Sunny Days

The sun is finally working! The sun is out and it is warm. It has been so nice! It has made it easier to ride our bikes. 

We had a lesson with the people we tracted into last week whose nephew is on a mission in Germany. It was a great lesson and they are super nice people. Brother Cik came with us and he is a quieter guy, so it was awesome to see him bare such a powerful testimony of the truthfulness of the church and Book of Mormon. It is always awesome when members come with us and do that. 

We were riding our bikes on day and I felt like we should go to the other side of town to try a part member family. As we were riding we passed the house of a potential investigator who we met a few months ago and I felt like we should go try him, so we did, he was home and we talked to him for about 40 minutes and he was saying how he has read the Book of Mormon and really likes our church. We talked about the plan of salvation, since he mentioned some people just died, Elder Lancaster committed him to read alma 40 and when we went back a few days later he said he read it, then his wife read it to him and he is going to read it again. Haha super awesome. It is wonderful that the Book of Mormon gives us additional knowledge about the plan of salvation. 

The Luis girls and Denna boys are doing well, they came to church and we had great lessons with them. 

We were tracting and no one was really home or the people that were weren't super nice. I just wanted to be done and do some other finding but we kept going and knocked on this ladies door and she said oh Elders! She was super excited to see us since she had met with missionaries 5 years ago and was hoping to get back into the lessons and such. 

We had zone training this week with all of the missionaries, it went well. 

Yeah good week, nice and sunny. 

Love ya have a good week!

 

Love Elder David Witt

Just some borscht and Russian candy with старейшина Barney

Just FYI
Elder Barney isn't my companion, we were just eating lunch with the
other elders. And he is doing the Russian smile and I'm not sure what
I'm doing with my smile...haha
Love you guys

 Golfing last week

Let's go ride a Bike

A busy awesome week. We rode at least a couple hundred miles on our bikes, not exaggerating. It has been kinda windy and chilly but it is still nice to get out and ride. 

We had quite a few lessons set up and did quite a bit of finding, which has filled up our next week with return appointments. So next week is looking great too. 

Since we have been riding our bikes we have been extra tired but as we have pushed through and relied on the enabling act of the Atonement, we were able to make it through this week. We were able to keep going even though we didn't feel like it. 

One of the nights we were tracting we all felt like we should go down this street (the assistants came on exchanges with everyone in our zone and one of them was with us for the day) so we did we knocked on this door and these old people let us in. They said they weren't super interested in coming to our church or anything but we could come back and share what they believe. They said they have a nephew who is on a mission in Germany, I kept getting the promoting to tell them us knocking on their door and them answering and letting us in was an answer to their nephews prayer. I pray for the same things, so I am glad we listened to the promptings to go down that street. 

We had interviews with President Holmes, one of the counselors in the mission presidency. It was always good to have interviews, it will be weird when we do interviews with President Mecham because it will be the last one with him before he goes home. 

And the most exciting part, the highlight of this week, Courtney and Marcie were able to get baptized! And Bryan, Marcie's husband and Courtney's step dad) was able to baptize them! He ward has been really involved and I have been so blessed to be able to serve here and teach people who are so prepared. 

The Luis came to church, Jeff and Lisa we can't get ahold of them, the Denna boys were with family, we found another YSA girl who referred herself when she went to SLC and temple square. While there wishes watched meet the Mormons, the restoration and because he lives. She is super prepared it is awesome. And Taylor the other YSA girl is going to meet with us  again after dropping us! So it has been an awesome week! Super exciting! The Lord is definitely blessing us and hastening His work!

We are going golfing today so that should be fun! Love y'all and hope you have a good week!

Love Elder David Witt

He Lives

Он воскрес

истина, Он воскрес

A common greeting around  his time of year in Ukraine. 

What another good week. 

Just to let you all know about the weather here, it is snowing. It is snowing a lot! 

