and stopped going, but hey we found them and can move their records now! He was way cool and invited us over to his house sometime, so hopefully we can help them come back. the ride was nice because it was super hot and he had water in his car. 

Well thats about it for this week, hope yall have a good week!

love you lots

love Elder David Witt 

end goal = Eternal Families

A quick and good week here in Missoula. Last Monday Derrick the recent convert who went tracting with us, opened his call and is going to Hungry! How cool. I got a little jealous knowing that he was serving in Europe right next to Ukraine. Speaking of Ukraine, I got some awful news from Nadia and Olea that sister Lubov, from Lugansk, was at church, she said the prayer in sacrament then later on a bomb blew up and shrapnel went into her head and chest and killed her... How awful and miserable. It makes my heart hurt. I miss Ukraine and mourn for the people still there suffering. It is so so sad, I wish I could still be there.
But we know from the dedicatory prayer for missionary work in Ukraine, that temples will cover the land no matter what the land is called.

Some other sad news, our investigator Lee got off date. He told us that he talked to his family about joining the church and they said that he was turning his back on them and his Native American ancestry. It's like I wish your family knew that this Book is about your ancestors!! But we helped him understand that he needs to read the Book of Mormon and get a solid testimony then he will know that he can trust in the Lord and be an example and missionary for his family.

When we went to. Hillside manor then this other lady, Marie, (the first time she said she was 98 then she said she was 92 but she is nice and still walking around) came to our lesson with Mike and Lee, Tamie wasn't there but we were able to meet with her yesterday so it was good. We had sacrament there yesterday and some other people heard we were doing that they are like oh where is it? So a few other people who aren't members showed up to sacrament it was cool! Hillside is poppin haha

We found a ton of new people this week it was sweet.

We finally met a Russian referral that we got from our Stake President, we had been trying and trying to meet with her and we finally talked to her and she said she would take a Book of Mormon and read and pray about it.

 Then we found another girl who has friends who are members and on missions but hasn't been to church or met with the missionaries, she said she doesn't know if she can make it to the meeting we scheduled but hopefully it works out.

Then last week we talked to this guy, Eric, who gave us some water and said we could come back so we did and talked about the Book of Mormon he said he had a dream missionaries came to his house. He had some concerns about more scripture but he is solid so hopefully we can teach his whole family, it's exciting how awesome he is.

 Our Russian speaking investigator, Stephan, for some reason has been super hard to understand lately, it's frustrating, I just need to keep sharing things that will help him feel the Spirit, but he said he left his house then felt like he should go back home and after he got home we pulled up. So it was really cool. We were able to have the Spirit there as we read from the Book of Mormon and talked about service in King Benjamin's address and watched the video of the boys who put their silver dollar into the guys boots instead of hiding them, by President Hinckley.

the Nuke..a delicious sandwich from the Staggering Ox (Marcus has probably seen it on google maps..creep haha)

So something else cool happened, this lady from North Dakota moved here and she wanted to repay the missionaries since the ones there helped her move, so she referred herself. Long story short she said she wasn't interested in hearing the lessons but she wanted to feed us, so she did and we shared the Restoration and her and her daughters said they would read and pray about the Book of Mormon as well. So it was awesome.

We had zone conference this week and it was really good. We talked about how we, as well as our investigators need to always have the end goal in mind..Eternal Families. That is, or ought to be, our end goal, eternal life with our families. How great of a blessing is that, that through the restored gospel of Jesus Christ our families can be together FOREVER! It's awesome. I'm grateful for this knowledge.
On that note we went to Cafe rio this week, and I had a pork burrito, with BEANS! Ha it was alright, I'm know you're proud of me Mel ;) haha
Love you all hope you have a good week!

Love
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