Elder Robert Allen Pickett

Welcome Home Elder Pickett

2011-08-24T21:47:00.000-06:00

The morning of August 24th, we woke up to a phone call from Allen. He was calling from Miami to let us know that he had arrived in the USA safely. We were ecstatic to hear that he was once again on "friendly territory." I told him to quickly go and check on his next flight to make sure that he was checked in and had a seat. I asked him to call us back as soon as he was checked in. An hour later he called us and said, "I have bad news, my flight is cancelled." We thought he was kidding so we pressed him and he said that he was serious. He asked what to do. We were in shock. I called Church travel and they confirmed that his flight was cancelled and said they would re-schedule him for the next available flight, the next day! Jen was about to go ballistic so we asked Allen to go and see if they could get him a flight going elsewhere. He did go and speak to the desk people and they got him on stand-by for a flight to Minneapolis. He checked into that flight and waited nervously for his name to be called. We were even more nervous because we didn't know if he was going to make the flight or not. When the flight departed we braced ourselves for the "I didn't make it" phone call but it never came. We crossed our fingers and waited for a couple of hours. Allen called us from Minneapolis and said that he made it there and the chances looked good for him to make the last leg to SLC. Sure enough, he made the flight and eventually landed in SLC, 4 hours after his original time. Those 4 hours seemed like an eternity for us. We went to airport and were joined by Claralina and her kids, also Saul and Simon, my friend from England who arrived 10 minutes before Allen. We waited in Terminal 2 with a homemade sign, balloons, Argentine soccer jerseys, etc. We nervously scanned every person coming down wearing a suit and tie. After what seemed like an eternity Jennifer let out a scream and we knew what she saw. We all looked up and there was Allen coming down. We all cheered.

The first sight of AllenMarcos ran up and met him at the base of the escalator and got the first hug. Then one by one we took our turns hugging him. It was quite an exciting moment for all of us. We went to look for his luggage but the suitcases didn't make the flight. He filled out the necessary paperwork and then we went home.

Jennifer gets her hug

The family together againPresident Hall came over about 30 minutes after we got home. He asked to interview Allen but he asked to do it in front of all of us. So Allen stood and answered questions from President Hall regarding his mission and his growth. For 30 minutes Allen bore fervent testimony of the power of the Atonement and how he was becoming more Christlike. He bore testimony of the importance of continuing our growth. By the time he was done we were all in tears, grateful for the wonderful spirit that was in our home. President Hall then asked for private time with Allen so they went downstairs to talk. They spent 10 minutes alone and then they returned and our elder Pickett was once again Allen Pickett. What a sweet experience.

Decorated HouseAllen spoke in church the following Sunday and we had a family and friend get-together after the block. Very few stuck around for that as they are more accustomed to leaving church after Sacrament meeting. We had a great time with those that came by to visit.Allen is now attending Salt Lake Business College on a returned missionary scholarship.

Pastores Tour

2011-08-22T15:35:00.018-06:00

This is taken from the blog of President and Sister Carter and pictures sent to us by Allen:

A pastor is a shepherd in Spanish. In our mission, a pastor or rather “the pastores” are the missionaries that are just completing their mission going off into another field. Since downtown Buenos Aires, is not part of our mission, we have a special day for the elders to get to know the city from whence the name of their Province and Mission came.

Today’s tour started in Plaza de Mayo where we learned a little about the history of the capitol and viewed some of the buildings surrounding the plaza including The Casa Rosada and the Catedral Metropolitana.

Elders Oliverson, Nuttall, Pickett, Albornoz, Lewis, Cruz, King, Horrocks, Bennett and Millard.

Elder Pickett

Catedral Metropolitana

Plaza de Mayo

Rumbo al Obelisco

We learned about the 3 million immigrants that came to the southern quarter of Buenos Aires and took a drive through St. Telmo and stopped off in La Boca. The immigrants used discarded paint and materials from the shipyards to make their homes.

La Boca

La Boca

Elder Pickett in La Boca

The original warehouses at the port have all been redone and Puerto Madero has been turned into beautiful office blocks and restaurants. We had lunch at Siga La Vaca. They claim to be the largest parrilla in Argentina.

Siga La Vaca restaurant

The missionaries consumed an incredible amount of food there! We walked along the dock and visited the Fragata Sarmiento.

ARA Presidente Sarmiento

From the ship you can get some great pictures of the Puente de la Mujer, with its unusual forward cantilever. It is called the “Woman’s Bridge” because many of the streets in the district are named after women. Presidente is enjoying the day, but there are missionaries with questions to be answered, so he pauses from time to time to address their questions.

President Carter taking care of missionaries concerns

At the Parque 3 de Febrero, Presidente recounted the story of the dedication, officially opening the continent of South America to the preaching of the gospel. It was on December 25, 1925, Christmas morning, “a beautifully warm and sunny summer day.” We had our own wintery, but beautiful spiritual experience, when Elder Horrocks offered a prayer.

Parque 3 de Febrero

Elder Pickett at Parque 3 de Febrero

Parque 3 de Febrero

We went to the Cementerio de la Recoleta and viewed the burial grounds for the rich and famous in the country.

Cementerio de la Recoleta

And…

lastly, we stopped off at Freddos, probably the most famous of the artisanal ice cream parlors.

Freddo's Ice Cream

Last Letter

2011-08-16T10:05:00.005-06:00

Dear Everyone,

Well, This is my last email that I am sending out. This is so weird that it has ended but you know the saying, all good things come to an end. It is hard to write how grateful I am for the time I have spent here. It has really been the best 2 years so far in my life. Pretty cliché but it's the truth.

Packing my things the other night was really weird looking at all my clothes that I have used. How worn out they all are! jaja. My shirts are more yellow, socks have holes, pants have holes and are worn out a lot... wow.

Yesterday we went to the mission home and we had a nice time there. We ate some real mashed potatoes. Made with real potatoes.. jaja. Not instant! And some really good chicken. Then some chocolate cake. We just got treated really really well. We then a nice testimony meeting and rested a little. Then off to the airport with a majority of them. It was sad to see them leave but they all live in Utah so it's all good. I am staying here in the offices for a week until it's my turn to go home.

Now for my last day in Lobos. We decided to have 3 baptisms my last day in Lobos. But a miracle that happened. A really small one but it was really big for me and comp. So in Lobos we have a little swimming pool we'll say. And we fill it up with the water from the tap. So it takes a long time to fill it up. It takes 5-6 hours to fill up. So Saturday in the night we filled it up for an hour to cut some time for the next day. We filled it with warm/hot water. It cooled down a lot when we got to the church the next morning at 6 in the morning. Before we left the apartment to go to church, my comp and I said a prayer that we would have hot water for the baptism. The girls that we were going to baptize didn't want to get baptized if the water was cold. So we, at least I, were hoping for a miracle and we received one.

The water heater in Lobos works on a "D" battery and the battery was about dead when we started heating up the water. The battery would shut off every 5-10 minutes. So I was stressing out because the water kept becoming cold so I was worried. But I kept with the water heater during all the classes. Then during the 2nd hour, I went outside to check the battery to see if I needed to shake it again, but to my surprise it was still on after 15 minutes. I then checked half hour after and it was still on! It stayed on until I turned it off and we had hot water to have our 3 baptisms. How grateful I am for the littlest of miracles I have seen on my mission. Little stories like these I will always remember. They remind me of how much God loves us and wants the best for us. He desires to give us his best gifts. We must seek for the best gifts and not somethings outrageous.

I am grateful for all the things I have learned on my mission and am ready to apply them in my life. I can't say enough thank yous. Really I appreciate all that you have done for me. If there is something that I can do for you all, let me know and I'll tell you if I can do it jaja. I love you all and I'll see you next week!!!

AAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!

Love,

Elder Pickett

Happy Birthday week...

2011-08-08T11:35:00.001-06:00

Dear Everyone,

Well, we are coming down to the wire now. We are down to two weeks left in good ole Argentina. It’s sad but true. We had a baptism this past weekend. We were pretty happy about it. We also had 22 people in church yesterday. Two investigating families. It was pretty cool. You can say we had a pretty successful weekend. We now are planning on 3 baptisms this next Sunday. We hope that everything turns out good. We are trying to do everything we can so that this place can progress. It has been hard but it has really improved. I am happy for everything that has happened out here. I really love the people out here in Lobos. They are very special to me. I’m glad I had the privilege of serving them.

This next week is my birthday and we have a couple of lunches and dinners set up to celebrate it. But it’s going to be really low key. Nothing much is going on. Just enjoying the mission and all that it brings. Excited to see everyone in two weeks but at the same sad because it’s come to end. I have thoroughly enjoyed my time here in Argentina. We are going to give it all we got these last two weeks and we are going to have success.

But remember that it doesn’t stop once the mission is over. Gotta keep working in the Lord’s work after. Let us all remember that we have to be working for the Lord at all times. We members have an obligation to help people come unto Christ. I have realized while being on the mission that we have a huge responsibility as members. We must know that we are not to just be hearers of the word but also doers of the word also. We need to be proactive in the work of the Lord. People who just sit there and do nothing but go to church and listen, aren’t completing with their part as members. Being a member is a privilege. We need to live worthily of that privilege. We are members of the only true church of Jesus Christ. Let us live up to that name. Plus, it’s fun helping others come unto Christ. All the ex missionaries know how much joy it brings. But let’s try to be a little better. I’ll try to be better also.

Thanks for the support from everyone. I was going to send pics but my computer didn’t work today so I’ll be sending some the next time. I love you all and hope you all have a great week.

Love

Elder Pickett

Happy August... 3 weeks left!!!! AH!

2011-08-01T18:18:00.002-06:00

Dear Everyone,

So we had a pretty good week despite all that we did and all that happened this week. We had a fairly normal week. We took out two more baptismal dates with the daughters of an investigating family. The parents aren’t married and so they can’t get baptized yet. They are very excited for their baptism and so are we! Haha. We have two baptisms this coming weekend. We are so excited because we have worked so hard to have these two. I am so happy that they are getting baptized. Its fun to get a couple of baptisms in before you hit the plane. Haha. We are just doing the best we can.

I’m trying to work as hard as I can these last couple of weeks. We had divisions this past week and I got sick the morning we had to change back. That would be Saturday morning. I got sick with stomach pains and I wasn’t feeling very good. Lucky you guys, I won’t go into details. Haha. But we stayed in the apartment all day Saturday and Sunday was hard to get through. But I did survive. We managed to get 13 people to church. Oh, and it was really cold, again. We got a young women’s president called. It’s the mom of our baptism this weekend. We are growing little by little. So far we have a president for RS, Primary and now YW. We just need more men now. We have 3 -5 active men in the branch. 2 of them are counselors, one is our mission leader, and the other is the secretary… ish. It’s kind of a weird situation but we are growing nevertheless.

We have found some pretty cool people this week also. We were walking in the street Wednesday and we walked by an accident that happened and the police officer that was standing guard called us over. We thought he was going to ask us for our documents (which we don’t have)but no. He asked us for something to read. We gave him the first lesson and he seemed interested. Who knows!? Maybe something might happen. We are going to pass by him this next week. But that is all exciting that happened this week.

Thank you all for your support and love. I will one day repay you all. One day. Not all at the same time. I love you all and hope you all have a great beginning of August and stay safe!

Love

Elder Pickett

Miracle in Lobos

2011-07-25T17:51:00.004-06:00

Dear Everyone,

Just another week here in Argentina. Not much time left so we are working harder. This past week we got cut a lot of time for traveling and meetings but we still managed to pull of some miracles. We had 5 investigators in church and 2 baptismal dates still. We had a surprise from a member when we brought a family of investigators. It was a couple but I say family because they had two little girls. They loved the church. We are having a lot of blessing here in Lobos. We also had 25 people in church. That is the most we have had since I have been here. It looks like all the work we are doing is paying off. We have been working really hard with the members and they are starting to come together. Now every Tuesday we have an activity for the branch. We are hoping to have a lot of success with that. We are so happy with the improvements we are seeing every day. I can’t explain how I feel because it’s so good. I am so happy with how everything is coming together.

It was also a good week with the weather. Except for today. Today it turned ugly. But winter ugly. Black clouds and wind and rain. I went to visit my old area Mariló and it was very short. We live so far away that we got there and we had to leave in 3 hours.

It was really hard to say goodbye to everyone in such a short time. But it was done. I had a great time passing through there and remembering everything that happened there. It was fun. I went to my Mami’s house to go visit the whole family and they were all there! That was so good to see everyone. Then we went to go see Yesica and she about screamed when she saw me. It was funny. I also about scared mami.

Elder Pickett saying "goodbye" to friends in Marilo

We then had to hurry back to Merlo to catch the train. We caught the train and now we are safely in Lobos again. There is a huge difference between the country and city. Haha. I got kind of nervous when I went back to the city. That’s kind of funny. I’m turning into a country boy. I can almost kill my own pig to eat… haha just kidding.

Well, that’s what happened this week. Only 4 weeks left so we are going to put the pedal to the metal and farther. We are going to have a couple of baptisms before I leave this country. We are going to do everything possible to help this area grow. I love you all and I hope everyone had a great Pioneer Day.

Love
Elder Pickett

It's raining...

2011-07-18T13:01:00.004-06:00

Dear Everyone,

Another week has gone and we are getting shorter on time. We had a couple of miracles happen this week. First off, we got a reference from a member that recently got baptized. The same member who has a daughter that we are trying to baptize. She took us over to her friend’s house because she said that her friend needed help and so we went. Turns out her friend was really prepared. We taught her the first lesson and she felt great and she really wanted to go to church. We passed by two days later to make plans to go to church. When we got there, she said to us “you won’t believe what has happened to me these past two days!” So she begins to tell us that they had a car they have been trying to sell for the past 6 months and it wouldn’t sell. The couple of days after our visit, they sold the car, she doesn’t say bad words anymore (which is miracle for her), and she has had more time to do things. She has a testimony of doing the things that the Lord wants us to do. During those two days, she read the pamphlet we left like 4 times and prayed after every time and she kept telling us that she felt different. She can’t stop telling us how different she feels. Well, to make a long story short, she came to church with her whole family except for the husband. She isn’t married to him but I just say husband to be quicker at writing. She loved church and so did her daughters that are old enough to get baptized. We hope to have them motivated enough to get baptized soon. Whether I’m here or not. We are still trucking along here trying to figure out a way to get more people to church. It’s hard but we can do it. We had 15 people in church yesterday. 5 of them were from the family we brought. Oh yeah, they came to church by themselves. That was also a miracle. Just little miracles we see.

From last week's service project

I also got the chance to meet my new mission president. He is a great guy. A really great guy. He is just a funny as President Benton. Ok, maybe not as funny but I just have to get used to him. I already have a great love for him. He has a great vision of what he wants and has a lot of energy to do work.

Well, that’s all I have this week. Next week I will be a little late writing because I’m going to be visiting one of my old areas. FUN!!! So, until next week, I love you all and be safe.

Love

Elder Pickett

Feliz 9 de Julio... last week

2011-07-11T10:27:00.004-06:00

Dear Everyone,

Another week has gone by. This past week we did a lot of service. We did about 15 hours worth of service and I am really tired. We cleaned the whole back of the church. There were trees everywhere. We cut down about 4 or 5 trees. With just a rusty old saw. That was pretty hard to do. We fell down a couple of times and got scratched a bit but it’s OK. It was a lot of fun. We also have two baptismal dates!!! Oh my goodness!! It’s a miracle! It’s with the daughter of a member and the niece of that same member. We have been having to go out to their house a lot. They live about 2-3 km away and we don’t have bikes so we have to walk a lot. We travel at least 10- 15 km on foot everyday. Then we take the bus to other parts of our area. It’s not anything new but it’s just another thing to talk about.

We had our activity for 9 de Julio. That was a lot of fun. We had ourselves a choriziada. We ate a lot of chorizo. I was so full that I could barely move. We had 21 people show up so that was a success.

Presidente Romero preparing the choripanes

Then we left that and we went to an investigating families house to visit them because they didn’t come to the party. When we got there, they had a pig on a rope. We asked them about the pig and they said that they were going to kill it and eat it. So we decided to stay and watch them kill the pig and skin it and they didn’t cook it until the next day but it was still pretty cool. I’m not going to lie. We didn’t get home until about 930 that night because they live so far away. Sunday we had 14 people in church. So people show up for food but not church. Oh well, that’s how it is. We have been trying to work with the members. This week in priesthood, we put a goal to look for one person on the ward list and start visiting them and helping them to come back to church. All of us (6 men) are really excited to start working like this. We have some mini companionships to go do visits. Kind of pathetic but we gotta start some where. We are really excited to help this branch move forward.

Thanks to all the wrote me. Abuelita y Grandpa, les amo muchisimo. Gracias por siempre estar procupados de mi y también todos en la familia. Tios, Tias, Primos y Primas, Muchas gracias por todo. En serio. Creo q voy a tener q babysit mucho en casa para pay you all back. Jaja. Well, I love you all and have a great week!!!

Love

Elder Pickett

A Short but Happy July

2011-07-05T10:47:00.003-06:00

Dear Everyone,

Well, it is the start of my last transfer of the mission. Wow, time has just flown by so fast that I haven’t been able to breathe or enjoy anything. This past week was just full of visiting people and doing service. We have been trying to help the same people with their problems and it seems that we have become really close with these people. They don’t want us to go and I don’t want to go either. I have grown to love this place. With all of its quirks.

Happy Elders, dirty lens

Just looking back on the mission and it is amazing what I have learned. Yesterday we had 16 in church. I had the opportunity again to give my testimony. Oh, so we had to do real fast divisions with the branch president. My comp and him went to go look for a family that had no way of going and I stayed and taught gospel doctrine. The branch president usually teaches gospel doctrine but since I can’t drive and neither can my comp, he had to take one of us to pick up the family and I chose to sit back and teach. I had no idea what the lesson would be on but I knew it was something from the New Testament. Well, I look at the manual and I see that the lesson is on the Atonement. Wow, what a lesson to teach without preparing for it. The branch president marked a lot of things in the manual so I took some of the things in the book and some of my own ideas. It turned out OK. Not too bad for a beginner.

Elder Pickett and crepes

The Copa America started and no one is really that interested in it. At least in my little pueblo, no one is interested. It has been so weird. I was expecting a full out celebration that Argentina is going to win etc, etc, etc. But no. Everyone pretty silent. The streets are getting more empty the more we get into winter. There aren’t very many people that are roaming the streets. I don’t blame them. Ha ha. It’s COLD!! Not much more to say. Just walking and teaching.

More happy Elders, and yes, more dirty lens

Thanks for all the support you all have shown me. Enjoy what little time you have without me because I’m coming hot! Ja ja I love you all.

Love

Elder Pickett

Finished June... July?

2011-06-28T21:55:00.004-06:00

Dear Everyone,

How is everyone doing? Everything is just going swell here in the land of the FREEZE!! Jaja. It has gotten pretty darn cold here. Looking at the temperatures it doesn’t look cold but with the wind and humidity… brrr. We are doing great here.

We are enjoying everything about Lobos. We are trying to do everything possible to help this branch out. These past weeks we have been helping the branch get organized. We have noticed that there were papers and documents everywhere that were not in files. So my companion and I have been doing that a lot this week and last. We have been updating a lot of things on the church system. A lot of things still have to be done but we are slowing getting things organized.

This past Thursday we had our last goodbyes with President Benton. It was really hard for me to say goodbye because he has been here all my mission. He is a really special man to me. I love him with all my heart. I ended up crying at the end because we sang, “God be with you ‘til we meet again” and that is a tough song to sing at a farewell.

Presidente Benton y Elder Pickett

Yesterday we had 11 people in sacrament meeting. It was the coldest it has ever been. I don’t know how cold but with 4 layers on top and on bottom, and scarf and hat, I was still really cold. We had to give unexpected talks. We got assigned during the first hour and so prepared talks. I gave mine on my hero Nephi. I explained that each of us have people that set examples for us. I gave an example of my parents who taught me how to give service and then of Big Mark who is so loving and kind to all. Then I explained all the examples that Nephi left us. How he was obedient and patient during affliction. I thought it was a good talk.

Then today we played some paddle ball. It’s like tennis with racquetball mixed. We wanted to do a little something because we have already done everything here in Lobos. Kind of depressing but maybe we’ll come up with something else..

Paddle!

Abuelita y Grandpa, welcome!! I’m so happy that there with be 2 Elder Pickett’s in Argentina. And there are 4 of us on the Pickett side that are on the mission. Holy cow! Thank you all that have written me. Going all out for the last 2 months!!! I love you all.

Love

Elder Pickett

Trunky Papers Arrived!

2011-06-20T17:48:00.002-06:00

We just received Allen's travel itinerary:

MISSIONARY TRAVEL
ARGENTINA BUENOS AIRES WEST MISSION

LANARGENTINA 23AUG BUENOS AIRE BA MIAMI FL 1030P 700A
4M 4520 TUESDAY PISTARINI MIAMI INTL 24AUG

AMERICAN AIRLINES 24AUG MIAMI FL DALLAS TX 1120A 125P
AA 320 WEDNESDAY MIAMI INTL DALLAS FT WORT

AMERICAN AIRLINES 24AUG DALLAS TX SALT LAKE C UT 300P 440P
AA 2527 WEDNESDAY DALLAS FT WORT INTL TERMINAL 1

We are smiling now.

It was a wet one....

2011-06-20T12:30:00.004-06:00

Dear Everyone,

Another week has past and it was a wet one at that. We had rain at least every day last week and it made things very complicated. I think I have said this many times that the rain does not help us in the work.. jaja. We visit members a lot because the branch needs a lot of help. We are, at the same time, looking for people to get baptized. At this point we are trying to help daughters of two members. It is kind of hard to baptize them because they don’t want to come to church right now because it is really cold in the mornings. And one of them is scared of what her friends will say if she becomes churchy and stuff so it’s kind of complicated but it will all work out. I know they will. The branch is moving really slow lately… We had 13 people in church yesterday, no thanks to the weather.

Yesterday in church we heard a talk from a member of the branch about obeying the Lord’s commandments. It was a really powerful talk that touched everyone’s hearts that were there. He talked about how we just need to do and not question what the Lord says. Have the attitude of Nephi, “I will go, I will do…” It’s hard at times but there is no other way to happiness. Happiness comes from keeping the commandments. It’s that easy. We just need to be humble and accept the will of God.

I got sick last week with a really bad cold that started last week when we went to the lake and I forgot my scarf. It got worse from there that on Wednesday I was just stuck in bad with my head all stuffed up and feverish. It was pretty bad but I got over it and now we are good. Like I said before it has gotten really cold and well, people get sick really easily out here. But here I am. Just working hard. This letter is pretty short because nothing really happened this past week. We’ll see if we can make something happen out here. It’s getting kind of stressful trying to get this branch going but I think it will come… sooner or later. Haha.