Last week we were walking down road forever not sure exactly where we were, people were yelling at us shouting rude things haha, least to say we were not feeling it. Then we saw this lady on her porch and we asked if she wanted to watch a video about Easter, at first she said no then after taking to her and having her understand our beliefs a little more she said yes, and then her husband watches it. Super nice people and we have an appointment with them this week. Then we saw some motels across the street and we knocked on the first door, these people were using heavy drugs, they said they were atheist, my companion said meh lets just go. I said one more and behind the door was Jeff a super less active member, he said he just got done praying for direction then we knocked on his door. His wife is coming back from rehab and it was a really neat experience to meet him. 

Luis family is progressing alright, the Irwins are doing awesome and are ready for their baptism Saturday. We also taught these two boys, who their parents aren't active, at their grandparents house, they seem pretty solid. 

I loved General conference! The power and authority at they have is wonderful. I know that we have a living prophet on the earth today and the quorum of the 12 apostles really have been called of God. Just a few main points of what I really enjoyed/learned, 

Live the law of the fast, take root and be converted, have an eternal perspective, if we fear we are lacking faith, families,marriage is important (scary to think about but it's gonna be here sooner than later haha), dance to the music, be a saint (a sinner who keeps on trying), follow the Son, seek the kingdom of God, have righteous desires, grace, power of the priesthood is important, labor today, Jesus Christ and how he grabs onto our wrists as we are falling to our death (heart racer), build your life on our covenants, keep the sabbath day holy. 

During the last session of general conference we got to watch it with Ruth, the less active lady we tracted into last week, she really enjoyed it. Sister Cik came with us, and we are glad she did, she's a great fellowshipper. 

We did this thing Easter week from helives.mormon.org. Got to understand his life and atonement a little better. I was reading something about the sacrament and atonement and I thought about the sacrament and how there is broken bread  like his broken skin, he can enable us cause he has felt it all, the water, his blood, his suffering in Gethsemane so we can be redeemed. Cool thing I realized this week. I love this time of year.

Love you all and hope you have a great week!! 

Love the Elder David Witt

Happy Easter!

Well I apologize for not sending a letter last week. It has been a busy last 2 weeks. 

Before transfers We had to make sure all of the area from Polson to Eureka had bikes in their areas since its that time of year, so we drove all over our zone moving bikes around and such. It is getting to the point where driving long distances doesn't really seem that long. While Elder Burnham was packing and such I was cleaning up our living quarters and getting things ready to move to the Wehrli's. It was sad to leave the Ciks, they are so awesome and I was so glad I got to live there with them. I love their family. I was super sad to leave but the Wehrlis are a great family. Brother Wehrli is our ward mission leader so it will be good to correlate more things with him. They have 4 kids 2 are moved out, the others are a little bit older but still live there. Transfers came and it was good to see a couple familiar faces and talk with them. I heard Townsend is doing great and good things are happening there, so that was fun to hear. I love that town. 

Every transfer day the zone has a dinner with President Clark, the Stake President, and our ward mission leaders and go over the vision for our stake and things we want to do to help the work move forward. One of the biggest things we are doing is family mission plans, which I am pretty sure I have already explained. It's pretty sweet. President Clark is a great example and there is tons of work here so I am excited I get to be here in this stake another transfer. The Irwin family is doing great there is an assigned fellowship family who we are going to go to their house and have the lessons and FHE so that has been going great! We are teaching another YSA girl, Taylor, her friend is a member and started talking about church and so she wanted to learn more. The lessons with her have been going well. 

We had Stake conference last weekend. We went to all of the sessions so it was a lot of meetings but it was really awesome. Elder Hilliard, from the 70 came and spoke. During the Priesthood/leadership session they talked about the Priesthood power and authority, that the authority is always there but the power comes from our obedience and worthiness. I really had my testimony reaffirmed of the power and reality of the priesthood.

 It is awesome that everything we do in the church is the exact same things we do on a mission, I wish I would have realized that before so I would have been more excited about doing it (collecting fast offerings, home/visiting teaching, serving others, talking to people) you do that on the mission and after, and what a good opportunity to prepare for before as well. 

The YSA branch sung in the evening session and asked us to sing with them. It was a good opportunity. The chorus was really powerful as the congregation sang with us in the fourth verse. "Hope of Israel, rise in might, With the sword of truth and right; Sound the war-cry, “Watch and pray!” Vanquish ev’ry foe today. " sound the war cry watch and pray. We are as the army of Heleman. We are all missionaries and on the Lord's side. Great song. 

President and Sister Mecham spoke and it is always good to see and hear them. I love them. They talked about, yet again, another principle that we do on the mission that we do after as well, which is working on councils. As the mission leadership council works together, the work moves a lot better, just as ward councils work together the ward runs a lot smother. I just love that everything we are doing on the mission is preparing us for the rest of our lives, physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. Which is what we talked about at our zone conference this past week as well. It was on Tuesday and we talked about companionship and loving more. Which we can do through praying and reading our scriptures together, which is (I'm not sure I've never been there but I've heard) what best strengthens marriages. It was pretty cool the night before I had been praying for direction and a vision/goal of where I needed to be and I didn't feel like I got any direction right there. But during the meeting I felt like I really got an answer, I think I have a vision of what I want to do. I just need to love everyone more and forgive always. Like Elder Klebingat said "Forgive everyone, everything, all the time, or at least strive to do so, thus allowing forgiveness into your own life. Don’t hold grudges, don’t be easily offended, forgive and forget quickly, and don’t ever think that you are exempt from this commandment." Love and forgiveness will bring more happiness. 

President Mecham also said something that was neat that I liked, "Discipleship isn't about doing its about becoming" it's not just a checklist to get things done, but it is the change that we make everyday. 

We had MLC the next day and those are always good. Helps me want to help me in my companionship and by doing so help our zone. 

We had a lesson with someone but it fell through and the priest that was with us, he is going to start his papers to go on his mission, was like I'm free tonight, so he went out tracting with us ha, it was pretty sweet we also felt like we should contact a media referral we got, so we did and it was two teenage less active boys and it was cool to see this priest testify of the Book of Mormon and importance of missions. Good experience for us and him. 

It was a neat experience when one morning my companion and I studied a talk from the new Ensign something about weakness vs. sin. And then that night we were able to share it with a less active we went to visit, it was truly inspired and great how the Lord prepared us. 

Now a couple tracting experiences that happened this week haha

One day we were out for a bit and the neighborhood we were in everyone we talked to was being so rude and we were like well good thing we have an appointment we are going to we don't have to keep talking to these people. So we were walking back to our car not really in the mood to teach at our next lesson when this lady behind us shouted hey at us. We glanced at her but assumed she wasn't talking to us so we kept walking, then she said it again and knew she was making eye contact and looking at us. So we turned around and talked to her and she was super nice asking us what we were sharing. she was wearing a hat that said "forgiveness" and "I love Jesus" we were like sweet hat! And she asked us if we wanted, we said of course and she gave us some I love Jesus hats, turned our not so good day all around. I love nice people. 

Then last night we were tracting and the same thing happened, no one was super interested and we were going to go back to the car to try some other people, but I felt we should go down this street, so we did, the first guy opened it up and saw who we were and said oh! And shut it haha then the next guy watched the video we were showing and was super nice, talked about his church and we talked about ours, just a great exchange of beliefs. Then we knocked on one more door and the lady was like who are you and we told her and she said oh you're mormon! I am too come in! Haha she is 87 years old and in way good health, she was baptized when she was 8 and wasn't really ever active. We talked to her and showed her the Easter video and invited her to watch general conference next week. She said she would and we are going to watch one of the sessions with her and she said she wants to feed us lunch. 

It is so awesome how the the Spirit can direct us where to go. There are good thing, better things and best things. The best thing to do was keep tracting and we had a lot of success. The joy as we talk about the gospel to people and  how I feel is indescribable. I love it so much. 

I am thrilled to listen to General Conference this weekend, to hear the Prophet's voice and other leaders of our church. What a great opportunity we have. 

The Easter video I have been talking about it on helives.mormon.org such a great website that shows the video, talks about the saviors last week and ways to share it, I exhort you to go there and share the video and post a #heishere pic (you'll understand when you go to the website)

I love you and hop you have a superb week and a great Easter. 