I hope everyone is great. By the sounds of it, everyone is doing just fine. We are on the second half of June… Almost July… wow. Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad. Hope you have a great day Friday. I love you all and have a great week!!

Love

Elder Pickett

Well, it's cold

2011-06-13T10:32:00.004-06:00

Dear Everyone,

Another week has past and here we are still. This past week was a pretty uneventful week but we’ll see what I can tell you guys. This past week we had our last interviews with President Benton. It is really sad that he is finishing the mission. I really love him more than anyone else out here. He is an amazing man. He and I talked about stuff after the mission… uh oh. We talked about setting high goals and keeping them high if we don’t reach them. If you don’t reach your really high goal the first time, you have to give more effort the second time, or third or until you reach it. We talked about other things like marriage and stuff like that. It was kind of funny to talk about that with him.

Then Saturday we had a couple of things happen. Well, we had lunch with a member who brought over her old friend. His name is Carlito and he is the oldest guy on the block. In fact, his dad owned the whole block that we were on. So this guy does not talk about religion. He talks about everything else but the thing is, he has a third grade education and he speaks like a criollo. And on top of that, he was drinking wine until it came out his ears. We were talking and laughing during lunch then he asked us if we want to go see his horse. We said of course and we went out and checked out his horse. Then he wanted us to take fotos with his horse and him. He was a little bit on the tipsy side and so it was kind of funny. He took some pictures with him then we told him to go on home and take the siesta and so he did.

Mate anyone?

Then we went to a birthday party of a member and that was a lot of fun except that we were fasting and she made 12 pizzas. Oh man how I wish I wasn’t fasting then. Haha.

Then we traveled that night to sleep with the zone leaders because Sunday we had stake conference. And this stake conference was a special one. We had a satellite transmission from Salt Lake. Elder Zivic, from Argentina, spoke to us about how to be members that don’t fall away and become less active. They talked about some things that were specific to Argentina and that were one of them. Then Sister Wixcom, Elder Anderson, and Elder Packer all spoke. Elder Anderson spoke in his French Spanish so it was pretty funny to hear.

Then this morning we went to the Lake here and it was so cold this morning. We about froze our tails off but that’s what winter is like here.

Well, speaking of cold, my inbox was cold today also. Thanks to those who have written me and I hope to hear from more of you. I love you and have a great week!

Love

Elder Pickett

Feliz De de LOBOS!!

2011-06-06T12:38:00.003-06:00

Dear Everyone,

Just another week here in the country. I am becoming real good friends with the horses. I think I might take up horses when I get home… Not. Jaja. This past week has been a real cold one. All of a sudden winter hit us hard. We were enjoying the 60’s and now we are in the 40’s. I have to use a scarf now!

On a train ride, one of many

This past week we did a lot of visiting the members. There aren’t a lot of investigators right now so we are strengthening the members right now. We are trying to help the members come back to church and help the new members stay in the church. It is quite a big job because our pueblo is so big that it takes a long time to travel without bikes. We are the only area in all of the countryside that doesn’t bikes and they haven’t approved them yet so it’s kind of tough.

Attempting to cook some frozen ground beef

So this week my companion and I were contacting people in the street and I contacted a lady and she did her whole “I’m Catholic...” shpeel and then when she was leaving, she gave me a warm friendly slap on the face like I was her grandson. JAJAJA. Talk about shock!! My comp and I couldn’t stop laughing! That was just too funny. Just some of the crazy things people do here.

Mr. Tough Guy in an empty train

Last Thursday was Día de Lobos and this pueblo turned 209 years old! That is really cool. On Sunday there was a parade and almost all of the town was there on one street. There were about 150 schools that marched in the parade and that was really boring to watch. And then came the fire trucks and police cars. That was the best part of everything. It was really cool to see how everyone was so patriotic and full of life to celebrate this holiday.

So to help our members stay strong and keep interested in learning more, I have been challenging them to read the Book of Mormon with me. I challenged them to read at least 3-4 chapters everyday to finish the book before I go home. They have taken up the challenge and have been keeping up and have been asking great questions so that they can understand what is happening. I love how they are honest in their studies and desires to learn more about the gospel. They will be greatly blessed for their efforts and so will each one of us. If we put in a bit of effort each day to read a little bit of the scriptures, we will receive a lot of blessings.

I gave my testimony yesterday in church (because there were only 14 of us and so someone has to fill in the silence jaja) and I gave it on sacrifice. The Lord blesses us for our sacrifices. Big or small, the Lord blesses us. But we must not just serve the Lord because we know we will receive a reward but we must serve Him because we love him.

Thanks for the news from home and I hope everyone has a great week. Love ya all

Love

Elder Pickett

Almost June! Weird...

2011-05-30T14:05:00.005-06:00

Dear Everyone,

What a week! Just having some fun with my new companion and this past week was pretty fun. Full of work. We started off the week just visiting everyone. We visited some recent converts and there is one girl there that is not baptized. We challenged her to be baptized and she accepted. That was so cool to start off the week like that. That was on Tuesday. On Wednesday, we had to travel 6 hours in train to get to a meeting in Luján. So I did not get to enjoy 25 de Mayo like a normal Argentine. I did not get to eat locro or anything! It was pretty depressing because our branch was doing a big activity and we had investigators going and the mission wouldn’t let us stay to be with our investigators. It was frustrating but oh well. We got back at 10 at night on Wednesday. We were so tired. On Thursday we did some more work and that’s how it was for the rest of the week.

Elder Bravo y Elder Pickett

But this week I realized how big our area really is. We need bicycles but the mission won’t approve it for some reason. I think I’ll be asking again. Saturday night, we got busy making some crepes for our investigators. Yes, I learned how to cook something else. And I bet some of you are thinking, hey, I taught him how to do that… how did he forget? Well, I did and now I relearned how to make crepes. We make 40 of them and that took a long time. It took an hour and a half. We got to bed a little too late also that night.

Elder Bravo and Elder Pickett making crepes

Sunday morning we went to go wake up our investigator that has a baptismal date. She woke up and we gave them some crepes and we had to leave to get to church on time and they went in bicycle. We got to church right when a family of investigators got there. They hadn’t been to church in over 3 months and we challenged them to go this Sunday and they showed up. We would baptize them but the father has a problem with the word of wisdom and he said that no one in his family will get baptized until he gets baptized. Kind of a problem if you ask me. We have talked about it between my companion and I and we are stuck on what we can do for them. But we will keep passing by to see what the spirit does. So that is all that happened this week.

So I’m trying to read the book of Mormon completely before I finish my mission. I’m trying to finish it for the 3rd time on the mission. It has been so great reading it and enjoying what it has to say. I really like how in the first page of first Nephi, Nephi gives his testimony that what he is writing is true and that it comes from God. Just in the first 5-6 verses we know that at least one person believes in the word of God.

Well, I am going to rest a little bit so I can work the rest of this week. Have a great week everyone. I love you all.

Love,

Elder Pickett

Nuevo Compañero y Milagros

2011-05-23T14:53:00.005-06:00

Hey Everyone,

What a week we had. It was a really hard week to work because we have been traveling so much. There were a couple of miracles that happened this past week. I will eventually talk about my new comp but first the miracles. So we weren’t able to work in our area for 4 out of the 7 days of the week. We have been in Ramos Mejìa and doing divisions and not getting a lot of things done.

On Friday we had an activity planned to teach the members how to make brownies. Well, no one showed up but while we were waiting my companion and I were watching one of the Preach my Gospel video when my comp told me something. He told me that President Benton called the zone leaders and told them that they wanted us to baptize this past weekend. Well, we had already waited for half hour and no one showed up and so I jumped up and said LET’S GO!! Well, we left and started basically running to go to two houses where we could get a baptism. We went to the first house of an eleven year old kid that has said that he wants to get baptized but when we prepare a day he gets scared and doesn’t want to. Well, he accepted for this past Sunday(yesterday). And yes, he got baptized yesterday and I got to baptize him. Then after we went to his house Friday, we went to the house of the lady that disappeared on us the day of her baptism like 4 weeks ago. We found her in her house and she still really wanted to get baptized so we set it up for Sunday also. So yesterday, Sunday, we had two baptisms and they were pure miracles. We did not have any other baptismal dates or anyone who could get baptized. And because they got baptized, we broke the mission record again for baptisms for the third transfer in a row. It’s been pretty amazing this past little bit.

Ok, now on to my companion. Well, my new companion is Elder Bravo from Santiago Chile. And yes, his name is Juan so that makes him Johnny Bravo… JAJAJA. And yes, he will be my last companion. Today is my cumple mes and so that makes it 20 for me.

Johnny Bravo - cartoon character

Saturday while doing divisions for baptism interviews, we got locked out of the pench because the lock got stuck and the key didn’t work. So we went walking around all day and not a single locks smith could help us so we were up a creek without a paddle. We walked around all day and we went to the church in the morning to get things ready for the baptism. While we were there, we called our ward mission leader who knows who to fix everything and he said he would help us. Well, we went and he tried to open the door and everything and nothing worked. And so he said to us that he had to break the windows on the door to get in. So he did. He broke one window and now we are windowless . Ok, it’s not as bad as I make it sound. The window is maybe 10 inches by 6 inches. Small small. But never the less, it was an event that happened this week.

This past week I have been impressed on the history of the church. It is a miracle on how it started. I have been reading in the book called Our Heritage. It is a great little book that takes you through the basic history of the church that we should all know. So that means I have been reading in the D&C. And I read in D&C 14:7 that tells us the greatest gift out Father in Heaven could give us was eternal life. Sometimes we forget how big that gift is. We sometimes look with our mortal eyes and not spiritual eyes. We have to think eternally and not in the now. Physical treasures we cannot take but the knowledge we gather here will serve us on the other side.

Thanks to all the wrote. Abuelita y Grandpa and Alyssa for your letters. The computers here are still funky so I’ll keep trying to send something of photos. I love you all and I will talk to you next week with week 1 with Elder Johnny Bravo… jaja

Elder Pickett

16/05/2011

2011-05-16T16:53:00.004-06:00

Dear Everyone,

Well, as you can tell, I did not write last week. I had just talked to the family so I had nothing to write. But now I do have something to write. So happy belated Mother’s day to all mothers and non-mothers also.

Train to Buenos Aires

So this last week was an interesting one. We started the week last week with a miracle. We were sitting in the train with a very long trip almost done. We were one of the only ones on the train except for one family and some other random people. This one family was sitting behind my companion so I was looking at them the whole time. While I was observing them, I saw that the father of the family was a great man. I could feel that he really cared about his family because of how much he was playing with his children. I don’t know how to describe it but I just felt really good about him. Then next thing you know, while playing with his phone and stuff, he was recording his children and stuff and then he turns to us and says in his camera “these are the elders”. That surprised me a whole lot. He then turned back around to be with his family. I look at my companion and I tell him to talk to them and get an appointment with them. My comp turns around and starts to talk with him and thank heavens he wasn’t a member. He told us that he wanted to go to church with us and learn more because when he was younger, he had friends that would take him to the church to play some soccer and so he now has a family and married too and wants the best for his family. Well, he came to church with us on Sunday and he enjoyed it a lot. We are so happy for him and we have a lot of hope for him. He is one of those always happy people so he is going to progress well in the gospel. That was pretty cool.

Los Lobos train station

Friday we had an activity that my comp and I did for the branch. We focused on the worth of souls. It was a chance for everyone to get together and appreciate one another. We had ourselves a great time.

We are now in the last week of the transfer and the last week of my comps mission life. It’s kind of weird how fast it all goes. For now, things are kind of idol. This area is kind of slow so there isn’t a lot to talk about. But I like it because it is very chill. If I come home very laid back, it’s because I have been in the country for a long time. Well, I will leave it here. Thanks for everything everyone. I love you all and I’ll talk to you next week.

Love,

Elder Pickett

***Happy Birthday Grandma and Grandpa Packard***

2011-05-02T13:14:00.003-06:00

Dear Everyone,

What a week!! It’s definitely getting very cold. Not very many things happened this past week but I’ll tell you what happened anyway. So we had some cool divisions where I went back to the city and worked with a cool Elder. Elder Bagley is his name and he is from Arizona. I was once again in the same apartment as my great friend, Elder Latteier. I can never get away from him and neither do I want to. He is a great friend of mine. When I got back with my companion, we just went around visiting people.

Plaza 1810 en Lobos

We are going to fast forward to Sunday. Sunday was horrible. It was one of those Sunday’s where you just want to be in your house snuggled up with some hot chocolate. We woke up to the wind blowing at like 30-40 mph and the temperature at 10 degrees Celsius. It was super cold. We were the only ones at church until 930. The branch president didn’t show up because he is in Paraguay and the counselors showed up late. To make a long story short, we had 10 people at church. And half of them came from the stake. A pretty depressing day.

Banco de la Nacion - sucursal Lobos

And to top it off, we went that same afternoon to go an event that we got a personal invitation. That event would be going to the church of the Jehovah’s Witness. That was something different. My companion and I sat there like fish out of water because we forgot our JW bible and Watchtower. No one told us of the materials we had to bring. And let me tell you, our hymns are much better than their’s... jajaja. So that’s how we spent our Sunday afternoon. It has been pretty hard being here but that is no excuse for us to get down. We just need to keep working hard.

Calle Buenos Aires y Salgado

I think I have already written a lot about trials and so you must all know by now that trials are necessary to grow. Well, there is something I need to learn from being here in Lobos. The people here are much more friendly than the people in the city. Being in the country is great. I wouldn’t mind living in Idaho..

Pintoresca Casona en Lobos

Since there were only 10 of us in the church, each of us had the opportunity to bare our testimonies. It was a special meeting for me because EVERYONE bore their testimony. And almost every single one was about Jesus Christ. How important is Jesus Christ in our lives. He is the center of the plan of Happiness. He is what brings about happiness. I am grateful for Him and all that He has done for me and the people that I am serving right now.

Thanks Abuelita and Grandpa for your emails. Also, thank you Dari for your email. And Thank you also Mom and Dad for your emails. I can’t wait to talk to you all this coming Sunday. I love you all!!

Love,

Elder Pickett

[Allen is still struggling to find a cyber that will allow him to post pictures. The pictures in this letter are from : InfoLobos)

Medidas

2011-04-29T14:08:00.003-06:00

This is dad speaking...

I've been asked many times if Allen has gotten taller on his mission. The answer is yes, he has grown about an inch on his mission. He had a physical exam back in February and received a printout of his vitals, he took a picture of the printout. I forgot to post it back then so I will post it now:

Peso = Weight
Altura = Height
IMC = BMI (Body Mass Index)

Happy Easter... yesterday

2011-04-25T09:49:00.003-06:00

Dear Everyone,

What a wonderful week we had last week! We had the opportunity to celebrate the victory over death. Since being on the mission I have come to really appreciate our Savior Jesus Christ and all that he has done for us. The one reason why we, missionaries, are serving is to apply the atonement in the lives of other people and help them to come unto Christ. It is a wonderful process to watch. I now have an idea of how our Heavenly Father feels when we change our lives and we repent. He has an immense joy when we turn our hearts to him and we try to better our lives.

Well, it’s been an interesting week this week. We lost three whole days traveling and that’s always hard. We had a scheduled baptism this weekend that fell through. That was hard. We spent all day Saturday setting up the baptismal font and filling it up. The water was cold and we tried to heat up with one of those light bulb looking heaters to put in water. Yeah, that didn’t work. And once the time was getting close to the baptism, we went to house of Ines who was going to get baptized. Well, she wasn’t there and she left her cell phone in the house so we couldn’t get a hold of her. So we left the font and everything for Sunday to see if she was going to show up and get baptized but a member of the church passed by in the morning and she still wasn’t there. So we just decided to take down the font and try another time to baptize her. And taking out the water was kind of funny. We had to suck the water out of a hose. That was quite disgusting. Kind of frustrating but what could we do?!

I also had to give the Easter message in sacrament meeting and I talked about the Atonement. I read the story of the man who went into debt to buy something he really wanted. If you want to read the story, it’s in chapter 12 of the Gospel Principles book. I love that story a lot and this time it hit me a bit harder. I think everything in life becomes more meaningful as you get older. I am just glad that I can see this change in my life. We had a total of 15 people in church yesterday. We are going to try and get it above 20 next week. Little projects at a time. The branch president was out of town this past week so we did pretty well holding our own for a week. But with the branch president next week, we are going to do a lot better.

Well, thanks to all who wrote me last week and this week. Grandpa Packard and Abuelita, thank you so much for your letters. I really appreciate hearing from everyone. I don’t have much time, so write as much as you can before I’m stepping in your front door asking why you didn’t write me. Jaja. I love you all. Until next week…

Love

Elder Pickett

Missionary Amongst Wolves

2011-04-19T13:18:00.003-06:00

Dear Everyone,

Here we are once again. This past week has been an interesting one, full of learning and fun. We hit the ground strolling (not running because everyone is old here). We went to the members and recent convert houses so I could meet them all and there was something they all had in common. They were all above the age of 70. The branch is like a retirement home ward. JAJA. The youngest member we have that is active is 9 years old. The next one is 15 years old which is the branch presidents son and then the next one is 21 then 31 then it just higher and higher. All the way up to 89 years old who still attends. The 89 year old is named Hector Gruccio. He is a real famous painter that painted beautiful things. I have seen some of his paintings and I was just left jaw dropped. But yeah, pretty cool how calm and lay low it is. It is way different from being a city with ghetto areas.

Hector Gruccio

Yesterday at church we had a total of 17 people. That is average, above average. We have a baptism this weekend. It is of a 79 year old lady named Ines. She just quit smoking a month ago and really wants to get baptized. I've never baptized an elderly lady before but there's a first for everything. Jaja. It's a little bit hard for her to understand everything but she knows that she feels good in church and that she shouldn't smoke or drink coffee, tea, alcohol, etc. But she has a hard time remembering some other things. And it's kinda of scary teaching her because she has one real eye and one plastic eye. You never know if she is looking at you. But as far as other investigators, we really don't have.

We have two responsibilities out here. One, help the branch grow and two, baptize people. We are working on one to try and have success with two. We have 70 members on the ward list so we are going to try and pass by every single person to see what's wrong. Hopefully we get some success from that. Oh, we have a branch newspaper that my companion and I are doing. It's kind of cute and funny. It's just a little something for the older members to read while drinking their mates.

So we have a two hour train ride every week to district meetings and to do interviews. It is such a long train ride. So I have started to read Jesus the Christ again and this past week we took the train a lot. We took the train Wednesday and Saturday. So that's 8 hours of train rides so I have read a lot. That's not true, I read slow. But reading about the Savior's life before, during and after is thrilling. I know I won't have time to enjoy that kind of stuff after the mission but I'll try to make time. Through the first 7 chapters, one learns so much about the Savior and I have grown to appreciate Him more and more after every chapter I read. It is really unbelievable what He did and is doing for us. My testimony grows every day.

And I still can't believe how fast time is going. It makes me sad how fast time went but I know it went fast because I was enjoying every moment. When one embraces the moments, they seem to go by faster. Just like what the kid's show "Magic School Bus" said, "Time flies when your having a good tiiiiiiime." jaja. I feel exactly like that. But don't worry, I still have 5 months left. Plenty of time to have more fun. Especially with my branch of elderly people. They are so funny. And each one of them have sat down with us and have told us their life story. They have shown us pictures of their life back in the 40's and 50's and some as far back as 1900 had pictures. This is definitely a humbling experience that I love.

Well, thanks for everything! I love you all and Have an excellent week. (ill try to send fotos next week. computer is not cooperating)

Love

Elder Pickett

Hungry in Wolves...?

2011-04-11T12:01:00.005-06:00

Hey Everyone,

Crazy week again! Well, let's get the good stuff out of the way. I am now in a place called Lobos. It is in the middle of campo again.

Lobos, Provincia de Buenos Aires, Argentina

I got sent out here because the Branch is about to fall apart so President sent me in to help the Branch out. It was a really long drive to get out here. It took like an hour... yeah I know that that isn't very long but it really is when the majority of your mission is all within 30 -45 minutes.

Catedral Nuestra Señora del Carmen

So this place is like 9 de Julio. Our chapel is a like 9 de Julio. It's just a little house. So from what I have heard about this place, there was about 3 people attending like 2-3 months ago and now they 28 people going so there is some improvement. I'm excited to help the Branch out and help it grow. My new companion is Elder Romero from Chile. Where in Chile, I don't know. He is a very quiet guy but very very nice. I'm going to have a nice time out here and it looks like Im going to finish my mission out here also. I just love how it's just campo again.

Parque

Well, some news about how I finished in Villegas. This past weekend we had two baptisms. That means we finished the transfer with 7 baptisms. We broke the Villegas record of 6 in a transfer. I was really happy that we could do that. We had to do one of our baptisms at 8 in the morning Sunday morning. We had to wake up at 530 in the morning to start filling up the font. And then I had to pack everything last night and so I am really tired. Like really tired. It was pretty sad to leave Villegas. I grew to love the people there. But that's how the mission is. We have to leave the people that we love. One family gave me a real cool gift. They got me a River towel. River is my favorite team here in Argentina and so they got me a bath towel. It was so awesome. For lunch I ate half a chicken and was really stuffed. It's nice to feel loved. :)

So now here I am, going to get myself used to new people. The internet cafe here is really slow and is not wanting to cooperate with me... I think it's because I am new here. Not much to tell because I just got here and getting myself used to a new area. Hopefully it will be awesome like 9 de Julio was. But it will be whatever I make of it. If I wanna like it here, it will be fun and I will like it. That's how it is.

Aerial View of Lobos

So I finished the Book of Mormon again on the mission and I have found things that I never noticed or at least never bothered to notice. The last 4 chapters of the Book of Mormon are really powerful chapters. I really love how it talks a lot about charity and faith and hope. Those are the three things we need to have now a days. We need to have hope in a better world and faith to make it happen and the way to make it happen is to have charity. It has to start with us and we can't wait for other people to change the world. We need to act and not be acted upon. I love that quote. Let us be proactive in all things. Let us not be slothful servants.

Well, I'm out of things to say this week. Pictures are not wanting to send so maybe next week [pictures in this post are courtesy of Google Earth]. I love you all and thank you for all your support.

Love

Elder Pickett

Happy April...

2011-04-04T15:27:00.005-06:00

Dear Everyone,

What an excellent conference!! That was really wonderful, de verdad! I loved all the talks and some how they inter connected. Funny how God works sometimes. The topics that brought my attention were the topics of Marriage and Trials. I thought it was funny how President Monson directly told all males that after the mission they should be looking for a woman to marry. We all laughed at that one. Ja ja. I loved Elder Scott’s talk about his wife. How tender was their relationship! We need to all try and reach that kind of marriage. But to reach that marriage, we don’t need to find the right person. We need to change to be the right person for our future/current spouse. I learned that during conference. A marriage is successful only when we perform selfless service. Marriages fail when one becomes selfish.