Love, 

Elder David Witt 

I'll stay in Kalispell with newest member...Ryan

Lots of exciting things happened this past week. The missionaries in the first ward got in contact with a less active YSA and since we cover YSA they passed him to us and we taught him. He grew up in Utah then his mom moved up here. He has had a super rough past but is turning his life around. It was awesome we invited him to institute and most of the time when we invite people to activities then they say they will come then not show up, but he did and he stayed for the activity afterward and met a ton of other kids. It was pretty sweet. 

We got out with our ward mission leader and there are supposed to be more ward missionaries but only one shows up, and I felt like I should go with him to visit this less active that had moved in after Christmas. We had been trying to set up an appointment but he kept rescheduling so we stopped by with this member and they both are doctors that practice nature stuff. I think Homeopathy. So they both really connected and it was a good discussion. 

Elder Beck my companion in frenchtown was serving down in Polson, which is the south end of our zone and he finished his mission the transfer so his companion was companionless. So President Mecham asked me to go down and have Elder Burnham stay up here with first ward. I was nervous that I was going to get transferred down to Polson. We taught a bunch of lessons and they were working with tons of less actives down there. They aren't really progressing less actives but hey hopefully one day. All of that area is an Indian reservation and there is one city in Polson called Pablo that is run down, it is kinda sad, not too far away from a pretty nice part there are a bunch of less fortunate people that live there. Kinda reminded me of Ukraine a bit. We tried some members who lived down there but they weren't home.

 

Then we got transfer info on Sunday and I am staying in Kalispell. There are tons of other changes going on, lots of missionaries getting switched out and lots of areas having the missionaries being taken out and one set will confer multiple areas. With the decrease in the number of missionaries, more and more multiple areas/units will be covered by one set of missionaries. I will be getting a missionary from Missoula who was elder buntock's companion. 

And the best news of all. Ryan was baptized! He was supposed to be baptized at the beginning of the year but it kept getting pushed back. He is such a funny kid. His dad baptized him and his mom totally, as well as everyone else who was there, felt the Spirit super strong. It was a neat experience. It was a pretty awesome week. We will see if I have  companion for more than 9 weeks haha I thought Elder Burnham and I were staying but I guess not. I am so glad I am staying here in Kalispell. Hope y'all have a great St. Patrick's day and a great week.

Love ya

Love Elder David Witt 

Restart, Refresh, Repent

Well this is a new experience, getting to email from my iPad! 

Like I said in my last email home, we had an all mission meeting this past week. Elder W. Craig Zwick from the 70 came and spoke to us. He got there and wanted to shake everyone's hand so everyone in the mission went through and said hi and shook his hand. It is always a pleasure to do that, you could feel his authority and power because of his calling. The meeting was  centered around our iPads, but he talked about other stuff as well which was pretty sweet. He talked about change and having a pure heart.  He kept saying we have to be willing to change. Someone else in a mother meeting reviewing this meeting said change isn't a choice in the gospel. It is so true, we are always learning and changing and trying to grow and become more like our Savior. Elder Zwick was saying how the training and habits we develop with our iPads now should prepare us not only while we use them on the mission but for the rest of our lives. We need to learn how to use self mastery and not get sucked in to always using technology(or always being on our IPad or whatever it is), we should never be its slave. It really is cool that we are using our iPads to help train us for the rest of our lives, so we can use them appropriately. Another things that was mentioned and has become our slogan "restart, refresh, repent" all of us can apply this. We used this slogan because all missionaries regardless if they had an iPad or not will get one and we will all restart our use using the iPad, in hopes they will be used more effectively.

This scripture was shared during the meeting  "Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart." 2 Corinthians 3:3. We talked about writing our promises and covenants on the fleshy tables of our hearts because if we do it this way rather on stone it will be in our hearts, we can more easily Aline with them and they will shape us to who we need to be. I wish I could describe the Spirit that was there. With so many missionaries and a general authority, there was a great power. Especially when he bore his testimony and gave his special witness of our Savior. It was a great meeting. 