I also learned something that almost seems obvious but I never really thought of. Faith increases when one obeys the commandments. We gain a testimony after our obedience to that certain commandment of which we have a testimony. There were so many things that I learned that I wish I could share but time is short.

We also had a very busy weekend being missionaries. We went searching for people after every session of conference. And we always happened to get there right during the first hymn. We are good… ja. We were going to have a baptism also this past weekend but the water flooded everyone in. We had ourselves a huge rainstorm. HUGE! I took some pictures of the lightning storm we had. It was pretty bad. So we didn’t get as many as we wanted to get to conference but that happens. God knows that we tried our hardest and you know what? They have free agency, darn it all. Jaja. But the conference was great. I loved every moment of it. And yes, I watched it in English.

I hope that everyone can remember this time of year, Easter, as a time to remember the resurrection of our Savior. The sacrifice that He did for us we can never repay. We can only try and do our best to please him. At time we fall and we don’t do what he asks. But He has a love that is infinite. He loves us when we keep his commandments or when we sin. He rewards us when we obey and he punishes us when we disobey. That shows a lot of love. Just remember that God loves us so much that He sent His son. The least we can do to show our love is to do what he wants us to do. It’s easy for me because I am on a mission surrounded with a constant reminder of Him. Maybe it’s a bit harder for you guys but I want you all to love the Savior and our Father in Heaven more. You will feel their love for you as you keep their commandments.

I love you all and “be safe, don’t die.” – Sara E. Pickett (1992- ) ja ja

Love,

Elder Pickett

He gets this happy every time he gets a letter from you...

Tupe, tupe, tupe, tupe, tuuuupe..!

The trail they take every day from their pension to their area.

Last Week of March into April

2011-03-28T10:52:00.002-06:00

Dear Everyone,

Another week has past and now comes another week. It’s kind of interesting to work for so long with a person and have them be so hopeful to progress and nothing happens. We have had to do a whole change up with our investigators. The investigators that we had just would not progress. We would teach them and teach them but they wouldn’t come to church and so we having to back off them and look for more. We have found more investigators and they are looking hopeful again. We found a family that looked like a great find. The only problem is/was that they did not come to church yesterday. It would have been so great to have them get to church. We are at this point with a lot of investigators. They agree to do a lot of things but they then don’t do them. Frustrating but oh well. We still managed to get 9 people to church yesterday and still hold on to 4 baptismal dates. Crazy stuff that happens but that’s life. So I got the coolest news ever yesterday!! So we have been teaching this couple that really likes the church and everything. They have a couple of problems to fix and they are going to get baptized. They need to stop smoking and…. Get married. Argh! The getting married situation is the hardest to deal with in the mission. There are a lot of people that don’t want to get married. So we faced this problem with them when we told them they had to get married. It wasn’t a total rejection but they didn’t want to get married within the next 6 months. So they kind of got pressured a little too much and stop going to church for about 2-3 weeks. And so yesterday they came back to church. That was very nice to see, investigators going solos. After I taught Gospel Principles, they stayed after and said they needed to tell us something. I was kind of excited because I’m just that way. Well, they told us they were going to get married in April and she was going to go to the registro civil (dad translate) to take out a turno. (dad explain) I was so excited that I was jumping up and down in the classroom. The only part that is sad is that I am leaving my area in two weeks. But I am so excited that they are going to get married and baptized now. Just some really awesome things that happen in the mission.
General Conference weekend!! I am so excited to listen to the prophet and the apostles. I hope that every one is getting ready to listen to a prophets voice. There are going to be a lot of good teachings. The mission has definitely helped me to have an eternal point of view on everything. The importance of listening to the prophet and a lot more small gospel principles that seem small but very important. I hope that everyone can just take in what the leaders of the church have to say. I guess I can’t say it enough but it is really important every general conference.
Thanks Erica for the letters you send me. I really like the paper strips. Gracias Abu y Gpa por sus cartas. Estoy emocionado por junio… jajaja. Thanks to the rest of the family for your emails also. I love you all and I’ll talk to you next week.

Love,
Elder Pickett

Elder Pickett and Elder McDonald

March Madness Photos

2011-03-21T13:18:00.002-06:00

[I just barely received some photos that Elder Pickett sent a few hours ago. It seems that this cyber-cafe is not very reliable and emails come when they want. So here they are, enjoy. Paul]

Just Another Manic Monday

2011-03-21T12:58:00.002-06:00

Dear Everyone,

So this week was just a normal week. Just doing the good tracting and all. We are finding a lot of less-active people. A lot of them just fell away because life started to get busy and they decided that it wasn’t important to put God first. Well, they are completely mistaken. The thing is, we need to put God first in everything so that everything else will go well. It’s kind of funny how that works no? We always explain to people that we have 168 hours in the week and God only asks for 3 of those hours. That means we have 165 hours to do everything we need to do to survive. Saying that you don’t have time to go to church is just ridiculous. It’s like tithing. Some people end up paying their tithing at the end of a pay check after they have bought everything. What happens there? They end up spending the money for tithing and now they don’t pay tithing. Depriving themselves of blessing because of irresponsibility. You have to be responsible to manage your time enough to put the Lord first. The Lord will help us in every way possible if we put him first. Studying your scriptures in the morning instead of turning on the TV will probably bring you blessings. Saying a prayer before you eat your food. Fulfilling your callings in the church. So many things we can do to show the Lord that we really want his blessings. It’s hard to watch people here that just treat the church like it’s some [edit] social group. People think they just need to go when they are feeling bad. We need to go to church EVERY WEEK! God promises us so many blessings for just keeping his commandments. One of those commandments is keeping the Sabbath day holy.

Yesterday we had a pretty successful day bringing people to church. We brought a handful of people to church but we had like 5 unexpected people come to church. In total, we had 12 investigators at church. That is a lot of people. Our difficulty right now is having all of them accept a baptismal date. That is the hard part about the mission is letting people use their agency. We really want the best for these people but they just want to keep on their ways. It’s tough. But we keep trucking a lot through it all.

So I was reading in the Book of Mormon (again like always), and I found a story that I remember from seminary. It’s the story in Alma 47. I forgot names and everything but they story can be easily applied to everyone of us. There is a Lamanite leader and a Nephite leader. The lamanite leader tries to persuade the Nephite leader to come down from his camp so they can do some sort of “treaty”. Eventually with enough persuasion, the nephite leader goes down off his camp on top of the hill and gets killed. The lesson that we can learn is, Satan is always trying to get us off our spiritual mountains. He is trying to lure us in so many ways that it is unthinkable. We need to stay on top of our mountains and not be moved. This applies to everyone. Not just the younger crowd. I can’t tell you how many times I have seen adults here who have fallen off the mountain because Satan said to come off the mountain just a little bit. Please stay on your mountains and listen to the prophets. Speaking of which, GENERAL CONFERENCE!!! Ha ha. This is a perfect time of year to get more instructions and to get better. Think of it as like New Years Day for everyone who wants to listen. A chance to get better and to do the things right.

Well, thanks to everyone that wrote me, Mom, Dad, Abuelita, Sara “the supreme”, Britney, and everyone that wrote me in the past. Cui, Miss Erica, Lina, Grandma and Grandpa Packard. Everyone who has sent dearelder.com to me, I have gotten them and I apologize for not writing back. Everyone pouch also I have received (Mary, thanks). I love you all and I really appreciate your support.

With love,

Elder Pickett

13 Marzo 2011

2011-03-14T12:34:00.002-06:00

Dear Everyone,

Well, another week. This week got a bit colder. We were dying of heat and sweat on Wednesday and Thursday but then Friday it became really windy and Saturday it rained. It then turned really really cold. Ok, ok not that cold but definitely colder than it was the past couple weeks. So what happens when the first wave hits of cold air? That’s right. I get sick! I have a sore throat that doesn’t seem to want to go away. Just wonderful when you are on the mission. Getting sick on the mission is great…. Not.

But obviously it’s not the end of the world. We were able to baptize 2 more people. Well, three if you want to count the one that is a ward baptism that we taught. We almost completed a family with the kids getting baptized. I will attach the story that goes along with these baptisms. We are happy that they all got baptized and they all love to go to church with their grandma so it works out to keep them active. Also, our baptisms from last week came this past Sunday. It was really great to see everyone still coming to church. It was just really great to see everyone still trying to get better.

Historia de Exito - published in the mission newsletter

The older I get in the mission and in age, the more I am seeing that it is so important to go to church. We only go to take the sacrament. Ok that’s not true but it is the main reason why we go.

This past week while reading in the book of Mormon, I found my favorite scripture for the mission. It is Alma 29:9. I have really tried to apply this scripture to me and my mission. Well, actually the whole chapter I’m trying to apply to my mission. For some missionaries it takes some time to find their groove or to actually get it. I feel like I finally get it and it makes me happy. The inexpressible joy that I feel, to know that I am out here serving the Lord and helping others is amazing. The helping people part is what I like the most. Baptizing these kids made me so happy because I could see the joy on the face of the grandmother who had been inactive for 20 years and is now going again. She told us that she will never leave the church again. The oldest of the boys that got baptized told us that he wants to go on a mission and he is 11 years old now. Just some wonderful things that make me happy. The indescribable feelings that we get for doing the work of the Lord. The scripture that talks about how great will be our joy if we bring one soul to God and if we bring many… wow. I am experiencing that joy more and more while I am here in Argentina.

Serve in the wards where you are at. Fulfill your callings and do your duties. Do your home and visiting teaching. Please. Everyone needs to come back to church. Sometimes we are lazy or something always comes up that we can’t do our visits but some people need your help.

Thank you for your support always and keep strong. Although we may pass through some tough times, remember that our Heavenly Father is always there for us. I love you all and until next week…

Love

Elder Pickett

Carnival

2011-03-08T15:18:00.002-07:00

Dear Everyone,

How are things? Things have been really crazy again. So yesterday was a holiday here so that is why I couldn’t write. Everything was closed and today, only half the things are closed. So right now I am writing from Wal-Mart because the internet café by our house is still closed so the only one open is here.

So yesterday we did some service. We basically built a house. We fixed the roof and the back wall of this one room house. It is literally 6 feet by 6 feet. It is so small and 4 people live inside of it. But we went with the other elders from our pench and it was a blast. We were telling jokes and laughing and have a great time helping repair this home that was ready to fall apart. Then afterward we went to a birthday party and we had some milanesas and peach cake. Oh, by the way, I love peach cake now. It was fun to talk and tell jokes and laugh with the family that we were with. I love being able to do the things that I would be doing at home like conversing with families.

Saturday we had THREE baptisms. It was pretty much awesome. We are finding a lot of people that are ready and a lot of kids who never got baptized at 8 so we are looking every where for baptisms.

So in our recent district meeting, I talked about the importance of being obedient. There are huge reasons for being obedient. Obviously the reason of blessings, if we do what God wants, he will bless us. But there are other things. If we are obedient, we will receive a light. That light is also the Holy Ghost. And once we have the Holy Ghost, we will have power to do whatever God wants us to do. So with obedience comes power. That has been the most important thing I have learned out here in the mission. Obviously it is not as easy once you get out in the real world so I have to practice real well how to do it here.

Abuelita y Grandpa, Felicitaciones!! Tal vez puedan pasar por acá otra vez para tener almuerzo pero esta vez vamos a comer asado! Jaja Les amo muchisimo. I love you all. Thank you for writing me. I really do appreciate hearing from everyone and getting support. Elder Craig, I love hearing your stories. I love you Bro.

Until next week,

Elder Pickett

[Dad note: I know many of you are writing Allen and we sure appreciate it. I am trying to get him to acknowledge the letters but as you can see, we are not too successful. Please continue to write to him and when he comes home in 6 months you can chew him out for not responding. Thanks]

Happy March (almost)

2011-02-28T11:24:00.003-07:00

Dear Everyone,

YAHOO!!! Another week has past and more miracles. You know, I fully believe that God is a God of miracles. We had two baptisms this past weekend and they were both miracles. This area right now is so full of miracles that I don’t have time to enjoy all of them. We had a baptism Friday night and that was a great one. My companion did the baptism of Erika. She is a 9 year old girl that kinda yelled at us when we had to move her baptism to another day a couple weeks ago. She finally got baptized and confirmed. She is such a happy girl right now. And also her family is very happy that she got baptized.

And also, a 10 year old girl that wanted to get baptized also got baptized this past weekend also. She didn’t have the permission of her mom for the longest time. But being persistent, we got the permission and her mom will be baptized on the 19th of March. MIRACLES!!!

I have been reading the Book of Mormon every day this week and I have found a lot of things different. They say that every time you read the Book of Mormon, you learn something new and I have found that to be true. I have been reading at the end of Mosiah and beginning of Alma and that part of the Book of Mormon really applies to missionary work. How Alma and the sons of Mosiah have the desire to preach and all their experiences. I have thoroughly enjoyed it. We are now planning to have three more baptisms this next weekend with more closely following. We are working a lot. I had to do my first interviews this past week also. It was really cool. It was a great learning experience for me and a great feeling to participate in a different role in baptizing people. I had to do like four interviews and it was awesome. I am so happy for the experiences that I am receiving. I am having a lot of fun and getting to meet new elders is also fun. I love the mission.

Elder Pickett's District

Congrats Marcos on getting your Eagle. You will be grateful that you received it later in your life. I think though that Mom and Dad are happier than you are. Jaja. Sorry if I don’t have much to say because to me nothing happens. I’ll try to take more fotos to tell my stories better. I am not a good story teller. But thanks everyone for writing me and send me questions so I can talk a bit more. But so many that I can’t answer all of them. I love you. Have a great week and Happy March!!

Love

Elder Pickett

Happy President's Day

2011-02-21T14:20:00.002-07:00

Dear Everyone,

Another week and a wet one at that. We had a lot of rain this past week so we had a lot of mud. Oh it was a lot of fun. Walking through rivers again was just a blast. I am thinking about buying a swimsuit. What do you think? Jaja.

So here I am again, about to complete 17 months in the mission (HOLY COW!!) and we are doing pretty well. We are seeing a lot of miracles. We have 3 baptisms for this weekend. One on Friday and the other 2 on Saturday. We are really excited because all these people (kids) decided on their own to get baptized. We have three more three more baptismal dates for the following Saturday so we are working really hard for our baptisms. One baptism is the niece of a member who has been wanting to get baptized for a long time. Like for 3 or 4 months but her mom wouldn’t let her. Her mom is the sister of the member. But she finally gave us permission after being really over bearing and persistent. She then said after she gave permission, “I want to get baptized too. When do I start?” We were so excited! The father of her children has been living in her house on the weekends and has been abusing her. It’s a sad story and she also smokes so it makes things a little more crazy. But she told us that she wants to change her life. She knows she’s not happy and wants to make things better. I love seeing these kinds of changes in people. It makes me feel like I am doing my job here in Argentina. It does feel really nice to get a thank you or a pat on the back for all the hard you do. I now know that I should have probably said thanks more to Mom for all she did for me.

We are so busy here and it scares me. We have so many investigators that I can even put my head on straight. Every week we are trying to 20-25 people at church. Yesterday we went running to look for people. I was so tired. And on top of that, I have a really bad head cold that just won’t go away. My comp won’t let me rest because we are always running to appointments. I am just ready to hit the hay right now. I feel like Dad when his allergies are bad. My eyes are always watering and my nose always running. UGH!

We have family night tonight with one of our baptisms for this week and her mother. (the mother previously mentioned). Everyone has been telling me that my eyes are just bright red and I feel like they are. Jaja.

We are entering the last week of the transfer and we are close to breaking a mission record of baptisms. We have a goal of 200 baptisms because our last record was one year ago and that was 195. They say we are close but they are still telling us to baptize everyone we can. We are really excited to see if we can break the record. We are doing our part. We are doing 5 baptisms for the transfer. And we have a lot more lined up for the next transfer so hopefully I don’t get a surprise transfer. Jaja.

Well I have nothing more to say. I’ll be sending pictures next week because we are in kind of a rush. Love you all and remember to do what’s right because it’s worth it in the end.

Love

Elder Pickett

AND...... HAPPY BIRTHDAY SOPHIE WOFIE!!!!!!!!!! I LOVE YOU!!!!

Happy Red Day

2011-02-14T21:37:00.000-07:00

Dear Everyone,

Another week. Let’s see… what happened this week…? Well, a lot of things happened this week. So we did more divisions with members. This week we found a whole lot of people. At the end of the week, we had planned to bring at least 30-35 people to church. That would have broken all records and would have been a huge part of the attendance. So we made really specific plans so that everyone would show up at church. At these plans were really really well put together also. We past by members and introduced them to the people they were going to take to church. Everything worked out just great. So Sunday morning comes and we went to look for 5 of the “30” that were coming. We went to each of their houses and they all didn’t want to come to church. So we just let it by and we went on thinking that the other members had done their responsibility. So we get to church and we checked every room to see how many were there. When we got there, there was only three!! We went to every member that had an assignment and we asked them what happened. They told us that the people were sleeping. So we left church immediately to go look for these people. We got to the people’s houses and they were all awake at this point. We invited all of them to come to church with us. We were sweating a lot because it was really really hot and we were running to each house. Well, we ran to four different houses and we gathered together 6-7 more people. I can’t remember how many more. But in all, we had 10 investigators at church. And we also 7 baptismal dates. We worked so hard this week to try and have a lot at church. We wanted 20-30 at church but we got 10. It was really hard to see that all the hard work we did kinda fail. But stuff happen and we just move on with life. We’ll get them the next weekend for sure. That was the story of the week. We worked really hard and almost everything fell through.

Another cool thing that happened to me today. We went to the church offices for a doctors appointment that my comp had and I met some cool missionaries. They are from the Resistencia mission. While my comp was with the doc, I was talking to them. I asked them if they knew Elder Mohlman and Schneider. They said yes. And then one of them said, “Elder Schneider is my trainer”. I was like, NO WAY!!!! I was so excited. They showed me video of Elder Mohlman and the zone in Iguzu falls and stuff. It was so weird to see Richie in the videos. I was really excited and so Matt’s son took a foto of me to show the two of them next transfer meeting. That was really cool. And they were some cool guys also.

So, just going to go back to work. I am really tired but it’s ok. It’s worth it. I have been reading a lot of the Book of Mormon and I think everyone should read again and try to find something different that they have never seen. That is what I am doing now and I am finding a lot of things. The Book of Mormon can help you all in your lives if you let. It is the keystone of our religion and we should have a big testimony of it. I love you all and appreciate all that you all are doing at home.

Love,

Elder Pickett

February 14, 2011

2011-02-14T15:08:00.004-07:00

[Dad] Well, it seems that there may be some technological difficulties this week. Allen wrote,

"hello father... are you really there... and do you read and answer every email of mine... ja ja ja"

He then sent a picture of him with bishop Carlos Aguero from the Evita ward. His weekly letter has not yet arrived and I suspect a technical difficulty. The cyber-cafe he frequents seems to crash quite often so I will post the letter later if it arrives at all. For now, enjoy the picture and his two lines.

Paul

:) Kinda Short

2011-02-07T12:51:00.003-07:00

Dear Everyone,

COOL! Another week has gone by and more things have happened. First of all, we had two baptisms!! Yahoo!! It was a great day Saturday and a lot more people showed up for this baptism than the last ones. Jessica and Lismariela were the two that got baptized. I got to baptize them both and it was a great privilege. This past week was a pretty chill week. Well, it wasn’t that chill because we had to plan a baptism and that never is chill.

Jessica and Lismariela's baptism

We have been trying to pass by other people and teaching them also. We have been really busy with work. I am so tired but it is all so worth it. There won’t be any other time in the world to walk around and just talk to people about the gospel.

With companions

Lately we have been trying to visit a lot of the inactive families and people on the list. It is amazing how many people are on the list and how many have gone inactive. And it is sad when the active members sometimes forget about these people. I think it would be best if we could all find at least one inactive member and try to help them come back to church. And if we could all do our visits as home teachers or visiting teachers. That program is to strengthen members and to always be there for them when they need us. I feel like I have been home teaching for the past 16 months… jaja just kidding but we do have to do a lot of visits to less active people.

With a young member of the ward

My companion and I have also been doing something that we think will help this ward in the future. We are going on divisions with the priests in the ward. There are only three priests and we are taking turns everyday to do splits with them for 3 or 4 hours. Everyday these kids are willing to go walk with us and it has been really cool to see. We are training future missionaries!!! Jaja. Other than that things are going pretty well. Being district leader is still a work in progress but I think I am improving. I have a pair of sisters in my district and they are passing through a hard time. It has been hard to tell them what they needed to hear. That has been a great challenge for me. I know all this is going to help me in the future.

Yes, Allen does do laundry!

It’s been weird to think that I have been out for so long yet it’s not so long at all. I have short time left and I am sad for that. I love the people here. But thank heavens that my family is one half full of Argentines. The other side I can’t say much for but I’m sure they love Argentines also…. Jajaja. Thank you for all the support you all have shown to me and other family missionaries. It does get hard out here sometimes and it’s nice to read a letter or two from home. I love you all and have a great week.

Love,

Elder Pickett

Happy February! (almost)

2011-01-31T11:26:00.002-07:00

Dear Everyone,

This week was a very busy week. We did a whole lot of stuff and a lot of stuff happened. First off, we lost some time this past week because of zone conference and doctor’s appointments but you know what, we did the best we could with the time. We did some divisions with the priests in the ward and got to find a whole lot of new people. So this past week we passed by all the old investigators and inactive members to see if they had anyone we could teach and baptize. And boy did we hit the gold mine. We found a whole lot of people that want to listen to us. So we were going crazy trying to run to different appointments.

Yesterday (Sunday) we had 9 investigators in sacrament meeting. The most ever in my mission!! I was so freaking excited. We had to work for the 9 though. In the morning, we past by a group of kids that we said we would pass by them. There were four of them, 2 of which counted. Then right after them we passed by a family who the father is not a member. We got to church with three investigators by us working. Three more showed up on their own and that was pretty cool. Then, we get to church and one of the members that we asked to bring someone forgot. So we did divisions because I had to teach the second hour and so my comp took one of the priests and they went booking it fast. They found three more and almost had two more but they didn’t want to come. And so in the end, we had 9 come to church. And also we have 4 baptismal dates. Two of them for this weekend. We are just going really hard right now. I almost don’t have energy to write on the computer.

Also, I have been trying to learn some Spanish sign language. We have a deaf investigator that other missionaries have tried to teach but he never got hooked with them. I have had a good relationship with him the whole time I have been here and little by little I have been trying to win his confidence. So we went by Saturday to try and convince him to go to church because he doesn’t really like church because it’s boring. So in my broken sign language, I said “you go church tomorrow, Sunday” He liked how I tried to speak with him and so he responded and we needed a little help from his sister, who got baptized recently, to translate for us. In the end, I ended up telling him that when I was little, I had a hearing problem. Obviously mine wasn’t even near as bad as his but I nevertheless had a problem. He liked that I told him that and he agreed to go to church with his sister and grandma. And you know what?? He went!!!! It was so cool. So I sat next to him during the first class then I had to do other things but I talked with him during the class. He taught me some more words and so now it’s getting funnier to speak with him. Hopefully we can get a baptismal date with him somewhere in the near future.

So like I said earlier, we brought some kids to church also. The kids are 6, 8, 8, and 11 years old. One of the 8 year-olds has a baptismal date with us because the parent aren’t members but the grandma is and so she will be taking him to church but he has been saying that he wants to be baptized when he turns 8 so we are going to do it. It has been great to see and the tender mercies of the Lord here in the mission. As much as I don’t like to wash my own clothes or walk in the blistering sun everyday, it’s all worth it. So, so worth it.

So that was my week. Not all of it because I don’t have enough time to tell you all everything. Maybe after the mission you all can ask all the questions you want. Happy February tomorrow!! I love you all and be safe this week.

Love always,

Elder Pickett

Yup, that's cool...

2011-01-24T10:25:00.001-07:00

Dear Everyone,

Week 1 being district leader, AHHH!! Wow, there is so much to do and worry about. But of course I am loving every minute of it. It’s tough but so worth it. This past week was interesting because of how busy we were. Tuesday was a normal day. Wednesday rained like no one’s busy again. No, I haven’t bought rain boots yet. But it’s ok because I don’t think it will rain for awhile. Thursday we had to go to the church offices in Capital. We spent all afternoon there for a doctor appointment for my comp. Then Friday was the leadership meeting that went all day long. We got back late to our area. Then Saturday and Sunday we tried to make up for what we lost. We went on divisions with members and they helped us a lot. Sunday we had three investigators show up. We have 3 baptismal dates for the 5th and 11th of February.

It’s a little bit harder to work as district leader and do work in your area. I thought it was going to be a little easy but OK. So we have a newbie in the pench. He is from Peru and is really quiet. Doesn’t say anything or laugh…. Nothing. It’s really weird. I tried talking to him and he doesn’t say much. Oh well, I’ll try to keep being nice. So like I said, we have 3 baptismal dates. They are pretty much chill. One of the girls is 9 years old and already knows everything. She was just waiting for us to show up. How funny! We just reviewed the first lesson with her and she was telling us what happened. Pretty much the coolest thing ever. All her family is members and she just turned 9 so she is under our control now. This next week is going to be another busy week because we have zone conference tomorrow and then Wednesday my comp has another doctor’s appointment. Thursday is a shorter day I think and hope that that is it. I might have to do a baptismal interview Friday also. Wow, a lot to do. Yesterday we had the most people in church I have seen in Villegas. We had 123 people in church. That is a whole lot of people compared to the other ward that shares our building with us. They had 43 people. Big difference.

My comp is a pretty cool kid. Kinda quiet at the beginning but now he talks a little more. He is a pretty big guy from Magna who went to Cyprus High. Played football and wrestled. He is 21 years old and has 9 months on the mission. I’ve had to get used to him little by little. Not a very social guy which is very hard for me because I am a social bug. I love talking to people. Especially people in Villegas. I love Villegas with all my heart. There are some of the best members I have ever met here in Argentina. Seriously they love the church here. There is just too many good things I can say about this place. I just really love it. Well I ran out of things to say. Enjoy your week!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!! GRANDPA PICKETT, LELANI, AND ALY!!!!!

Love
Elder Pickett

HAPPY MLK DAY

2011-01-17T13:48:00.002-07:00

Dear Everyone,

I know everyone is just so concerned about the transfer meeting and who my new companion is, so, I’ll tell you who it is. My new companion is Elder Hamilton from Magna, Utah. He has I think he said 9 months so another young gun. He is kind of shy and timid but that is ok. We will work on that. And another thing… I’m District Leader now… Yahoo..? jaja. Naw, just kidding. I am excited to serve in another way. Helping more people out is just what I like doing. I think I am going to enjoy my new assignment. I am the leader over two companionships. One of elders and the other of sisters. This is going to be really scary doing the baptismal interviews but I’m sure I’ll know what to do sooner or later. The Elders here say it’s really hard because one is always busy but maybe that will make focus more. This past week we have just been saying goodbye to all the members. It was kind of sad because I remember when I left my areas and it was sad. He cried a little and I cried with him because I knew of the pain he was feeling. Leaving an area is really difficult. Speaking of leaving areas, (sorry this is really random) my new comp is coming the area of Merlo 1…. AAHH!!!! I was so excited when I found that out. Here in the mission, when you receive a new companion, you have to go to his area to look for his stuff. So…. We went to MERLO!!!! I asked my new comp very nicely if we could stop by two houses. The Del Castillo Family and my next door neighbor converts. He said yes thank heavens and so we went. We clapped and the Del Castillo home and….. they weren’t home. They went on vacations Friday… NOOOO!!! I was so upset. So then we went to my converts house that is right next to the pench. They were home and so I was able to talk with them for 10 minutes before we had to hit the road to Villegas. It was a great experience. And now I am here after going to Walmart and McDonalds. So Sunday we had another huge rain storm that about drowned us also. Ja! These rain storms are going to kill me. A lot mud again and a lot of rivers. Yes there are boots here that I can use but these storms catch you by surprise. I never know when it is going to rain because it’s sunny and dry in the mornings and then all of a sudden at one or two in the afternoon, there are black clouds everywhere. Remember when I was afraid of storms? JA!! These would have scared the socks of me. It’s funny to look back at my life and realize how much I have changed.

So Marcos, Thank you so much for your talk that you sent me. Will you speak for my homecoming?? I really love that you could feel the spirit and know that it is the spirit. That makes me really proud to be your brother. I might use it for my workshops in District meeting… lol. Thank you so much Family for all the support that you show me and all the love you express. If there is one advice I could give you, my siblings, is: Listen to Mom and Dad. They know what is best for you. They love you and would never lead you astray. I have learned that throughout my life but I am realizing it now. Learn it now and don’t forget it.

I hope everyone has a great week. If everyone could read the talk by President Monson in the Relief Society session, we all need to learn a little more Charity. I love you all and I wish the best for you think week.

Con Amor

Elder Pickett

Enero 10, 2011

2011-01-10T08:57:00.004-07:00

Dear Everyone,

Another has past and more things have happened. First off, it’s the last week of the transfer and so that means my comp will be leaving. He already has 6 months in this area and that’s the max we are supposed to have in each area. I will be getting a new companion next Monday. Not much going on here. Just trying to help our investigator get to church. That has been our problem the whole time I have been here. We get people to commit to get baptized but they won’t come to church. And so they don’t come to church but somehow other ward members bring more people. We are swamped with people. There are people that we don’t even have time for. This place is crazy with people who want to listen… something that I am not used to. There are many families that we are working with also. Little by little I am loving this area. The people here are great and that makes me happy. They have shown so much love to me that I am truly grateful eternally for them and all the members that I have grown close to in my mission.

So this past week rained a whole lot. The first time it rained on Wednesday or Thursday, it didn’t rain a lot and so I was just fine walking through our area. Saturday came and boy was I in trouble. It was raining pretty hard all night and Saturday morning. My comp told me that it was going to be pretty bad and I was like, sure sure, I’ve been in Rodriguez and that was all mud. Well, what he forgot to tell me was that there are rivers in our area, not streets. So we hadn’t even entered our area when I had to confront the first major river. My comp has his rain boots on that go up to his knees and I thought he was just ridiculous. Well, I was wrong. He went right through and I just stood there like, are you kidding me? So I had to other choice because there was no way around. So I jumped right in and I went walking in a dirty river. And I mean DIR. TY. Dirty diapers, trash, etc. you name it, it was in the water. So I got done with that river and I was like, great, cool experience. We kept walking to the house we needed to get to. We got to the place where we needed to turn and lo and behold, another river! But this river is an actual river that got over flooded. This river we had to go through was, in the most deepest parts, about 5 feet deep. Lucky we went on the outsides of the river and it was only 15 – 16 inches. So we get to the members house that we were getting to and I was completely drench and my comp was dry so they made me change all my clothes. They put my clothes in their dryer which is something that just spins out all the water and then put the clothes in front of the fan. I was in clothes from the 17 year old in the family who luckily happens to be my same size. All in all, it was a pretty fun, pretty cool. And no, I didn’t get fotos. Next time it rains I’ll think about bringing my camera. But that’s basically all that happened this week.

Feliz cumple-bautismo Abuelita!!! Q alegria q me diste con esa informacion. Quien te bautizó?? Grandpa? Jaja. No sabia de tu fecha bautismal. Q COOL!!! Re copado… re piola… ja sry. Hablando como pibe chorro. Te amo mucho abuelita. Thanks Grandma Packard for your letter and the fotos on the back. CUI, I get all your pouch letters. Thank you very much. Thank you everyone for your emails, your prayers, and your love. I love you all and I will talk to you next week.

Love

Elder Pickett

What a Way to Start...

2011-01-03T10:25:00.006-07:00

Dear Everyone,

What an amazing week!!! With it being New Years and all, it was an amazing week. Let me start off with the miracle of my mission so far. So on Tuesday we had lunch with a grandma and her husband. She has been a member for 30+ years and her husband didn’t want to get baptized when she got baptized. He didn’t feel like it was the right time. So we had ourselves a nice lunch and conversation and we shared with them a scripture and a prayer. We got up to leave to go on working when all of a sudden he said he had a present for us, after all it was Christmas. So he told us to go into his room with him and he shut the door leaving his wife in the living room. After shutting the door, he turned around and with tears in his eyes said these words, “I want to get baptized. I don’t want to wait another minute.” I was in such shock that all we could do was hug each other. It was so wonderful to hear those words out of his mouth. He told us that the time had come and he knew that he had to be baptized. So from that minute, we started preparing a baptism. We decided to put the date for Saturday the first because he would start a new year and a new life. It was the perfect day. Saturday came and everything went great. His son came to baptize him. Son baptizing father. His son has been a member for 30+ years also. It was a great tender moment. Seeing his wife at the baptism crying for joy because this is what she has wanted all her life since she entered the church. I think the sweetest moment was after he got baptized, we were in the chapel and
the meeting was over, she gave him one of those old people kisses that just make you smile. It was the most tender moment of my mission. I will never forget that moment. I love completing families. It makes me so so happy. And that was the highlight of the week.

We also had new years here in Argentina, I know, surprise… JAJA. We had ourselves an asado with a family and then we went to the apartment to chill the rest of the night. And yes, we stayed up until midnight. We got up on our roof to check out all of Ciudad Evita and surrounding areas. There were so many fireworks. You guys will not believe. We also did ching ching up there also but we did it with 7-up. It was pretty cool. So it was a pretty cool weekend and all with the baptism and with new years.

There is not much more to talk about. Just working really really hard here. Trying to baptize and convert people.

Thanks for the emails everyone. I hope everyone is enjoying the snow. It barely rained here for the first time in two weeks. I was dying of heat. But don’t worry, we drink a lot of water. We are doing really well here. Thank you for all your prayers and love. I love you all and talk to you next week.

Love,

Elder Pickett

ps. sorry its a little short. not much to say.

Post Christmas

2010-12-27T10:39:00.009-07:00

Dear Everyone,

Seeing as I just talked to you all two days ago, I don’t have much to say. I am so glad everyone is doing well. I really enjoyed listening to Andi. Wow, she has grown up so much. I couldn’t stop laughing when she was singing the alphabet and when she was counting. 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 18, 14….. It was so funny. Sophie is just a rock star like always. Marcos, you scare me with your deep voice. Really. You freak me out. Jaja. Sara, you are just crazy like normal. Mom and Dad, I really enjoyed talking to the both of you. Abuelita y Grandpa, gracias por estar ahi. Me encanta hablar con ustedes. There was just a peace while I was talking to you guys. I have to admit, sometimes while I’m here, I worry about you guys. But talking to you all yesterday made me feel so much better.

Since Saturday, nothing has happened. Saturday we had our baptism and then yesterday he got confirmed. We have a new member of the church and we got it in right before the year ended so he will count in the number of converts for 2010 in General Conference. We are trying to see if we can have a baptism for the 1st of January but it looks like we aren’t. The 8th however, we are looking at 3 or 4 so that will be a good day. We are trying to get more people to come to church. The problem is that the church is really far away and some people are lazier than others. They don’t want to put in the effort to come to church. They like the message we teach but they don’t want to put in the effort to get to church. It’s kind of frustrating but nothing that I haven’t dealt with before. We just need to think of something or someway to get them to church. This area is a little more special so I am going to have to find out how to do it. Nothing that a little prayer can’t fix. Jaja.

So now is that time of year to make some new goals. Time to figure out what we did well and what we didn’t do so well. A time to see if we completed with our goals last year and to make new goals to help us improve. I challenge everyone to find something they can improve for the next year. Anything you think you need to improve, do it. I know there are some things that I can do and I am going to work hard on those things. This is my short little message for this week. This email is going to be a bit shorter because I just talked with you all.

Thank you for all your prayers. Hope you enjoy the pictures that I sent. I’ll try to be better and send more. That’s the thing I am going to improve on…. Jaja. Well, until next week, have a safe Happy New Year’s!!! I love you all.

Love

Elder Pickett

PS: HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!! I’m going to eat ñoquis for you!! J

Mission stats for this week...

Mission Christmas Picture - Where is Allen? He is in front of President and Sister Benton, sitting down.

Christmas Day baptism with Elder Carazas

Dad note: We spoke with Allen on Christmas day and he sounds wonderful. His Spanish is very nice, except for his porteño accent, LOL! He is doing well, he is healthy and loves the mission. He is having much success in his new area and has already developed a love for the people there.

Merry Christmas

2010-12-20T16:03:00.002-07:00

Dear Everyone,

Another week has past here in Argentina. So we are in the week of Christmas and everyone is getting ready to celebrate it with the family. We, on the other hand, we are working the whole week as we should. We have one baptism coming up this Saturday and one that is iffy. We are working really hard and trying to keep focused. This holiday season doesn’t really help because everyone always talks about their family. But I then think about what a great family I have at home.

All of this past week and the week before we have been hearing about the true meaning of Christmas. Now after hearing all the messages that we have heard, have we learned anything? Have we learned to be more kind, more charitable, more loving to one another? Those have been the questions that have been in my head. We can listen all week to beautiful messages like President Monson’s for Christmas, but we need to really apply what they are teaching us. But what are they teaching us? They are teaching us to be more like our Savior, Jesus Christ. He lived a perfect life. He is asking us to follow his path. The least we can do is actually try. That is what I have been trying to learn here. Trying to be more charitable, kind and loving. Everyone is a child of our Heavenly Father who loves us. We need to love everyone and treat everyone the way they should be treated. And on the other hand, we need to behave ourselves like we want to be respected and loved also.

This past week was just another busy week. We just went really hard this week because everyone is willing to listen to us. A lot of Paraguayans and they have a really, really funny accent. They make me laugh every time. The bad part is, that every time I laugh, they start speaking in Guarani. And I don’t understand Guarani except “Rohiwho” and “yawappiru”. It sounds like caveman. But other than that, there hasn’t been much else.

Walking around and getting a lot of dirt in the shoes. There isn’t one paved road in my area. Ok that’s a lie, 85% of my area is dirt road. This is definitely different from my other areas. JA! So all my clothes are getting really dirty and lucky me, I get to do my own laundry. Yahoo!! It is actually very relaxing. I just clean by myself and it is nice to think to myself and figure out what we are going to be doing this next week.

The other thing that I like about this area is the fact that we have lunch every single day with a member. The members here love the missionaries. The missionaries are almost worshiped. I have already been able to form really close bonds with some of the members. They are very friendly and always looking and willing to help us. They are nuts to help us. I think that’s how all members should be with the missionaries. They need has much help as they can get. They don’t get a lot of money per month and they work all day…. Well, the one’s in the states have cars so… jajaja. But they still need help looking for people to teach. So if you all can this week, open your doors and hearts to the missionaries this time of year. Just like the people of Argentina are doing with me.

Thank you to all who emailed me, Mom and Dad, Sara, Marcos, Tio Andy, Abuelita y Grandpa. Christian, I hope you got my email. Yes, Christian and I are talking Abuelita. Jaja. I am really excited to talk to you all this coming Saturday. You guys can call me in between 7pm and 9pm my time. So that means like 3pm to 5pm for you guys. I love you all. MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL AND TO ALL…… AN ASADO!!!!

Love,
Elder Pickett

Week 1 camping

2010-12-13T08:31:00.002-07:00

Dear Everyone,

What a week I had here. My first week in Villegas was crazy. Well, kind of crazy. So I forgot to tell you all that my area is like a Scout camping ground. This place is pure dirt. The houses are made out of whatever they can find. This place is ridiculously poor. But, there are a lot of people that accept us and listen to us. We are having a lot of success here. The members are really great also. They give us references [referrals] all the time. ALL the time. Everyone always has a friend that wants to listen. The members really are examples to me and I have only been here for one week. I can only imagine what I can learn from them in months. This last week we received I think it was 36 references [referrals] from the members. We only had time to contact half of them. And the majority of them are listening to us now. I am really excited because this has never happened to me in the mission but my comp is used to this and thinks it’s how it is everywhere. I hope he doesn’t get disappointed in other areas. But who knows, maybe he can change those areas. All I know is that I really like this area because we have a lot of success here.

This week we set 8 baptismal dates. That is a personal mission record for me. I have never had so many people ready for baptism in my life. Like I am kind of overwhelmed. We are always busy trying to help these people reach the waters of baptism.

There is also something different here than in my other wards. Here they give us lunch and dinner everyday!! EVERYDAY!! It is so great. Now I won’t ever go hungry. Now, I can’t tell you for sure what I am eating or if it is sanitary but it is food and I will eat it. I’ll just make sure to take extra vitamins.

So I have to tell a story that hopefully will tell you how it is here and not freak you out. So Thursday afternoon we were walking in the monoblocks [picture coming soon] going to the bishops house. When out of nowhere this guy comes out and asks us to buy something out of his backpack. He had little packets of bandaids and stuff and he did the whole spill that he has a family at house... etc etc. We told him that we didn’t have any money. He kept begging and begging and we kept telling him that we didn’t have anything. He then got angry and came really close to us and told us to throw everything we had in the bag and to do it quietly. He said to put our watches and cell phones in the bag and stuff. He said if we didn’t do it he would kill us. I looked at him and at his pockets and in the backpack to see if he had any weapons. Obviously I didn’t do a bag check but a visual check. I saw that he didn’t have anything and so I grabbed my comp and I told the guy to get away and to go find some help. And the guy left. We got away lucky this time but this area is really dangerous. There is a lot of poverty. This is the poorest area in the mission like I said last week. Just some crazy things that happen.

Well enough of that, don’t wanna freak you guys out too much. I will be sending all the info for the phone call next week because we might be having a baptism on Christmas so we don’t know exactly what time. I love you all. Thank you for your prayers. I really feeling them now more than ever. Have a great week!

Love,
Elder Pickett

Hello from....

2010-12-06T17:31:00.005-07:00

Dear everyone,

A little late today for a lot of reasons. So today was transfer meeting. And I had to leave obviously. So I am now here in..... VILLEGAS [ward]!! Dangerous, no? Jaja. It is the poorest area in all of the mission but... it is the area that baptizes the most. We have a baptismal date for this weekend and one for the 25th of december. Oh, I almost forgot, my new companion is Elder Carazas from Peru. Pretty cool kid so far. So when we came driving here in a taxi, my comp didnt know how to get here. It was really embarassing and really expensive. 120 pesos!!! The driver was quite upset. I kept my mouth shut because I don't know how to get here. Well now I do but before I didnt.

So this area that I am in has some reputations. Well mainly one, it is the best area in the whole mission and it is Presidents most favorite area in all the mission. All of the "bests" have gone through here including one of my most favorite companions Elder Sabey. I am really excited because I have heard so many good things about this area. Yes, it's in a wee bit of a dangerous area but I know I'll be fine. But it is a little freaking right now because we just barely got to my new area and it is late at night and we are writing in a dark internet cafe. It is like 830 at night right now. It was a long drive from Mariló to Ciudad Evita where the apartment is.

Young man baptized in September

Young couple to be baptized soon

So Sunday night was probably one of the saddest days in the mission for me. I had to say goodbye to my family that I love so much and treasure in my heart. Isabel, Juan, Wager, Karina, Luana and Pamela. They are all my family. I feel kinda of bad because I cried more with them then I did with my own family. Sorry Mom and Dad. I never did cry when I came on the mission. Now that I'm on the mission, I have learned to cherish relaciones.... I don't know how to spell it in English. I was crying and crying like there was no tomorrow. I know that they will be alright but the separation from them is what hurts. I wish I could be with them forever and ever. I was also very sad to leave Cesar and Diana and the family. They were working on their papers to get married very soon. Diana is the only non member, o sea, the kids arent old enough to be in our care. (one is 8 years old.). She is going to get baptized once she gets married. I know that they are in good hands and that the Lord will take care of every single one of them. Now I have to get myself ready to meet new people and develop new relaciones. ( I have tried like 7 times in english and none of the ways seem right so I write in Spanish.) (que bajon!).

Kids from Marilo B

Adios Mamita...

Thank you everyone for telling me how great the First Presidency Christmas thing was. I haven't seen it yet but I am pretty sure that is was cool. I get to see it I think and I hope on the 20th of this month. We'll see. Abuelita y Grandpa, I got really excited when I heard that you two wanted to serve a mission again. I got so excited that I went and told my family down here and they were excited also. Are you going to serve down here? That would be the greatest thing ever. I am glad everything is going well at home. How much snow is there? There is none here... jaja. This week, it's supposed to get up to 38 degrees celcius. O sea, 100 degrees Ferenheit!!! With humidity. That my friends, is hot.

Well, I will leave you here because I need to get running to unpack all of my stuff. I love you all and hope you have a great week this week.

Love

Elder Pickett

Another week

2010-11-29T13:55:00.002-07:00

Dear Everyone,

Here I am in the ciber, with the TV on in the background playing the Barcelona vs. Real Madrid game. I probably should be focusing on finishing my letter here but you all know me. I love soccer. GO BARCA!!!

This week was just another week just like any other week. To cut to the chase, we couldn't recover any of our baptismal dates this week but we will keep trying. This is my last week here in Mariló and so I will be writing next week from a different ciber. Maybe.. There are still some chances I could stay. Like I just said, this week was just like any other week. We walked and walked and walked... we sound like pioneer children.. JAJA. It is really hot now. I don't know what the exact temperature was this past week but it was really hot. I sweat a whole lot to the point where I could almost wring out a drop. Crazy but true.