Afterwards the MLC stayed and we set up our new iPads, then the next day we had another meeting with the MLC going over using our iPads and such, that lasted all day, then we had our zone council meeting with the district leaders and sister training leader and talked about what we talked about in our meeting the day before. 

We took Elder Barney, 1 of the 6 from Ukraine, with us for the day and his companion went with the missionaries in the other ward. It was fun to speak the little Russian we remember haha then on Saturday we had our zone interviews with President Holmes, he is in he mission Presidency, he and his wife are so nice and funny. He was telling us how President Mecham called him to be his counselor and he said that President Mecham saw him at the temple and felt impressed that he was the one. President Mecham is awesome, super inspired. Then afterwards we had to take the Eureka missionaries who live right by the Canadian boarder, home since they don't have a car. So this week was a lot of driving then meetings then more driving and meetings. It was a really good week though, very uplifting and motivating. 

Yesterday we spoke in YSA the Branch President took forever telling a story then Elder auburn ham took some time so I literally had 5 minutes haha I summarized what I was going to share about the tree of life. I quoted Elder Klebingat about accepting trials, surprises and setbacks and compared it to the mists of darkness and how we need to keep pressing forward. I talked about how we have partaken of the delicious fruit and we have to beckon to others just as Lehi did to come partake, we can't be good examples all the time, more often times then not we need to act, or beckon to our friends and family to partake. I told the story of саня (sanya) from Ukraine and how he read the Book of Mormon and started to change his life he knew the gospel made him happy, so he carried his copy of the Book of Mormon around all the time and was always telling his friends to meet with us and listen to us. We need to be like саня. 

This past week we finally met with a family who moved here a while ago the dad is a returning member his wife and step daughter are not members. They showed up to church a few weeks ago and we taught them the restoration on Tuesday. The spirit was super strong and they are so prepared, when we invited them to be baptized and they both said yes that would be wonderful! It was so great! 

This week was long and wonderful. Love you all and hope you have a great week! 

С любовью,  

Старейшина Дэвид Витт 

Salvation is not cheap

well this week kinda flew by

We had FHE with the Boyce's, an awesome family in the ward, we had dinner then a lesson. Irene and Zamuel and Zirene were there. It was fun and a good lesson. We taught the Restoration and used cups to depict the apostasy and restoration, it was a good connection and I think everyone enjoyed it. It is always tricky to teach kids and have them stay focused and engaged, but it turned out. 

The Luis family is doing well, we taught them the plan of salvation, they werent at church unfortunately but we have an appointment set up with them again. 

Ryan the 9 year old whose dad is a member is doing great, he is so smart and has tons of scriptures memorized, he should be getting baptized in a couple weeks. We watched the restoration video last night, it was pretty powerful, gotta love the Spirit testifying of the truthfulness of that spring morning. 

We went down to Lakeside and visited some people down there, hopefully we can go once a week and try to get more things rollin there. 

It is always a bummer when our 7 and 8 o' clock appointments fall through since it is a little too dark and late to go tracting, but we just look of pm families or sometimes tract anyway ha.

Sundays are always a good day, I love them. Bro Wehrli our WML was tellin us a story about something that happened at work and to make a long story short he quoted I stand all amazed and the lady he was talking to was calm and peaceful. I am grateful for that song and for the Atonement of Jesus Christ. It is so real, not only the redeeming power but the enabling power. Which reminds me of a quote by Elder Holland of something that I read this week, he said "Anyone who does any kind of missionary work will have occasion to ask, Why is this so hard? Why doesn’t it go better? Why can’t our success be more rapid? Why aren’t there more people joining the Church? It is the truth. We believe in angels. We trust in miracles. Why don’t people just flock to the font? Why isn’t the only risk in missionary work that of pneumonia from being soaking wet all day and all night in the baptismal font?..... I offer this as my personal feeling. I am convinced that missionary work is not easy because salvation is not a cheap experience.Salvation never was easy" so true. 

this week should be good with an all mission meeting about our iPads. 

 not looking for daylight savings, but hey it means spring is comin! 

hope yall have a great week, love ya

Love Elder David Witt