We had stake conference yesterday and it was a very good one too. One of the talks I remember ( I only forget some of them because we were sitting with our investigating family and the kids were talking the whole time) was about Jesus Christ and the important role he plays for all of us. He compared it to Hide and Go Seek. There is one person that counts and tries to look for the people. That would be Satan. There are the people that hide and try not to get found. That would be us. And then there is the hero of the game that saves the people that got caught already, and they say, "oly oly oxen free".... something like that. Jesus Christ is that hero of ours. He saves us from being bound so that we can keep playing the game. I thought it was a great analogy and quite a funny one at that.

Like I just mentioned, we brought a half investigating family. It is the family where the father is a member but the mother is not and they are not married. They drove us to stake conference with their three kids and they are adorable. I love them to death. They are 8, 6, and 3 years old and are so much fun. We specifically brought my etch-n-sketch, a pad of paper and crayon for them so they can be entertained. They kept themselves busy with those things. They love stealing our name tags and putting them on and being missionaries. The mother really loves the church and knows that it is the true church. They just need to do all of the paper work to get married. We think within 2 or 3 months that she can get baptized. We are very excited for them. Also, one kid that was living with his girlfriend finally moved out and now is eligible to get baptized and we have talked to him about getting baptized. His girlfriend is a member and now is finally trying to help us with him. We challenged them to read the scriptures and prayer together to come to a decision. And we also challenged them to come to the conference. And you know what, they came. It was really great to see them fulfill their end of the deal. But I think that's everything amazing that happened this week. Pretty good week.

Thanks for the emails and prayers on behalf of all the missionaries. Thank you for your support. I love you all and talk to you next week.

Love,

Elder Pickett

Happy Thanksgiving

2010-11-22T08:24:00.001-07:00

Dear Everyone,

Just another week. A little more depressing this week because all of our baptism dates fell through. There is nothing else I can say. It just happens sometimes and you just have to keep working. It is really sad that we couldn’t hold on to a baptism date but oh well. These are the moments where we just keep working with them to commit a bit more. No one said that the mission would be success all the time. Yes, I am disappointed but I have hope that we can get them to their baptisms. We had five people(investigators) in sacrament meeting. But, the biggest success we had was bringing a WHOLE inactive family to church. The family that I am really close to is the whole family that came. We finally got every single member of the family. I am so happy. There was just a happiness that was extraordinary. Probably because they are like my second family. I really wanted everyone to come to church. On top of that, We as missionaries had to give talks so that was another motivation for them to come. To come listen to me. JA. We had to speak on the influences that helped us get on the mission. I had the part about young men. I was really nervous. I don’t like to speak in front of a lot of people. In either language, I don’t like it.

This past weekend we celebrated 3 birthdays. My comps, Luana’s, and Juan’s. Luana and Juan are my family that came to church. Luana turned 6 and Juan turned 38. It was a lot of fun to celebrate with the family. There was a lot of strawberries with cream and peaches and cream. It was really good, mmm.

Speaking of mmm, I totally forgot that this week is Thanksgiving. Since they don’t celebrate it here, I wasn’t even worried about it. Here they already have up the Christmas stuff. I am thinking in Christmas right now. Well, I am actually thinking in how I am not going to die of heat stroke. It gets so hot in street that sometimes its unbearable. Who needs a shower when you can sweat all day!? But don’t worry, we got a lot of rain last night so that means it’s going to be more humid today. Yay…. Not. I am sweating here in the chair typing. Anyway, there isn’t much that went on this week. Just hot and working. Oh, something cool, we are starting to have all the meetings of missionary work now. Before there was no meeting whatsoever of whatever organization. Now we are starting to have those meetings and they are sure helping us now. Thank heavens.

So I started the Book of Mormon again but in Spanish this time and even in the first 14 chapters there are a lot of things to learn. Nephi already sees what happens in the Great Apostasy and how all the plain and precious things were taken out of the bible. It is amazing how the Book of Mormon says the same things as the Bible and sometimes even more. I get more amazed everyday that I am out here.

Thanks for the emails everyone that sent me one. I want to ask a favor. I want to receive Christian’s emails please. Thank you very much. I love you all and talk to you next week.

Love,
Elder Pickett

Lovin' Life

2010-11-15T09:36:00.002-07:00

Dear Everyone,

Another week has past and more things just seem to keep happening. We had a fairly normal week this week. Nothing really happened. We went by Lisa’s house to share some more with her and to try and get her motivated to come to church. She really liked the idea of coming to church. In fact, she was planning going to church. We taught her the importance of keeping the sabbath day holy. We have a problem with her. She is not married to her partner and doesn’t want to get married to him. The requirement for baptism is to be keep the law of chastity and yeah…. It’s a problem here. I have faced this problem a lot in my mission. People are afraid of commitment… I think it’s true. To make a long story short, she didn’t come to church yesterday and we are very sad. We had really high hopes for her. We are going to keep passing by because who knows what will happen this week.

We passed by another family this week that are members except for one kid. This kid’s name is Sebastian and he is really hard headed. Who would have thought that 13 year olds are so stubborn. JA! But yesterday, he came to church with us! We have really gotten to be friends with him. So yesterday also, we went to his house after church and talked to him about getting baptized. He accepted the baptismal date for the 4th of December. We are very happy for him and proud of him. His older sister said that it would be a miracle if we could baptize him. Well, God does not cease to be a God of miracles. Some people are sent to some people at the right time. We just need to know when to follow the spirit in those times. The spirit is always trying to help us when we need it but only if we are worthy and are actually listening to him.

I have had to learn that lesson in my mission. I didn’t realize before my mission how much the spirit was speaking to me. It is really amazing to finally realize the great companionship of the spirit. We have 4 baptismal dates now. We are working really hard. We had 7 investigators in sacrament meeting yesterday. We are going to have more next week we hope. We are going to work even harder to try and bring 10. I am trying to take advantage of my time left here in my area before I get transferred. We have a lot of things to do this week also. There are four very important birthdays we are celebrating this week. Three of them in the same family. It is the family that is basically like my own family. One today, one on Friday, one on Sunday. My comps birthday is on Saturday so we have a weekend full of celebrations. We are planning on having an asado. We are having a lot of fun, my comp and I. We are little by little losing our ability to speak English. I think we are speaking in English to each other but it comes out horrible. Oh well. I love it.

Thank you Mom and Dad, Abuelita and Cui for your emails. Thank you Marco Polo for your email too. I love you all. Until next week… GO RIVER!!! (tomorrow)

Love
Elder Pickett

08/11/2010 - November

2010-11-08T08:34:00.002-07:00

Dear Everyone,

Another week passed and a lot more things have happened. Well, let’s start with last Monday. We had ourselves a nice family home evening with our investigators. The cool thing was, we didn’t teach! It was a nice change. Carmen taught about trials. She read the article in the Ensign about that Thai tour guide and his experience about the church. I can’t remember which Liahona it was in. But it was really good because after the lesson, all of them realized that they needed to go through trials to learn and grow. There was a great spirit there.

Tuesday, we had divisions and I stayed in my area. I was with Elder Weaver from Sandy. He and I have the same time in the mission so it was really cool to just chat with him. So we went and did work. We contacted a woman who was sitting with her kids outside and we taught her the first lesson, no big deal. After the lesson we asked her for the name of her neighbor. She said her name was Lisa. So we went to Lisa’s house. We clapped at her house and she came out. We told her that we were missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ and we had a message for her and her family. She responds with, yes, I know. Ok, we receive that answer a lot because people know us pretty well. The next thing she said kinda of surprised me. She said that she was recently, like ten minutes back, was reading our book. I ask her what book. She said the book! And so I asked her to bring her book to us to show us what book it was. She goes in and comes out with…. The Book of Mormon!!! Elder Weaver and I just looked at each other in shock because that is really really rare. She then explained to us that she listened to the discussions in Paraguay with her sister. Her sister now lives here in Argentina and is a member of the church and Lisa still isn’t a member. To make things even better, she has a family! She has a “husband” and three kids. She is just perfect to receive the gospel. We couldn’t get in contact with her after Tuesday but we are going to keep passing by because obviously we can’t let this slip through our fingers. And then the rest of the week was pretty normal.

It was really hot this week. Yesterday we got up to 33 degrees Celsius [91F]. And right now, it is raining a lot. Go figure. I am doing pretty well here. Just getting freaked out because the end of the year is coming really fast.

Well, that’s everything cool that happened this week. Oh, forgot to mention we took out a wall too. That was a lot of fun also. Thank you to all that emailed me (Molly, that was a surprise, LOL). Thank you for your prayers and support. Until next week, CHAU!!

Love

Elder Pickett

Happy November!

2010-11-01T08:36:00.001-06:00

Dear Family of mine,

Another week has past by and I am glad to hear that everyone is alright. Here I am sitting in a little internet café, writing to you guys about my week. Well, my week was just a normal week. We just worked… and worked… That’s all we do here. We contacted a really great family this past week. One of our investigators, Alejandro and Carmen, introduced us to this family. But to be fair, this family is the brother of Carmen. He is a member but the rest of his family is not. We taught them a couple times last week and they keep every commit we give them and they are really awesome. Carmen’s brother, Cesar, has cried at every lesson because he is starting to feel the spirit. It is great to see the change he is making in his life. He wants his wife to listen too so we have been teaching her also. She likes what we are teaching. And they have made such huge progress. They even came to church yesterday! The whole family! Oh my goodness, I can’t tell you how happy I am for them. The only problem with them is the same as Alejandro and Carmen. They are not married but live together. It’s a common thing to do here so it’s a bit difficult. But the great thing is that they don’t need any divorcement or anything. Cesar works for the police and so they just need to do like a million background checks and her and her family. But they want to get married in the next couple months to get baptized. All I am doing is starting all this families and hopefully other missionaries can baptize them. I am totally fine with that because they will get baptized. I am having a lot of fun right now because we just talk and talk and it’s fun to see the different reactions to what we say. We aren’t saying weird things, but just the reactions to the lessons we teach.

I am quite sad that I am going to be leaving Mariló in one month. I really wanted to stay here for the holidays but I know I need to leave. So yeah, a pretty chill week here. We had a pretty good storm pass through. Wind of like 50 mph I think and a lot of rain. Let me tell you, that was a pain to work and walk through but we did it anyway. I got really really wet. And really cold which was weird but all good. I love working in the rain. You know, they say your wife getting better looking when you tract in the rain… I hope that is true.

Thank you all for your support. Happy November to all! Hope everyone passes this November really well. This is my last November here so I will take advantage of everything. I love you and thank you for all your emails and stories. I enjoy reading them. Mom, I am fine right now. I have a second mother down here that takes care of me very well. Gives us merienda and washes our clothes, sews them too. She is the greatest. But the last package I want is one for Christmas. My next birthday I want nothing because I will be coming home the following month. I love you MOM.

Love,

Elder Pickett

Another week :)

2010-10-27T09:38:00.001-06:00

Dear Everyone,

The week past with a lot of celebrations. One, congrats Dan and Cui with Josef. I have a new cousin!! I am so happy that I have another little tike to babysit… JA!

And I also celebrated something also. I celebrated 13 months in the mission. Hey hey! We are now starting the supposed super rapido downhill side of the mission. I’ll tell you all if it really is true. I can’t believe some days that I have been out here for this long. Kinda of crazy to think about. But anyway, the week. The week was pretty good. We just worked really hard all week. We had transfer meeting Wednesday so it was really weird. We then, as a zone, had a little book fair thing at a Catholic church where we talked about Family History. That was really boring but oh well. We weren’t allowed to preach in the church, obviously. So we just sat there at our booth and when someone came up, we just started talking to them about family history. Good thing I worked in the vaults, eh? We took 4 hour turns and it was boring, like I already said. We had 2 shifts and then we did our work. We had a pretty short week to work so we couldn’t get a lot of stuff done like we wanted.

Today we are going to help with the construction of a house. We love doing construction, my comp and I. We are just working really hard and just doing good work. Like I say every week, everything we do is repetitive. So if I sound really boring, I apologize. So recently I read again Our Search for Happiness. I forgot how good of a book it is. If you have the chance to read it, do it. If you have already read it, do it again. I am also reading Our Heritage which is really good also. Just doing work in Argentina. I am glad everyone is doing well at home. I am doing well here. Physically, Mentally, everything. I’m not getting sick por suerte. I feel great. Just tired because we walk all day in the sun. Yes, I am drinking enough water. I knew you were going to ask that. I wanna see pictures of everyone dressed up for Halloween. I will be the judge to see who has the best costume.

So with all my readings, I have gotten a stronger testimony that the church is true. With all the evidence that proves the church is true, it’s surprising that a lot don’t believe the same. That is why we are here, to try and help people understand. It sometimes is frustrating but with the spirit, all things are possible. If we look to have the spirit in our lives, we can have a strong enough testimony to convince people like Alma and Ammon in the Book of Mormon. We just need to force ourselves to do what is right. Sounds easy but as we all know, it is really hard. Learn humility. I am probably not the greatest example of that but I know the importance of humility. If we can submit ourselves to the will of the Father, he will bless us with blessing that we can’t even comprehend.

Thank you all for your letters. Dad, you can speak Portuguese??? Ha, I’m still learning so maybe when I get back I’ll be able to understand you. Good luck in Brazil and I love you.

Love,
Elder Pickett

Whistle While you Work...

2010-10-18T14:48:00.003-06:00

Dear Everyone,

Another week has passed in the mission and I am still happy and healthy. The weather has gotten really hot and uncomfortable. Today we had ourselves a zone activity because we deserve it. Ha Jk! But we really did work really hard this past transfer so we earned ourselves an activity. We went and played ourselves a mini soccer tournament. Well, it wasn’t a tournament, it was more like first team to score two goals wins and then another team came in the try and beat them. We played that for a good two and a half hours. I am so beat. We then played some football and some rugby and when I say rugby I mean we just passed around the ball. After playing around, we had ourselves some milanesa sandwiches which were really good. We then played a little HORSE and PIG and then we finished. A good zone activity but I feel very exhausted.

This week also we did a lot. We finished 2nd in the zone when our work. We also had ourselves two confirmations to complete our two baptisms. I was so happy that they showed up to church. The two of them showed up on their own and it was a big relief. I had the grand privilege of doing one of the confirmations also so I am very happy. We also did a lot of service this week. We helped construct a roof this week. They construct roofs really funny here. They use concrete poles with Styrofoam in the middle of the poles… weird. We had to put a lot of rocks and sand on the roof and do a lot of lifting. My back hurts a lot now but that’s why they invented ibuprofen. We were building the roof of Karina, the person we baptized. She is building her house behind her mother in laws house. Everyone lives nice and close together. I really like it. I wouldn’t mind living behind my parents…. Jaja jk. We are trying to find more people now to get baptized.

Life is just chill right now. Just in my routine and everything. Wednesday we spent some time at Ysabel’s house for her birthday. She is the mother in law of Karina. We are like her sons. We love them so much. They are the greatest to us. We have merienda with them all the time but we drink malta because we can’t drink maté, which I still don’t know why but I’ll obey anyway. They are like family to me. I have become really close with a lot of people down here and I am glad. Sometimes when I need someone to talk to, they are always there… for now.

I think the concept that a lot of missionaries have trouble with is the loving the people part because they are not used to the culture and everything. I had the luck of already knowing the culture and stuff but still. I love the people of Argentina even though sometimes they are a bit frustrating to work with. They say that when you love the people, the easier it is to teach them the truth. People are willing to listen when you care about them. You listen to them, they listen to you. Easy. I think I have almost mastered that. Jaja jk.

I still have a long ways to go but that is something we can all work on. Whether it is at work, school, or at home. Especially in the home we need to love each other. We are going to be with each other forever and so you better start liking the stuff that bugs you. I challenge everyone to love each other more. Be charitable. Do what Jesus did and forget yourself. Remember the counsel of King Benjamin when he said that when we are in the service of our fellow beings, we are only in the service of our God. When we serve one another, we are showing our love for God also.

Hope everyone has a great week!!

Love,

Elder Pickett

Success!

2010-10-11T10:33:00.004-06:00

Dear Everyone,

What a week! That is how I’m going to start every e-mail now. This week was a pretty good week. I’m glad that everyone else had a great week also. So this week was pretty much normal. Until the weekend! This past weekend, we all had the grand opportunity to celebrate the great day of 10/10/10. So we, as missionaries, wanted to celebrate too this great day. So what do missionaries do to celebrate? That’s right, we had BAPTISMS!! Two to be precise. We had the opportunity to baptize Karina Dos Santos and Yesica Perez. I got to baptize Karina and my comp got to baptize Yesica.

[Elder Hart, Yesica Perez, Karina Dos Santos, Elder Pickett]

I wish I could tell you some weird story that happened like the font couldn’t get filled up or there wasn’t hot water or we didn’t have a font but I don’t have a story like that this week. Everything just went perfect. Maybe that is the miracle that happened this week. We really tried this week to be really obedient so that everything came out well in the end. We did a fast for our baptisms too so that everything turned out well and everything did turn out well. So maybe the lesson this week is trust in the Lord by doing all that you can first. That is what was said in Conference. The key is to do your part because the Lord will always complete his part. That has been a lesson that I have learned out here. When I am doing what the Lord wants, he blesses me, and the same concept with the opposite. I love baptizing people because I love seeing the change in people’s lives.

[Ysabel Dos Santos, Elder Pickett, Karina Dos Santos]

Karina didn’t believe in anyone or anything and in 4 weeks we helped her to have faith in Jesus Christ and have faith in the church. It helped a lot that she lived with members also. Yesica is the sister of a member. One day we decided to see if the rest of the family of this member wanted to listen to us and Yesica let us in and 4 weeks later we got her baptized. Just little miracles that happen that I am grateful for. We need to think of the little miracles that happen in our lives and thank our Heavenly Father.

Sorry for the short letter but nothing weird happened this week. I hope to have a new tale for you all next week.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARCOS (yesterday)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love you buddy!!!

[Birthday Card for Marcos]

I love you all and thank you for all your support.

Love,

Elder Pickett

General Conference!

2010-10-04T09:35:00.003-06:00

Dear Everyone,

WHAT A CONFERENCE!! A couple of things. First, I think I have now seen Aunt Rachel more times than I have my own parents. Second, Father, what were you doing in the casting commercial?! We were sitting eating some fiambres and such and all of a sudden I see you on the screen for a good minute getting your beard and hair put on. I was just yelling at all the elders “THAT’S MY DAD!!”. They didn’t believe me until I pulled out my photos of the family and then they believed me.

The conference was really neat. What really stayed with me were the topics of choice making and pride. The majority in my opinion were focused on making the right choices. Making the right choice is actually really easy to do but, we don’t like to make the right choices for selfish reasons. We need to put our will in line with the will of the Father. I like the quote that Elder Scott said and I paraphrase because I can’t remember it perfectly. “ We become what we want to be when we be what we want to become.” It’s pretty obvious no? But we sometimes forget that. If we want to be a good example, we need to... act like a good example. What the Prophet and Apostles said this conference were so simple and easy to understand that I think it hit everyone to the very soul. It “pricked” my heart a lot with things that I want to change in my life to be in harmony with God. This conference also helped me with my investigators too.

We had one investigator, Graciela, who didn’t attend any session until the last session. She has a problem with cigarettes. She doesn’t believe in herself that she can stop smoking and she is losing a lot of faith. But, she still came to the last session of conference. She fell asleep for the first hour and a half of the last session and then Elder Ballard got to the pulpit. He started speaking and she woke up when he said the word “ addiction”. She immediately got a piece of paper and pen and began taking notes. She came out of the conference with so much motivation to quit smoking that we are going to try and get here a baptism date and get rid of these cigs. That is just one miracle of conference.

Listening to the prophets voice does something to us. It is probably the fact the we are listening to the Lord’s voice every time we watch conference. The Prophet is the mouth piece of God and with send His message through his prophets to bless his children. He blessed Graciela with the words she needed to hear. I am sure that he blessed you all with the words you needed to hear. I feel richly blessed for the opportunity I had to listen to conference and learn some more stuff. Please follow the words of the prophet and the apostles. You will be happy by being obedient.

Everything is just Hunky Dory here in Argentina. Just enjoying life right now. OH.... ANDI! I am so sorry I forgot your birthday last week so..... HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANDI PANDI!!!!! I love you! I can’t believe you are so big now! Until next week, BYE!

Love

Elder Allen Pickett

OW Charlie! That Hurt!

2010-09-27T08:58:00.002-06:00

Dear Everyone,

Well, I did it. I have completed one year on the mission. Crazy to think about. I am now more than half way through with my service to the Lord. Everything is going great here in Mariló. We are working really hard to baptize people. We have a lot of candidates who have baptismal dates. We are really working so that they keep their commitments. We have the goal in the mission of baptizing someone on Sunday the 10th of October (happy birthday Marcos) because that day is 10/10/10. Pretty cool no? If I repeat myself from my last email, act like it’s something new ok? Jaja.

So Wednesday was a pretty cool day. We got challenged by our zone leaders, who live with us, to see who could teach the most lessons in the day. So we went out and just started going crazy with finding people. While going crazy looking for people, we both got bit by dogs. My comp got bit on the hand by a rottweiler. The dog stuck his head outside the fence and bit my comp. It was so scary/weird. Then about half hour later we reached a dead end where we had to turn around. (Way to go Elder Pickett, didn’t you know you had to turn around on a dead end?) Yes, yes I know, I know. So when we turned around there was the dog. It was kinda like those movies where the terrorist dog corners the person and then tries to kill them. The dog stopped in front of us and I went to pass/kick the dog just like any other dog but no, it’s not like any other dog. As I go pass the dog, it starts attacking my pant leg and actually grabs my leg. Let’s just say that it hurt really bad and that the dog was hurting worse. JA! I kicked the dog so hard that I thought I killed it for a second, but then it got up and whimpered away. Oh the life of a missionary. Oh, anyway, the competition, so we went just teaching like crazy. We ended up with 13 lessons that day. And the zone leaders… 10! JA! We won a pizza napolitana from them. It was so good. I love pizza from here. It’s better than the states. I am very convinced that the food here is better than the food there except for Mexican food.

So the mother-in-law of one of our investigators is Paraguaya and she knows how to speak Guaraní, Portuguese and castellano. I am trying to learn Portuguese because I want to go to Brazil in 2014. I have a lot of phrases down but still a long ways to go. It is starting to get really hot. It’s like 75 degrees…. Ja ok that’s not hot but it’s hotter than it was before. I have to pull out my short sleeves again. Time for summer. YAHOO! We are really happy with the progress of our investigators and we have a lot of faith that they will reach their baptisms.

Thank you Mom and Dad, Abu y Grandpa, and Grandma and Grandpa Packard for your emails. I love hearing from you all. And for the rest of you who have sent me letters and stuff, I have no post office to send letters so just accept this for now. Thank you mom I got my package. I’m just having a blast here in Argentina. Loving everything about it. And don't forget General Conference this weekend! Until next week, SEE YA!

Love,

Elder Pickett

ONE YEAR!!!

2010-09-20T08:42:00.003-06:00

Dear Everyone,

Here we are, another week and a new companion. My new companion is Elder Hart from Las Vegas! He is a hoot. He is so much fun. We have fun everyday and we work like crazy. He and I are very similar and we can get a lot done because we understand each other. Thank heavens for one of these companions. Well, last week, we just got to work. We went out and went sacking [note: Spanglish from the Spanish verb "sacar" or to take out] fecha happy. In the week, we sacked out 4 fechas with investigators. After the week was over, we still have three of them. We are just rocking right now. He brings the energy that we lacked in the area. We are having a lot of fun.

[Elder Pickett and Elder Hart with Luana]

Wednesday we went to Ramos Mejía for something very special. I got to eat lunch with Abuelita y Grandpa. That was a lot of fun. Abuelita was herself. JA! She was crying and was really happy and Grandpa was like “hey buckwheat!”. It was really great to talk with them and eat a lot with them. We ate some milanesas caballos and some pizza. A lot of food but it was really good. Other than that, the week was pretty normal.

[Elder Pickett's surprise visitors]

It has been getting hotter and there has been more sun so that means the brown skin is coming back. I am starting to get my watch tan line back so that definitely means its getting hotter and more sunny. So we have been helping one of our investigators try and quit smoking. Missionaries have tried for 2 years to help her quit. We are bound and determined that it is going to be us that will baptize her. So my companion had an idea that he heard in the MTC and so we are going to try it. It is where we make fake cigs and put scriptures on the fake cigs. We put five fake cigs in a pack of ten. Every time she goes to smoke, if she pulls out a cig, she can smoke. But if she pulls out a fake cig, she has to read the scripture and pray for strength to stop smoking. She said she hadn’t tried this idea before so we’ll see how it goes. I hope it works because we want to baptize her. The best of the best missionaries have past through and have not been able to baptize her.

[Elder Pickett and Little Luana]

We have this goal as a mission to have every area baptize on the 10th of October. The reason is because it is un día de diez!! The date is going to be 10/10/10 and that is the only time in our life that it is going to happen so we want everyone to be baptized on that date to remember it better. We have a lot of work ahead of us in this grand work of the Lord. I am having a great time serving the people of Argentina. For as much as it gets hard and uncomfortable to do some things, I am very grateful for the opportunity to learn and grow. I know that I am becoming a better person by serving. I hope that you all are doing your part and are sharing the gospel with your non member friends. Invite them to come to church. Be friends with them so they will want to know more.

Thanks Mom and Dad for your emails. I really appreciate that every week you guys write to me. I am starting to understand when people say that it is crazy that we talk with our family twice a year on the phone. It is crazy. But it’s all good. ONE YEAR YAHOO!!!!!! I love you all.

Love

Elder Pickett

Transfer week and Pictures

2010-09-13T14:54:00.006-06:00

[Note: This week was transfer week so Allen didn't get much time to write. He only had 10 minutes so he downloaded some pictures and we chatted a bit. I told him that he had to share at least one small story from this week. He has a new companion, elder Christopher Allen Hart from Las Vegas, Nevada.]

OK. We had family home evening Saturday night with two families. It was great to see people doing family home evening. The topic was about the family. How to raise a good family is such a difficult world. The children down here in Argentina have a very hard time with everything. They have a lot of pressure on them with temptations and all. I see a lot of kids everyday that get caught by the lies of Satan. That is why I am so glad I was raised the way I was in the place where I lived. I told them many a story of my childhood and how Mom and Dad raised me with strict rules. They were all in awe. Then afterward we ate some really good empanadas. .... How is that for a short story lol

Capilla en Mariló - street view

Capilla en Mariló - building

Some random photos of him and companions:

Here we are in September

2010-09-06T09:09:00.003-06:00

Dear Everyone,

Another week complete in the mission and some more great experiences. This week a lot of stuff happened. And when I say this week, I mean this past weekend. We had a so-so week but it was really busy. We had to do a lot of things in preparation for our baptisms. We didn’t have gas in the church (still) and so we had to move to the chapel in Trujui.

I’m going to talk about what happened Saturday because that was the busiest day of the week. So after situating all the talks and figuring out all the clothes and refreshments and stuff, we went to the church in Trujui to start filling up the font. We start to fill up the font and there was no water pressure. It was just dribbling water out of the spigot. And we had about 4 hour and a half hours until the baptism was to start. It takes about 3 and a half hours to fill it. So we went frantic looking for ways to fill up the font. The water pressure was just fine in the bathroom and so we became plumbers. We disconnected the water pipe below and started filling up buckets. Yes, I know, that is really slow. We did that for some time while one of the missionaries from Trujui was playing with all the water pressure valves. Finally he figured it out so that we could get the water pressure to start working.

So that was just the font. Now we had to deal with the dirty, wet clothes that we got from another area because we didn’t have any clothes. We had to wash these clothes on the spot. So my comp went into the kitchen to wash the clothes. As he was washing the clothes, he pushed down on the sink and it fell through. If you all haven’t seen my comp, he is huge. All we could do was laugh because the sink was put in very bad. We kind of fixed the sink by somewhat gluing it to the cement that was already holding it in. We hope that it didn’t fall on anyone yesterday at church. So after getting the clothes all clean and putting them up to dry, we left to go pick up our baptismal candidates. They didn’t know how to get to the other church so we had to take them. We got to the baptism a little late, but to our greatest surprise, no one was there! We start calling and asking where everyone one was, por suerte everyone was on their way. We had everyone show up that we needed to show up. By that I mean, we had the bishop, our two talks and like three other members, with six missionaries. 4 of us from Mariló and 2 from Trujui. Some great attendance no? But I played the piano and I got some great comments because I did some improvisations of some hymns and they turned out good. Never knew playing around on the piano for so long would pay off. So the baptisms went well and everyone is happy. The refreshments afterward were really good. Facturas. Mmm, I love facturas. And by the time everything was over, the day was over and we went to the apartment. Sunday was also a good day because all three of them got confirmed also. I got to confirm one of them. It was my first confirmation that I had done in my mission. And let me tell you, it is hard to speak in Tú when one is used to speaking in Usted and in Vos. And that was my week.

Thank you Mom, Dad, Abuelita y Grandpa for your emails. Also Cui, Christian, and Britney. I hope all is well with Grandpa Packard. Send my love to him. I love your pictures! Please keep sending more. I’ll try to be better and send more. I love you all and thank you for all your support. And Gracias Abuelita y Grandpa por la Corbata. Tiene colores de River!! AGUANTE!

Love,

Elder Pickett

[His computer at this internet cafe didn't have a USB port for him to hook up and send pictures but after sending his letter and me publishing it he found one that had USB port and he sent the following pictures]

Here I Am

2010-08-30T09:23:00.002-06:00

Dear Everyone,

Another week has past and here I am sitting in an internet café with about 15 teenagers as they play Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto. I, well, am writing this letter to you all so that you guys know what is happening to me. So here it goes.

This past week was ok. We had to cancel our baptisms and move them to this coming Saturday. The reason why we moved the baptism is for two reasons. One of which I will tell you. We didn’t have gas to heat up the water in the tank so the water would have been freezing. So we just decided to move the baptism for the next week. Other than that, the week was kind of boring. We just did what we normally do. We had zone conference this past week and it was amazing as normal. We learned this week on how to take out baptismal dates and how to jive with the investigators better. I loved learning about that because I love talking to investigators about whatever kind of stuff. What we also learned is that working with members is really great. That means, you all need to find someone for the missionaries. The missionaries can’t do all the looking even though that’s why we are out here. Every member a missionary! Do it! So I have been thinking a lot during sacrament meetings about sacrament meetings at home. And to be completely honest, I think I am going to go to a Spanish branch. Singing hymns in Spanish and hearing talks in Spanish just make me feel really comfortable. I want everyone who speaks Spanish to speak in Spanish to me so I feel comfortable. JAJA.

A principle that I love learning and applying is “when the going gets tough, the tough get going.” All of us need to apply it in our lives a lot of times. When something goes bad, we always hear, just rub a little dirt on it. I have had to learn that lesson out here a lot. We get rejected a lot or our investigators don’t progress or what have you. We learn in Preach My Gospel that we are not to become unmotivated because when we get unmotivated, our faith decreases. So don’t become disanimoed [desanimado - anglicized] just because something isn’t going the way you like it. Buck up camper! The sun will come out tomorrow.

Thank you all for your emails. I am so glad everyone is loving school. The only advice I have for school is, ENJOY! We are almost in September!! Oh my goodness. My mission is almost gone! Someone at home is praying for time to go faster? Well stop it! Lol I love you all and pray for you everyday. I will write more next week.

Love

Elder Pickett

[Allen and I chatted for a bit and he sounds a little bit down so letters will be very appreciated]

Happy 11 months!

2010-08-23T09:03:00.003-06:00

Dear Everyone,

Another week passes by and I am another week older in the mission. To my great relief, my birthday package came so you don’t have to worry mother. I thoroughly enjoy the packages you sent. My pench is very excited to play pin the tail on the donkey. The one bad thing is that the ding dongs made a mess in the package and some hot chocolate mixed got broken open so it was a bit messy but igual it was great to receive stuff for my birthday. I especially loved the song cards. I will send the video of us dancing to them when I have a way to send pictures. The elder that has the device to send pictures isn’t with me so I’ll send pics later.

This past week has been pretty normal. We have been working everyday and finding new people to bring to church. This place is full of people that want to know more about the gospel. This place is more alive than my other areas. We have been blessed with a lot of people who want to listen. But this weekend, we had the grand opportunity to have a BAPTISM!! We got to baptize Belén. Well, I got to baptize her. I got to put on the white uniform and help someone else make covenants with the Lord. It was a great experience for everyone. The zone leaders also baptized with us because we are in the same ward.

This next weekend, we have 3 baptisms and we are looking for more to baptize the following weekends also. We have a lot of possible candidates that just need to fix some problems. We received a reference [referral] of gold this past week. It is of this couple who live in our ward boundaries and are very interested in the gospel and want to get baptized. They are so interested in the gospel and wanting to get baptized so bad that they have been going to church in San Miguel which is 45 minutes in bus from where we are. AND, it’s in the north mission. The only reason they went there is because they didn’t know where our church was and she works there so she knew where that one was. The only problem they have is, the aren’t married because the man isn’t divorced from his first wife. UGH! This country is the capital of being Juntados. As the saying goes Familias Para Siempre. Well here it’s Juntados Para Siempre.

AH! I’m running out of time so fast. Sunday we had 8 investigators come to church. And no they weren’t because of the baptisms. We literally went and looked for all of them. It was a miracle because we only found 3 in house. The other 5 came on their own. We passed by every single one of them but they had already left for church when we got the their house. I love my investigators right now. So like I said earlier, we have 3 baptisms this coming Saturday and they also came Sunday to church. I am so proud of all of them for coming to church.

Well thank you Mom and Dad for you emails. Also Andi and Sophie for your beautiful little letter. I love you and rock on Sophie and Andi!! Good luck in school this year. Well, I should actually say Do well! Abuelita y Grandpa, donde están? les amo muchísimo. Gracias por su apoyo.

Con Amor

Elder Pickett

A Really Full Week

2010-08-16T10:24:00.005-06:00

Dear Everyone,

What another week here in Argentina! Almost a year has past by. I am a year older and hopefully wiser. So to start off my week. Tuesday was district meeting and when we get mail. I was really excited to get birthday mail and whatnot. The mail came and there was nothing there for me. I was so bummed. So then we went back to work in our area and everything was normal. Tuesday night, Elder Gibson (one of my zone leaders), made me a birthday cake. His Mom sent him some spice cake and frosting and so he made it for me that night. He is so awesome for doing that.

(Elder Gibson's cake for Elder Pickett)

We wake up the next morning like normal, even though it was my birthday, and we did our exercises. In the middle of exercising and such, we received a call. It was from President Benton. He normally calls the missionaries for their birthdays. But in his call, he said he was going to be at our pench in 20 minutes. So we went into emergency mode by cleaning everything and getting showered and dressed, every single one of us four had to shower so it was crazy. So we were all dressed when he walked through the door( I was putting my tie on in front of him) and he said, Get the fire going! He came to cook us an American breakfast for my birthday. We had pancakes, eggs, and bacon. It was really good. But as soon as he came, he left because of a meeting that he had to be at that started at 8. Our pench in like an hour away from where he needed to be so you can see the big sacrifice he made to do this breakfast for us.

(President Benton serving the breakfast)

(Allen is 20)

(President Benton cooking breakfast)

(Breakfast fit for a king)

(Elder Pickett had a happy birthday)

After we got the whole President Benton service, we went back to the normal missionary thing. Also for my birthday, a family did an asado for me. I had some vacio and some chorizo and I was really really full. I was also threatened with eggs and flour but luckily nothing happened. I had a wonderful birthday full of love from other people. We received texts from members for my birthday. It was really great to still feel loved even though I am very far from home. So other than my birthday, everything was EXCELLENT!

So we talked with Belén (18yrs old) about getting baptized and she said that she really wants to get baptized. So we talked to her about all the commandments and made sure she had no problems to get baptized. All in all, she is getting baptized this Saturday!! We are so excited for her and the decisions she had made. She also has a lot of friends in church who are active also. But what made this week even better was the fact that we took out 3 more baptismal dates. We took the fechas out with Yolanda and her two grand daughters, Laura and Ana. They came to church yesterday and they really love the church. We have their baptism set for the next Saturday the 28th of Agosto. They have also made some really great friends in the ward. The Relief Society and some hermanas are really doing their job by becoming friends with investigators. Makes our job a whole lot easier.

We had a Ward activity this past Saturday. It was just a get together kind of thing slash celebrate the holiday that is today. The Fallecimiento de San Martín. I know the holiday is actually tomorrow but they changed it so that people could have a longer weekend. Go figure, I’m in Argentina. Jaja. So for the activity, we played a little soccer, like always, and we also ate some Locro. Now if some of you remember, my last Locro experience wasn’t the greatest. This one was a whole lot better. The Locro wasn’t like water downed pig soup. This one was more like a Guiso. It tasted a lot better.

(Ward activity)
Sunday we had a good attendance at church and we had 5 investigators come. After church we went to work and we went to a house where there is a marriage problem. The man drinks and the woman doesn’t like it. She wants to get married to him so that way she can get baptized in the church but the guy doesn’t want to. So we went in and he just starts asking what the difference was between the mormons and the rest of the churches and blah blah blah. He had been drinking but not a lot. We eventually got on the topic of Alcohol and their relationship. We asked her why she doesn’t love him and she said that it was because of the alcohol and immediately he yells and says THAT’S A LIE! And so after that we had him calm down and we started talking to him about how drinking is bad and can ruin relationships. He kept saying that we were confused and stupid and we didn’t know what we were talking about. It eventually ended like this and this is almost word for word.
Me: Alcohol is bad for the body, is that right?
The man: yes
Me: Alcohol is bad for your body, right?
The man: yes
Me: In that case, Alcohol is bad and ALL bad things are not from God.

At that moment, he stood up, went to the door, opened the door and said to us, “I’m telling you the same thing I tell her right now, there is the door and get out. I am the one who mans the house and I will not be talked to like that.” So then I got up and said, “ We will pass by another day sir.” We shook his hand and we left. After that, I was shaking in my legs because that was really scary. Jaja. But I figure that we had to tell him one way or another because he said that he loved God and Jesus and so I told him that bad things don’t come from God. No more.

But that was my week. Thank you Claralina, Cui Cui, Mom and Marcos for the emails. Thanks Sara for the fotos and keep taking and sending them. I’ll try to do my best on this side. Keep smiling! I love you all.

Love,
Elder Pickett

Getting Older

2010-08-09T09:41:00.002-06:00

Dear Everyone,

Well, I’m getting older. It’s crazy to think that I will turn 20 on Wednesday. We have an asado planned with a family here but nothing much. Everything just chill. Kinda depressing seeing as it is my birthday I should be really happy. Hence, Happy Birthday… But oh well. Well, I am in Mariló B and I am with Elder Heddy. He is from New Jersey and he is much bigger than I am so don’t worry about me getting robbed. He has 6 months on the mission and this is his first area. He is 6’ 1” and about 120 kg. That is about twice my weight. I am liking this place so far. Not like I have much choice but it’s nice to mention that I like the place.

[View from their pension on a cold winter day]

[Elder Pickett and Elder Heddy]

I live in a four man apartment with the zone leaders. And you will never guess who one of my zone leaders is… That’s right, Elder González my TIO! Jaja. We are together again for another two transfers probably. Funny how things work out.

[The four elders in the pension]

[Elder Gonzalez and Elder Pickett]

I am comp mayor still and we are doing pretty well so far. We have a lot of investigators that could get baptized within the next month or two. We have one investigator whose name is Belén. She really wants to get baptized but she is having family problems. Her father doesn’t believe in God and is angry with God. Her mother is Jehovah’s Witness and so you can just see the conflict in that one. She wants to have the support of her family and we don’t want to do anything that the parents are against so we had to move her baptism date from the 14th to the 21st to see if things will change. She has a strong testimony in prayer. She always trying to find comfort in prayer. She is really great. Just to name some other investigators that we are trying to work with: Graciela (and her 2 sons), Yolanda, Mariana(and her 2 daughters), Flia Godoy, Eva, Marina, Lidia and I think that’s it but there might be more.. I can’t remember everyone. I’m new to the area. As you can see, we have a lot of work to do. A couple of them are smoking, some are having a hard time waking up to come to church. There are just a lot of little problems that are standing in the way of our investigators. Yesterday at church, we only had Yolanda and her two granddaughters. Yolanda is the mother of Mariana but Mariana wasn’t home so those three came with us.

[Elder Pickett and some locals]

Mariló is a ward that has about 90 people show up. Our chapel is a house on a quinta. The direction is, if you wanna try and look it up, Roca y Las Americas. That is the best direction I can give. I don’t know the number or anything else. Mariló is a [lower] middle class area, for lack of better terms. A lot of dirt roads and a lot of Paraguayos.

So something funny that happened to me this morning, we decided to read a conference talk from this last conference. And we read it in English because we speak English most of the time. I started out reading the talk and I could pronounce English very well. Me cuesta HABLAR EN MI PROPIO IDIOMA!!!! So yes, I thought it was quite funny. Just gives you guys something to look forward to for Christmas. Thanks Mom, Marcos and Grandma and Grandpa Packard for your Emails this week. I hope everyone has a great week! I love you and thank you for your prayers.

With lots of love,

Elder Pickett

Quick Note

2010-08-02T14:57:00.006-06:00

Hey just a quick note because we don't have much time because we just barely found an internet cafe to write in and we need to work in like 10 minutes. I got moved to another area again. They didn't tell me that I was just filling in the spot in Villa Celina so now I am in Mariló B.

[Mariló in Perspective - Courtesy of Google Earth]

[Mariló Ward boundaries - Courtesy of LDS Maps]

[Street in Mariló - courtesy of Panoramio]

My companion is Elder Heddy [from New Jersey]. I will tell more about him later on another day because I have to go now. And I was the senior comp of the flash thing, and yes, I was careful when I was over there. No need to worry now.

Love Elder Pickett

[Paul: I can't find it on the maps, where is it located?]
its in the Moreno stake and it is like poor campo so far lol

[Paul: Send some pics when you can]
i lost my cable to my camera so I have to find some way to send pics. Love you bye

WHOA! I Love the Mission.

2010-07-26T13:41:00.004-06:00

Talk about crazy week! Well, the week started out very normal until Wednesday. I have the grand opportunity to be in a flash [note: a flash is an emergency transfer, I asked Allen what was the reason and he says that somebody in another area wasn't behaving]! I got put in Villa Celina. The mission had to do some changes a little early and so now I am in Villa Celina with Elder Shepherd. He is from Las Vegas and is a really cool kid. He has almost 5 months on the mission. His birthday is on August 9! So we are going to be celebrating our birthdays together. Oh, and Father, Elder Shepherd is a huge Battlefield 1942 guy and so it was crazy to meet someone else who is crazy like us.

(Villa Celina is located next to Ciudad Madero in the Aldo Bonzi Stake)

I am loving Villa Celina so far. Elder Shepherd and I get along so well so we are able to get a lot of stuff done. We have a lot of really great people that we are working with. I am glad I have this new opportunity to help people in another area. We have a lot of people that can be baptized really soon. We are just trying to take out [resolve] their doubts. Like last night, we had a lesson with a member and her non-member husband and he was asking really good questions about the Plan of Salvation and we were able to answer them. I was really happy about that.

(Aerial view of Celina and Madero)

We have a villa in our area. For those who don’t know what a villa is, a villa is like the projects in the US but more poor. Their houses are about the size of a bathroom and they have about 5 to 8 people living in that space. It is really humbling to see. Yesterday we ate with a family that lives in the villa and they gave us really good food. I could feel that they were giving a lot more than what they normally had. I felt very grateful for them. This place is changing my mission even more. The people here are very humble but sometimes we meet the people who aren’t so nice. The members here are very very nice to us. They help us out a lot with investigators and with references. Oh, another cool little thing, I am the pianist in the ward. I am so glad I can play the piano somewhat so that we don’t have to sing accapella.

In this short week here, we have seen a lot of stuff. Like Saturday was a Bolivian holiday and so we couldn’t go to that side of our area because it is just pure Bolivians and they all had a lot of alcohol. We had a lot of fun watching the parade for the holiday but we decided to leave when it looked like to be getting out of hand.

So we had a very cool experience happen to us Sunday. We went out Sunday to go look for some investigators to go to church with us. We went to four different houses and called them up also to come pick them up. Every single one of them rejected us. We were so bummed out because we didn’t have anyone to bring to church. We get to the sacrament meeting, which is first in this ward, and we just did everything as normal. After the sacrament meeting, one of the members comes up to us and says, hey this is my nephew and he wants to listen to you guys and probably get baptized. I can’t tell you how big of a smile I had on my face when he told us that. We went in the rain to go look for people and no one wanted to come but apparently the Lord already brought our investigator to church. I love the miracles that I see in the mission.

Thanks for all of your support in everything. I am getting really excited for my birthday because I am in Argentina!! I love you all. Stay safe this week.

Love
Elder Pickett

Christmas in July? Cold Enough...

2010-07-19T09:44:00.002-06:00

Dear Everyone,

I write to you all from the very cold and very wet country of Argentina once again. This past week has been anything but warm. We have been flirting with 0 degrees celcius and a lot of humidity. Oh, how I just love Argentina in the winter. Beside the cold, this past week has been really crazy.

To start off, last Tuesday we had a surprise meeting with the whole mission. Apparently the church is going to change Preach My Gospel and add or only have (I can’t remember which it was) 8 chapters. Now I don’t know yet whether that will complicate things or make things easier. I assume it would make them easier or else they wouldn’t bring them out. They are teaching us the new system of everything now but it won’t take into effect until next May. Sounds like a long time away but mind you, I will almost be done with my mission at that time. But the new lessons that they showed us are a lot better in my opinion. The new lessons use the spirit a lot more. Kinda like how Preach My Gospel changed the recited lessons to free speaking lessons, well we are now changing it to make each lesson more of a spiritual experience for the investigators.

I don’t know if that made sense because we are supposed to do that anyway but I am losing my ability to explain things in English. Since I live in a pench of 4 English speakers, we all speak English. I think if anyone from the states heard our conversations, they would think that we were speaking another language. And we are speaking another language. It’s called spanglish or castiyankee. They are interchangeable. It is the language spoken by most missionaries from the United States and even some Latinos who know English. Jaja. That was my funny moment of the day. That is what we did Tuesday.

Wednesday, my companion and I went back to Ramos Mejía to do the paper work for my comp so he isn’t illegal. So while him and a bunch of other people his age went, I went with Elder Packer and we did some work in Ramos Mejía. Elder Packer is one of the funnest missionaries ever. He is from Rexburg and a Madison High football player. Nicest and funniest guy I have met on the mission. He is trying to convince me to go to BYU-I with him when we finish our mission. (Our branch president just came in to the ciber and just said hello to me. That was weird lol) He has the same time as me. We went into the MTC at the same time. So we did that all day Wednesday.

We are already at Thursday and we still haven’t worked in our area so we are lacking in the datos department, but we made up pretty well. We have a couple of new bolivians that we are teaching that just came from bolivia. So we are now up to 4+ bolivians that we are teaching. We are teaching Jorge, Robert, Andres, and I forgot the last one. Jorge is the closest to being baptized. He believes that everything is true but he wants to wait until he knows more. We have told him that we doesn’t have to wait to know everything and that we need to do some things on faith. And then that got me thinking, why do I do a lot of the things in the church that I do? Habit, puede ser, but I think we as members of the church have a knowledge of a lot of things the world doesn’t know. We should have the faith that we know that everything is what the Lord wants. Our way never seems to be more rewarding. The Lord is always looking to reward us for our patience and long suffering. I always remember President Uchdorf’s talk on patience during last conference whenever I am feeling a bit frustrated in my life. All of us get frustrated and a little hot tempered but that's where we need to learn autocontrol.

Sunday, it rained a whole lot. A lot more than normal. The past two Sundays we have had above 130 people in church and that is way above average for being winter. This Sunday, we had a grand total of 29 people in church. We dropped 100 people at church. Unbelievable no? And two of them were our investigators. It was a sad day. And half of the electricity in the chapel didn’t work so we didn’t have a functioning piano. So you can imagine the singing that went on for sacrament meeting. And that’s how my week was.

Thank you Mom and Dad for writing this week. Also Cui Cui and Grandpa and Abuelita for sending your love. Te amo muchísimo. Gracias por tu apoyo. Estoy divirtiéndome acá en Argentina. Estoy emocionado que ustedes van a venir próximo mes. Ustedes pueden pasar por personas que yo conozco si quieren. Bueno, Gracias a todos por sus oraciones por mi y los otros misioneros. Les amo mucho.

Elder Pickett

GO SPAIN!!!!!

2010-07-12T11:09:00.004-06:00

Dear Everyone,
This has been a week of celebrations. This past week, we got the opportunity to celebrate 4th of July and 9 de Julio. The 4th of July, I already told you guys what we did. For 9 de Julio, we did nothing. We left the apartment and we had been walking for about 5 minutes when all of a sudden we see a lot but I mean, A LOT of horses on the loose. Well, that was a first for me in Argentina. I had seen cows on the loose, and sheep, but never horses. Then we saw gauchos and gauchitos guiding them to the town center. Then it dawned on us that it was 9 de Julio! So we went back to the apartment really fast and grabbed our cameras so we could take some fotos. We got to the town center at the end of the parade of horses so we got very few pictures and videos. I can't load them on this computer because I tried it once and my computer froze so I'll just ask a member during the week to download them.

A ver, I can't remember anything else that has been exciting or amazing. We are just trying to survive the cold here. It is freezing here. Today we have clear skies and WIND! Oh man goodness, this is the coldest I have felt here on the mission. Yesterday we had the drizzle rain all day. That was annoying and cold.

So funny story, you might not think so but I thought it was kinda funny. Yesterday was like any normal Sunday. We got through the first two hours just fine and then we got to sacrament meeting. The missionaries are the people to answer the door when it rings so the doorbell rang when we were about to start. So we go down there and answer the door and invite them to come in. It happened to be a lady not from the area and not a member but wanted to stop by. Pretty cool, no? So when we get upstairs, they already started the first hymn. It was "Master, the tempest is raging" and... it was in acapella. It. Sounded. Horrible. No one knew how to play it and I had left the room to answer the door. haha. So the other 3 hymns I was able to play at least with my right hand because the book stand is broken and so I had to hold the hymn book with my left hand. Just some of the joys of the mission.

Anyway, I don't much else to say. I am sorry for the let down in stories. It's the winter time in Argentina. Its cold. I love you all and I will try really hard to send fotos this week and if not, next Monday.

Elder Pickett

Yes, I'm Still Here...

2010-07-05T10:19:00.002-06:00

Dear Everyone,

Well, this week was a very sad week. This country is a wreck after the game. We received permission to watch the game and it was very frustrating to watch. Well enough of that because it just makes me even more sad. One more thing about it, I can’t even tell you how many people I saw crying that day. Anyway, just another week here in Argentina. We had a baptism Saturday. It was of a girl who turned 9 years old last week and so we were placed in charge of her. It was a very nice baptism. There was also a baptism of the branch so it was a primary baptism. So at least we have one baptism now. It is going to be a little bit harder finding another baptism but I’m sure we can find one. We had one of our investigators come to church for the first time yesterday. He is a 19 year old from Bolivia. I think on my side of [the city of] Grl. Rodriguez we have the whole country of Bolivia. Chiste. But we are hoping to get him to come to church more. He said he is going to come next Sunday also so we’ll see what’s up. I think an easier way of telling you what I do every week is to just video everything I do and then you can see what I do. But the computers down here load too slow and so it takes a long time to load videos, like 45 mins for one, and that’s if I am not doing anything on the computer. Anyway, enough quejaring.

My hijito is still struggling. He is still struggling with the language but talks to everyone igual. I have to translate sometimes after he is done talking with them but he is progressing nevertheless. We are getting better. We have had funny moments where he mixed up his wording. For example, instead of asking a woman if we can compartir un mensaje with her, he said, queremos compartir una familia con usted. Que día podemos pasar? It was the funniest thing to translate afterward because we did get her address and so it made things just a tad bit funnier. He was embarrassed after and so was I because apparently we are both going to be sharing a family with her. Jaja. It’s just a process that all missionaries go through. Yesterday for the 4th of July, we cooked ourselves an asado, well we took meat over to a members house and they helped us cook it. We had a cut of meat called tapa and it was really good. We cooked about two and a half kilos of that and two whole chickens. Yes, we were really stuffed afterward. You can imagine all the meat, salad, bread, and sprite we consumed. A ridiculous amount of food. We all wore our red white and blue tie to church. I wore the Argentina USA pin that Dad gave me. Happy 9 de Julio. I really wanted to be in 9 de Julio for 9 de Julio. That would have been a cool celebration.

Well thank you Mom and Dad, Abuelita y Grandpa, and Grandma and Grandpa Packard for your letters. We are almost at the half way mark. Only like what two and a half months until that point. Jaja. Sara, happy birthday. I hope you’re not too drugged up to celebrate. If you are, I will celebrate for you. Oh and there are going to be some people calling you for your birthday on Thursday from down here. I think.... well they said they would. We have lunch with them on Wednesday so I’ll talk to them and averiguar todo. Well nothing else exciting is going on. I hope everyone has a Wonderful 9 de Julio without me. We all know that it’s not the same without me. Jaja.

I love you.

Elder Pickett

Argentina! ARGENTINA!

2010-06-28T08:40:00.003-06:00

Dear Everyone,

Well, like I said in my short letter home last week, everything is crazy. I am now training Elder Warren. Everything is just going great with us. It’s kind of funny hearing him speak Spanish because he is still learning. He definitely is very friendly with everyone, like with greeting them but after that, it’s a little more difficult. He just loves working even if we have nothing and at this point, it’s getting difficult to find people because of the winter time. It is freezing cold here. But I can’t say much, I’m here writing in just a shirt and gloves. I have gotten used to the cold, kinda. This past week we have just been running around getting to know the members and we worked a little bit this week because I remember my first week here in the country and I was exhausted. So I had a little sympathy for him. Anyway, nothing really happened this week other than that. We are just doing the missionary thing.

Elder Warren, mi hijito...

World cup on the other hand.... YAHOO!!! This world cup is crazy. President Benton is going to let us watch the game on Saturday because we have now made it far enough to where it gets dangerous to watch. Yesterday, we were told to stay indoors for the game. We happened to stay in the house of a member and kinda watch the first half of the game. We then left to the pench to escape any drunks and guns that were going off. We chilled in the pench for the rest of the game and my comp took a nap that happened to go for four hours because his stomach was a little uneasy. But after the game, there were fireworks, guns, etc., anything that makes a banging noise like that, it was going off. Everyone was honking their car horns and flying huge flags out their windows. I am sad that I didn’t get fotos of it because it was hilarious.

World Cup fever

Elder Sabey went home...

Yesterday, we also had stake conference. We had an area seventy speak to us and it was a really good conference. There were five people that spoke and four of them spoke on the family and how we need to raise the youth to love the gospel. The fifth speaker was the area seventy and he didn’t touch the topic of everyone else. He spoke on worrying about ourselves because the way we judge is the way God will judge us. It was a really cool talk. It was hard for my companion to understand a lot of it so he studied Preach My Gospel and the white bible the whole time. I feel sorry for him because sometimes people tell funny jokes in Spanish and then I sometimes have to translate them and then they aren’t funny. I remember those days, a little. I am so glad I knew Spanish or por lo menos understood it a lot more than normal missionaries.

I am loving Argentina more than ever right now. I am actually considering coming back and living here. I like it even though the system here is so crazy. Maybe my mind will change in a year. Who knows! Christian, open your call now!! I want to know where you are going!!

Oh, happy anniversary parentals. Hope you enjoyed your day together. Happy 4th of July next Sunday everyone. AGUANTE ARGENTINA!!! VAMOS A GANAR SÁBADO!!!! I hope everyone watches the game and enjoys it. I love you. Sorry this is short again.

Elder Pickett

Short and Simple, Sorry...

2010-06-23T10:09:00.001-06:00

Dear Everyone,

Sorry for the delay in writing. I will explain, after I tell of a few other things. Well, we had a baptism on Sunday. We finished the transfer with 5 baptisms. We won for the most baptisms in the zone for the transfer. We got the mission tie for that. YAHOO! We are the best.

And as Dad perfectly guessed, we did finish the transfer this past Monday. AND, my companion left. I am with a new companion. But not just any companion.... I am training!! I have a newbie and that is my reason for not writing because everything has been really crazy. Monday I found out that I was training and then I had to stay with another elder in another area so it was really crazy. We didn’t have time to write. Yesterday I went to the trainers meeting to receive instruction and to receive my newbie! Well, my newbie is an American. Straight from northern Utah. Elder Warren!! He is about 8 inches taller than me and so it is kind of funny walking down the street. He is a really obedient missionary and it is going to be really great working with him. I am really excited that I get to train. He is learning Spanish little by little and is still in culture shock. I don’t have much more to say. I am just in a frenzy right now. Hopefully next week I have more to say. Just things are really crazy right now.

And just to let you guys know, well, more like, do you remember Virginia in 9 de Julio? Well, she got baptized this past Sunday also! The family Henderson did a little documentary of it and gave me a copy of it because she mentions my name in it. I was crying when they showed the video yesterday. It was really really cool to see. I am so happy for her. Anyway, that's all I have right now. I’ll talk to you all next week and Ill send some pictures of me and my new comp. Love ya!

Elder Pickett

Ole Ole Ole Ole !!!

2010-06-14T10:44:00.002-06:00

Dear Everyone,

I sit here, another week in a cyber, just passing the time on P-Day. Today is really rainy and cold and windy and thundery and just miserable to be outside. So it doesn’t look like we will do anything fun today. This past week has just been a normal week of missionary work, except…. MUNDIAL!!! It has been just a great atmosphere to be in. On Saturday, we knew everyone was preparing for the game. At about the 10:30 mark is when we are supposed to be outside to start contacting people. When we got outside, everyone was shopping like crazy. A lot of people in the streets. When 11:00 hit (when the game started here), it was empty. It was like a ghost town. So what do we do? We park ourselves in front of Credito Azteca and watch ourselves a little futbol. And let me tell you, I got some really good videos of the national anthem and of the goal. The people inside that little TV store were going nuts!! I’ll send all that I have next week because I didn’t want to take my camera in the rain. The umbrella was basically useless because of the strong wind too. We watch the first half there and then we went to a members house to “eat lunch”. We watch the second half over there. And I think you all already know what Argentina should have done in the game so I won’t talk about it. But que golazoooo!!!! CABEZAZO!!! HEINZE!!! After the game, we went and did the normal thing. We went and did some visits and some contacts. At the end of the day, we watch the USA vs England highlights. What luck we had! Alright, enough about futbol or else I would go for days. But just so you all know, I am very happy that I am here for the world cup.

Anyway, our area had a couple of miracles this weekend also. Our area is split into two. General Rodriguez A and B. I am in B. Well, the area of A had the miracles this week but we are in the same branch so it’s the same. The elders from A had been working really hard with the daughter of a member. This daughter is 23 years old and has a child. She has been really hard to commit to a baptism date. But on Friday, I don’t know what the elders did or what happened but she said out of the blue that she wanted to get baptized Sunday(yesterday). So we hurried(all four of us) and prepared a service and everything. It’s crazy how the Lord works. And that wasn’t the only miracle that happened.

At church on Sunday, we had just finished with the second hour and we were going to sacrament meeting. A guy buzzed the doorbell and so one of four of us answered. Come to find out, he is a Russian- Argentine. He moved to Argentina when he was 14 and has lived here ever since. He came in and pulled a book out of his bag. That book was the Book of Mormon, but in English! I was the only one talking to him at this point and he looked at me and asked if we could set up a day that he could come over to the church and practice his English. By golly I couldn’t have said yes faster. I then gave him the Book of Mormon in Spanish too so that he can actually understand what he is reading. We are ordering a Russian Book of Mormon too for his mother that he lives with. The only sad part is, is that he lives in the area of the other elders. So tomorrow (Tuesday) he is coming over to the church to practice his English so that he can eventually go to the US and get a job with the company that he works with. He seems really cool. And so those were the miracles that happened this past week. We have two baptisms this next Sunday. They are two 9 year old kids so it should be fun.

Thank you to Mom, Dad, Marcos, Sophia, Abuelita y Grandpa, y Eugenio y Veronica for your emails. I really appreciate you all telling me whats going on in your lives. It makes me feel really good. Lol. Enjoy the games this week! AGUANTE ARGENTINA!!! VAMOS COMPAÑERO!! VAMOS A LA LUCHA!!! - CHE

Love,

Elder Pickett

The moment we have all been waiting for...

2010-06-07T08:30:00.004-06:00

Dear Everyone,

Passing another week here and we are trucking through all of the challenges. This past week wasn’t too busy. It is what we call a normal week. We did lessons, contacts, etc. Only a couple of major things happen this week.

Elder Marcos Aidukitis

One happened on Thursday. Thursday we had a meeting with Elder Aidukitis of the Seventy and Presidency of the Area. It was a great meeting. The first thing he said to us was “The Lord is very happy with you guys and the success you have been having, but he is not satisfied.” Our mission is one of the highest baptizing in the area and for him to say that was like, whoa. But when you really think about it, he is obviously right. The Lord wants everyone to come unto Him. If He was satisfied, then there would be no reason for me or any other missionary to be out in the mission.

So from that point on, he just laid down the law on how we should be working. A couple of rules he set were, we can’t go to sacrament meeting without an investigator, we cannot miss sacrament meeting, and we have to baptize every week. Just some of the few rules that he gave us. It was really crazy to hear. The mission is really cracking the whip harder and I like it. It is a new challenge to overcome. Nothing like having a new goal to meet. This next week we are going to see if we can baptize someone. There is a possibility that we can so we are going to work hard for that. We also have a baptism date for the 20th of this month also. We just set that last night which is the other amazing thing that happened but I’ll get to that in a sec.

Elder Aidukitis had everyone that had baptisms stand up. He immediately called on me and asked how many I had baptized. My knees were shaking like crazy and so I said 4. He said that was excellent and then he asked what our goal was and I said 5. My companion and I actually put 3 at the beginning of the transfer but something came out as five. He then told me with his finger pointing at me, you are going to reach it. That put me in awe. I can’t really describe or tell you what happened because there are no words for it.

Elder Pickett and some of the Bolivian children in the area

That is what happened on Thursday. We are now going to skip to Sunday night. There is a boy named Nahuel who is 9 years old. His mom and sister got baptized in February but he didn’t get baptized. Well, the missionaries had been passing by and trying to help him to be baptized. He always said that he wanted to get baptized next week, or the week after, etc. So finally we went to his house last night to talk with the mother about this(we should have done this in the beginning). Come to find out, Nahuel’s sister who got baptized a couple months ago, didn’t want him to get baptized. That is one of the weirdest things I have ever heard in my life. So we then spent the next half hour explaining to the mom and sister that he needs to get baptized because it will do him good and it will bless him in his life. We also told them that he will be able to make decisions with the help of the Holy Ghost and he will make right decisions. So after explaining all that, she then said that she had family from out of town coming and she wanted him to be baptized when they were here because they aren’t members. In the end, we now have a baptism date for the 20th of June. After months of working with him, all we had to do was talk to the mom. Oh, and he agreed to baptized on that day also. Almost forgot to mention that part. So that was my missionary type week.

Elder Pickett loves his Bolivian friends!

Now on to the other important business: Mundial. Friday is the first game of the biggest world wide event ever. South Africa and Mexico. I am hoping South Africa wins because for two reasons. One, I do not like the Mexican National team(I am half Argentine and half from the USA), two, I want to see the home team win a game. Now, besides the beginning of this beautiful time of soccer, we also have Argentina and the USA playing Saturday. I want photos and videos of you guys just going crazy. I want to see if you guys are more crazy than the Argentines. I don’t think you can be so prove me wrong. I already have my Messi and Tevez shirt ready. I have my flag hanging out and I am just so totally ready for Argentina to do what they did in 1986. It is a Pickett tradition. Father in Mexico in 86 and we win. Son in Argentina in 2010 and..... we win? Who knows! Every store is selling world cup everything, every... store. I love it. It’s like I’m living in my own soccer dream.

Well, I have nothing else. Thank you Mom, Dad (kinda lol), and Abuelita y Grandpa for writing me. Everything is going great here in Argentina. Thanks mom for package number two. I already drank all the hot chocolate. JA! I love you all. Until next week...

Love,
Elder Pickett

All Good Things Come to an End

2010-05-31T10:06:00.005-06:00

Dear Everyone,

What a week! That phrase is getting really redundant but it’s the truth. Last Tuesday we(our branch and this country) had a celebration for the 200th anniversary of the Revolution of 25 de Mayo. We had a lot of fun. There were almost 200 people at the branch activity. There was a lot of people playing soccer. In fact, we elders got to play a little. We ended up playing against all the old people who might I add are still pretty good. One of the old guys was decked out in his Boca uniform. Shirt, shorts, socks and court shoes. I wish I had taken a picture of it. It was hilarious. We ate a dish that is called Locro. It wasn’t too bad, but let me tell you what is in it. There is pig skin, cow stomach, tail and I am not sure but I think I saw an eyeball. HAHA. Just kidding but it is an interesting dish. I ate it and I didn’t die so I think it is pretty good.

There was a program with songs and dancing. Our branch president sang La Luna de Tucuman song. I don’t know if that is the title but I recorded it on my camera so don’t worry. He did a couple songs. We all sang the national anthem of course. I only knew the Libertad, Libertad, Libertad! part so it was kind of funny. The bolivians did a dance from bolivia that was pretty cool. We were there from 9 in the morning until 7 at night. So much fun. Why can’t parties be like that in the US? But I definitely have some nice memories of this Holiday. Who knows, maybe I’ll celebrate 201 next year just the same.

So then Thursday came and we had Zone Conference. Zone Conference is just a full day of just listening to our leaders speak to us. It is really long but I guess it’s OK. But the best thing is that I got the package! Thank you so much. I have been drinking hot chocolate everyday. After drinking malta for a long time, you kinda get sick of it so hot chocolate was really good. But I have one thing relating to the package, you forgot to put my soccer pictures in there like I wanted. But it’s OK. It’s like it was a life or death situation. But the fact that there is a cake mix in there and putter butter like stuff makes up for all of it. Thank you Mom. I love you.

Saturday rained like no ones business. BUT, we still had our 4 baptisms. I sent a picture of them. It was great. I got to baptize the kids. They also got confirmed on Sunday so the church now has four new members in General Rodriguez, Argentina. Changing topics, I am starting to learn another language. Since we have a lot of Bolivians, they know Imará (Aymara). It is one of the many languages they speak in Bolivia. I have learned how to say how are you, I am good, Brother, Sister, Goodbye, and I can count 1-10. This is one of the hardest languages I have ever tried to learn (seeing as I have tried to learn so many). They laugh at me when I say something wrong because to be honest, it sounds hilarious. I laugh when I try to speak.

Anyway, this coming week, Elder Aidukaitis of the Area Presidency is going to be speaking to the mission Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. I am really excited to listen to him. Hopefully I can take something out of it to apply to me. We got number one in the zone this past week and hopefully we can keep working diligently. My comp and I get along just fine. We work well together.

Thank you Abuelita y Grandpa, Cui, Sophia, Mom and Dad for your emails this week. I really appreciate how you guys take time out of your day to write me. I think I get as excited about Mondays as you guys do. Sara, congrats on graduating from Seminary. I am really proud of you. Marcos, Sophie, and Andi, Be good and listen to Mom and Dad. Well, Hope you enjoy your week. I love you.

Love,

Elder Pickett

Once in a Lifetime

2010-05-24T09:02:00.005-06:00

Dear Everyone,

So the past week was pretty crazy, like always. There weren’t a lot of highlights. So again, this may be kind of short. So we went to BA this past week to go to the hospital for my companion. He has an allergic reaction to something on his hand and so he has to see the doctor for that. We waited for like an hour for the doctor and we were in his office for like 5 minutes. The doctor just said he has eczema and gave him some pills and a cream. It was really quick and dumb but it had to be done.

Catedral en Lujan

Elder Pickett in front of Catedral

The biggest highlight of the week was that we had four investigators in the sacrament meeting, AND they are going to get baptized this Saturday. It is a complete family. I think I have already told you guys. But this Saturday is their baptism. This is a Bolivian family. There is a whole neighborhood/barrio of just Bolivians. Out of the 90 people in church, 40 of them come from this family/neighborhood/barrio. They can make their own branch they are so many. But yesterday we went to visit them and to go over what we have taught them and they knew all the answers to everything. They have been reading The Gospel Principles book and every pamphlet we have given them. They know who Joseph Smith is and the necessity for a restoration. The Father’s name is Miguel, Mother is Teodora, then Alina(15), and Gabriel(9). They are really cool. Miguel’s sister just got baptized a couple weeks ago so this whole family is just going to get baptized.

Bolivian food called Lagua with dehydrated potatoes called "chuña"

Enjoying Bolivian food

Elder Pickett really digging his work...

The work is contagious...

Now for the other big news down here. This grand country of Argentina is going to be turning 200 years old this year. Now as you all know, this only comes once in a normal lifetime. So I am very grateful for this opportunity that I have to celebrate being an Argentine. I have bought myself a Messi Jersey for the celebrations and also for world cup. I have also bought myself one of those flag capes. The flag says VAMOS ARGENTINA. I would say it is pretty cool. And just to top things off, I have bought myself some River Plate socks. I am going to be showing all of it off at our Branch Activity where there will be a soccer tournament and our companionship is on a team. Watch out! We are going to win it all.

What a sense of fashion!

So as I have been trying to get used to my area and companion and new responsibilities, I have been reading in D&C. This past week, I read section 122 where the Lord told Joseph Smith that all the stuff that he is going through is for his good and benefit. And since I am a missionary, of course I am going to apply that to me. All the stuff that we go through in this life, whether they are good or bad, is for our benefit. We can learn something from everything in this life. There are times in our life where we don’t think we can endure something but remember that the Lord doesn’t give us trials above that which we are capable of having. The Lord knows our needs. He knows us individually and that is why we have the trials that we have. They are specific to us and what our Heavenly Father thinks we need in order to be like him. Sometimes we lose focus of that sometimes but I hope you all can keep that in mind this week.

Thank you Chris, Claralina, Abuelita y Grandpa, Mom and Dad for your Emails this past week. Chris, come to me. You know you want to. I hope you get sent down here because it is really great being here in Argentina. But I know that wherever you get called, the Lord needs you and your skills there. Thank you everyone for you support and constant love. Remember who you are and what your parents taught you. Lol And Happy 200th Anniversary!!!

Love,

Elder Pickett

Starting Over... Again

2010-05-17T09:33:00.004-06:00

Dear Everyone,

This week was very interesting for me. First off, getting to a new area was really hard. I have to start all over getting to know people. It’s not bad getting to know new people but I really liked the people in 9 de Julio. So I don’t even know where to start but I guess we’ll start off with the beginning of the week.

Monday, I got to General Rodriguez and I just unpacked. Tuesday, we went to district meeting in Lujan. Now, we are going to take a pause here and I am going to explain what Lujan is for those who don’t know. Lujan is the home of the biggest cathedral I have ever seen in my life. Yes I have a picture of it but I forgot my camera to send it to you guys. The place is huge. There is a HUGE plaza and a lot of Virgin of Lujans. The Virgin of Lujan is basically the base of the catholic religion here. We are going to take a tour of the cathedral next P-day.

Catedral en Lujan - courtesy of Panoramio.com

Anyway, that is Lujan. Wednesday, we just worked, actually we just worked the rest of the week. On Thursday we continued to dig a pozo for a family. A pozo is a hole about 4-5 meters that is used to put human waste in. I know, really gross. Friday, I got really sick. I finally got the cold. But this sickness just hit me really hard. My nose was completely clogged, head pounding, horrible cough with no voice. Just a great sickness to have as a missionary. My voice is still very froggy but I can speak a little better now. We got 4 baptism dates with a family! An entire family! I am so happy. The fecha is for the 29th of May.

We will just skip to Sunday now because we just worked those days even though I was sick. Sunday was weird for me because now I was a normal missionary. I am not in the branch presidency anymore. So I just did what normal missionaries do. My companion and I were in charge of the door greeting. We greeted everyone at the door and all of them saying to me, are you new? I would only think it was obvious but I guess not. In sacrament meeting, there were about 90 people. And this a branch mind you. I had to give my testimony because it was my first Sunday and I had a froggy voice so it was kinda funny. I also had to play the piano for sacrament meeting. Marcos, learn how to play the piano because you will need it. I promise you. And so we did some more getting to know people things after church ended. There is a family in our branch/ward from Tucuman. They are from Villa Lujan, they said. I told them you, Dad, were from Villa Guillermina. Is that right? I don’t know but I hope it is. They were really happy that there was someone now who knows a bit about the north.

Capilla de la Rama General Rodriguez - courtesy of Panoramio.com

Nothing really happened this week. I’ll make sure to take some pictures for next week of everything so you guys know what kind of area I am in. It is half campo half city. This city can’t decide between the two. Oh well. I don’t have anything else.

Happy birthday Grandma Packard. I hope your birthday was really great. Thank you so much Mom, Dad, Marcos, Sara, and Gma and Gpa Packard for your Emails. I really did enjoy them. Good luck Eric. Enjoy the MTC because the fun only begins there. Next Sunday I will be completing 8 months on the mission and boy does it just go. Being comp mayor is nothing special just a little more responsibility. Anyway, hope to hear from everyone next week.

Love,

Elder Pickett

This could be the start of something new...

2010-05-10T13:16:00.006-06:00

Dear Everyone,

So it was very nice to hear from the family. It is really crazy how much everyone has changed. I guess I don’t have much to say because we just spoke yesterday but for everyone else, I will fill them in. This past week was a really crazy one. We were starting to plan for the next transfer for the branch and everything. We had a fairly normal week. Saturday we had an activity for the youth of the branch. We had the young woman leaders teach them how to make chicken milanesas. And also we played ping pong and a little soccer. We had like 12-13 youth there. A couple of them aren’t members so it was really great.

After the activity, we got a call from our district leader saying that I was leaving 9 de Julio. I had only been there for three months so this was really strange. I felt really sad that I had to leave there. I felt really comfortable there. I knew the people and everyone was getting comfortable with me there. So we immediately went out to go start saying goodbye to everyone. Sunday I bore my testimony in sacrament meeting and I took some pictures with some people. Then Elder Sabey and I left right after church to go to BA.

The Silva Family

Juan Cruz y Gonzalo

Borges girls (these are your FB friends Sara)

Crazy Susana

Milagros

So we are going to fast forward to Today (Monday). We are at transfer meeting listening to the changes. Well, my change came. I am in General Rodriguez AND I am Comp Mayor. OH BOY. I am so scared, nervous, you name it, I am. I don’t even know what to do. I am with a Chileno who has one month less than me. Elder Flores is his name. He is kind of a gordito. So I go straight from the meeting to my area. I am in a four man pench and oh my. The pench is a pigsty. Horrible. I am kind of scared to live in there but oh well. I will do my part to make sure that I don’t dirty it anymore. I feel very out of my comfort zone being out here and this is definitely going to be a stretch for me. But President said that this is only the beginning for me so who knows what is going to happen next. I am definitely supposed to learn something from this experience. Sorry there isn’t much to write, I just talked to you guys last night. Please accept this short letter and I’ll be sure to write a longer one next week.

Sunset in 9 de Julio

Bye

Map showing location of General Rodriguez in relation to the mission

Thank you to Claralina and Eryn for writing to me. I really appreciate it. Thank you Mom, Dad, Marcos and Abuelita y Grandpa for your letters also. And thank you miss Erica for another letter. I really do apologize for not writing back. I am just so busy. I hope you accept my apology of peace. Lol. Well, I look forward to hearing from you guys next week.

Love,

Elder Pickett

It's May Already

2010-05-03T08:44:00.003-06:00

Dear Everyone,

Yup, you guessed it, another crazy week. I guess I will just go through the week and if you get lost, I am sorry. So last Monday we just did the P day thing and we played ping pong again. This time, I lost pretty bad but I think I am getting better. Then Tuesday we had District meeting in Bragado. It was cool but just like any other District meeting. After the meeting, we had divisions with the elders of Bragado because that is where our district leader is. So I stay in Bragado while the district leader went to 9 de Julio.

I was with an elder named Elder Freidbaum. He is a great missionary but has the worst Spanish accent in the world. So when he would teach, the investigator would look at him kind of funny, then he would look at me and ask to translate. So I was the translator during our divisions. We had divisions from Tuesday after District meeting until Thursday midday. Usually they are not that long but since we are out in campo, we don’t want to change then travel the next day to change so we stay together an extra day. So while I was in Bragado, the DL was in my area, like I already said. While he was there, he ate all my food! Drank all my juice! I was so looking forward to eat all the food when I came back. But no, it was all gone. I was so upset. I didn’t eat a lot of his food because I felt bad for taking something that wasn’t mine. Next time, I won’t buy a lot of food so that way he won’t eat everything.

So I got back to my area Thursday afternoon just in time to have a member of the district presidency/ senior missionaries come do a visit in 9 de Julio. We had a meeting with him and our elder’s quorum president and we talked about how we needed to start really pushing and focusing on the home teaching because no one does it. Then right after that we went to the house of Tomás Juarez and his family. He is the one that got sustained to be an Elder. So we ordained him to be an Elder in the Priesthood. It was really a great moment because they have been struggling for the past two years with jobs and attending church. But these last four or five months, they have attended every Sunday except for one or two. They both have callings now and they are looking forward to the day to get sealed in the temple and the whole family. They are really great. This is the same family that I sent a picture of the dad baptizing his son. Do you still have it? Well, it’s that family and that guy that got the priesthood.

Then Friday, we had ourselves a branch activity. We watched a movie and had snacks. We watched the movie, “The Other Side of Heaven”. Great missionary movie. My companion had never seen it and he thought it was awesome and so did the people who were there to watch. We had a total of 9 members then us two missionaries. And we bought a lot of food so now we have extra. Go figure. Then Saturday we did a lot of work. We did all the work that we lacked thus far. And I think that’s all for Saturday.

Sunday, we did the church thing but with some excitement. We had a member of the Mission presidency come out with a patriarch. We had two members who received their Patriarchal Blessings. Since it was fast and testimony meeting, we had people go and bear their testimony. The last testimony was the patriarch. Oh man. He is so awesome. Let’s just say, he spoke with some power and authority that it left everyone silent. Even the little children were silent. Afterward, I had the grand opportunity to speak with him a little because he was waiting for the counselor in the mission presidency to finish with an interview he had to do. He gave me some great council on what to do with the branch. He reminded of Grandpa Packard I think only because Grandpa Packard is a patriarch and always has good advice.

Then after church, we went to the house of a member to eat. We had arroz con pollo, the yellow kind… I know what you guys are thinking. “How did he eat it?” Well, for those who don’t know, that is my least favorite meal of all of history and time. But for some reason or another, I ate it. And it was good too. To make it more interesting, there was chicken stomach in it. Hmmm. I had never eaten chicken stomach before and my comp just gave me the I don’t think you should eat that look. So when the hermana asked if I wanted to try, I said Sure. So I tried it and the first couple bites weren’t bad, until I ran out of sauce to eat it with. To describe to you what was going through my head: the meat was bluish purple and very thick, kinda rubbery and takes a long time to masticate. So when she served me more stomach, I had to eat it. So I did. Eating that stomach reminded me of eating morcilla. Good to start and it just goes downhill from there. With this same family, we have eaten cow tail and cow throat. The throat wasn’t bad but the tail kinda freaked me out. Just some of the weird stuff we eat out here. Oh, I have also eaten pig the still had the skin and hair on it and the fat and stuff. Yeah, I was speechless too. And that was the week. Crazy week.

So I would love to thank My mother and father for writing. And Grandpa Pickett. I always love to hear from you because you were a missionary also down here. Happy Birthday to Grandpa Packard and Christian this week. I didn’t forget.

So this coming Sunday I will be calling home. Now, I only have 40-45 minutes this call. The last one we kinda talked a bit too long. So only 40-45 minutes this time. I will be calling at 5 pm your time. 8 pm my time. Deal? So 5 o’clock mountain standard time I will be calling. So family, get ready because I am going to be rocking the Spanish. Anyway, I love you and I’ll talk to you Sunday.

Love,

Elder Pickett

Oh the Weather Outside is Frightful...

2010-04-26T11:22:00.002-06:00

Dear Everyone,

Another week passes in Paraiso Terrenal. There were a lot of things that happened but it’s going to be a little bit hard to explain. Hopefully it all makes sense. Keep track of names and who they are because I am just going to start throwing names out left and right.

So last Monday I was feeling a little but under the weather. I got a sore throat and I didn’t think anything of it because I went and played ping pong with my comp and I didn’t feel much. But it got really bad when we went out to work that night. We went working igual. I worked through it. We went to District meeting like always. We have now changed it so it is now in Chivilcoy every Tuesday. Then the rest of the week went pretty normal. Saturday we got the opportunity to meet an ex elder that was Branch President also out here. He served four years ago there and he was just visiting with his wife.

Sunday, oh yeah, Sunday. So the past week has just been FREEZING! And Sunday morning wasn’t any different. It probably wasn’t that cold but the humidity just killed us. I had my gloves and sweater and a shirt under my white shirt and a jacket. And I had my long johns on! And two pairs of socks. Wow, I was wearing a lot. So we did the whole church thing. I taught my lesson on Balac and Balaam. Cool little story that I don’t think I have heard about. It was hard to teach it in Spanish to the youth. I don’t think any of them got it. Well, I tried. I told them that basically we need to do what the Lord says or else. That got through their heads better.

One of our investigators, Victoria, didn’t show up and we were really hoping she would show up. We are afraid that she is getting “cold”. Cold meaning that she is distancing herself from the church. We are going to be working frantically this week to do a NDH [Family Home Evening] with her and some of her friends in the church. Her Mother is inactive and that doesn’t help us much either so it’s been a struggle to try and get them both to church. So Victoria and Julia (Mother) is project #1.

Project #2 is a bit more difficult. We have an investigator who is golden. She comes to church every week. She doesn’t go to gospel principles but to gospel doctrine and participates. She is just golden. But the problem is she is not married and she is living with a guy. The guy is the excommunicated member that I think I have talked about before. His name is Ruben and her name is Virginia. Virginia is ready to get baptized once they get married. So this Sunday, my comp had a conversation with her and asked her what the progress is on making the decision. She said that this is a really difficult decision for them to make because of stuff that has already happened. She would be the third woman that Ruben has been with and second married with if they get married. He has six kids, three from each of the previous. She has one from a relationship she was in before. Both of their last relationships ended pretty bad. There is saying here and I will do it in English for everyone. It goes like this: “When one is burned by milk, they cry when they see the cow.” So it is in this situation. But when my companion was talking to her yesterday she said something that surprised us both. She said that she doesn’t have a commitment with anyone else but with God. And that in order to be good with God, if she had to leave Ruben, she would do it. Our jaws dropped. So we are now in a situation where if Ruben and Virginia don’t get married, It is only going to be Virginia going to church with her daughter Sofi (7 yrs old). To make things even more exciting, the oldest daughter of Ruben from the second, we’ll say, wife, is attending church and all the activities and she wants to get baptized too. Her name is Milagros and she is 12 years old. So we are working with her so that she can get permission from Ruben, her dad (easy), and her mother who is against the church (not as easy). So we have our work cut out for us.

We had 32 people at church yesterday which is an average day. And then to make the day better, we had District Priesthood meeting in Bragado and 4 [came?] in the afternoon. It was such a good meeting. We had one person from our branch receive the Melquisedec Priesthood. Well, not received, but got sustained and he will be getting it on Thursday. In the Priesthood Meeting they talked about always having a current temple recommend even though we cannot go for another year. They also talked about the blessings of being full tithe payers. And the last one I liked the most. The last speaker, President Abrea, talked on the importance of the priesthood and each of the responsibilities that each office has. It was so awesome and I am sure that it helped out some members of our Elders quorum. We had five men from our branch go which is the most ever they said that had gone to a meeting like this. We went in a convey [combi?]. It was fun. So that was Sunday. And now it is P-day. We are probably going to play ping pong right after we write these letters. Anyway, nothing too exciting but enough to keep me occupied.

I received a card from Miss Erica, thank you very much for being very consistent even though I am very, very inconsistent. I very much appreciate your letters. Mother’s day is coming up so you know what that means family… I’m calling! I don’t know any plans yet or what is going to be happening that day because it is also the last day of the transfer so we don’t know if we are going to be traveling to BA or not. We probably won’t because we will probably stay together for a third transfer. That is unheard of. So who knows. I’ll let you know with more details next week. So anyway, Talk to you all next week.

Love
Elder Pickett
[Edits]

Elder Pickett wins the Green Jacket

2010-04-19T15:41:00.006-06:00

Dear Everyone,

What a week! I always say that but it is always true. There happens to be at least one thing interesting every week. I will start with what happened last P-day. After I sent last weeks letter, we went and did our compras and ate some lunch. We then sat and wondered what to do the rest of P- Day. P- Day is a very special day for all missionaries. It is a day where you can rest for a bit and do some fun things in your area if there are any fun things to do.

Well, we had heard a rumor that there was a golf course in our area. So what do we do? We went searching for the golf course! We found it and we ask ourselves, golf now or next week? It didn’t take very long for us to make a decision. We got inside the club house and ask about all the prices and stuff. It was going to be 30 pesos each person for as many holes of golf as we wanted. WHAT! To make things even better, they GAVE us clubs to use. No rental fee. We did have to buy some golf balls but those cost 2 pesos each ball. Oh man did we hit the jackpot! So we went golfing for P- Day, in Argentina! We just did 9 holes because of time but that was so much fun. My companion and I tied. The score was 61 to 61. I know that is a horrible score for you golf people but for us being missionaries who don’t go golfing all the time, that was amazing!

Then came Tuesday and it was normal for the most part. Wednesday was a half day because we had to travel to BA for a Zone conference in Moreno. We did the whole zone conference thing which was OK. The topic was use the Book of Mormon as much as possible. And so, this week we are going to try and use the Book of Mormon as much as possible. We then went back to 9 de Julio Thursday night. We didn’t get back home until midnight. We were so tired. When we got home, we went straight to bed.

Skipping now to Saturday because Friday was normal also. Saturday was a half day also because we had a service project in the afternoon/evening. Our service project was to clean the back patio of the church which was just a huge mess. Branches and vines everywhere. We found a huge frog but it escaped somehow. But we started working at like 5 and didn’t finish until 715 or so. By that time, it was really dark. As you can see, it is starting to become winter here. So it was a tad bit chilly for my liking. But we got a whole lot cleaned up. Now we have a huge pile of branches and weeds and stuff that we need to take out this week. And then after that we are going to repaint the back of the capilla. This place is just rocking with service opportunities and I love it! Doing some good work out here is fun. I know that sounds weird seeing as I would hate to do work at home. But work out here seems more fun.

After we were done working, one of the hermanos cook us some homemade pizzas. They were really really good. He used to work at a pizzeria and so he knows the tricks. But I can’t tell you how good it was because it was just that good.

Now yesterday, Sunday, Día de Reposo, and boy did I need a reposo. I was asked by the Primary Presidency to teach in primary the first hour on the Restoration of the Gospel. That was fun because I made the kids draw! Ha ha. Then I went and taught my classes, the youth, about Moses raising up a serpent and how it was a symbol of Christ being lifted up on the cross and how we need to have faith to look unto Him and be healed. Great.

Then sacrament meeting I had to give a talk. We had a speaker who spoke for 5 or 7 minutes, something like that, then the intermediate hymn, then I had to speak. I had literally 35 minutes or so. For those of you who were at the sacrament meeting where I gave my “farewell” talk, know that I spoke there for 10 to 12 minutes. So here I am, I get up and I tell people that I have 35 minutes to speak, and that it was going to be the longest talk I have ever given in my life. They laugh of course because I am Elder Pickett and everything is funny. So I ended up talking for 30 minutes and Elder Sabey had to get up and say a couple of words. I literally ran out of material and was rambling about cualquier cosa about the church for a good 5 to 10 minutes after all my material ran out. It was kind of embarrassing but it turned out good according to some people. I think they were just trying to be nice. I talked about Unity in the branch. I talked about if we are not one, we are not of God and this topic has been a bit of a problem here so I think what I said in my talk should help this branch a little. Other than that, I have survived another week in the mission. I haven’t passed out from exhaustion, yet.

Thank you everyone for you support. I didn’t receive any snail mail from anyone so I am assuming everything is great. I did receive a letter from one of my converts who is now attending seminary so I am very proud of him. He is 14 yrs old and waking up at 5:30 in the morning to go to seminary at 6. What a KPO! Anyway, thank you for the pictures. I love you all and keep doing the thing you do.

Love,

Elder Pickett

Pictures!!!

2010-04-12T08:27:00.007-06:00

Here are the pictures Allen sent this week. They were too many to include inside the body of the mail without being distracting. A special thanks to Rob Kelsey for teaching Allen how to paint!

Casita + Capilla

Detail painting

Working hands!

Look at that nice form!

Hermano Borges, the homeowner and branch member.

Second wall painted

Elder Sabey working

Painting

Front of the house

This guy's painted before!

Having fun with paint

Group effort

Elder Sabey

Elder Sabey

Working?

Taping

The last wall to paint

The reward at the end of the hard work: Empanadas Jujeñas!

PAINT!

2010-04-12T08:21:00.002-06:00

Dear Everyone,

This week has been what they call here a LIO!! It has been so crazy. Well, I say that every week but I guess that’s what this calling brings. This week my companion and I watched the Priesthood session in English and WOW! That seriously was one of the best Priesthood sessions I had ever seen in my short Priesthood life. Well it would have to be the best one I have ever seen because it was the best one President Monson had ever attended. I loved hearing Elder Rasband tell about how we receive our mission calls and stuff. And I absolutely loved the talks from the First Presidency. President Uchdorf with his talk on patience and President Eyring on diligence. President Monson’s talk to the youth about staying on the path and keeping the commandments was also really great. I hope we can all reread those talks and live by the instructions that they gave us. And also, being in the branch presidency, we had the opportunity to watch with the young women, their leaders and some mothers, the young women’s conference. That was really great. The one thing that stuck our in my mind is that we are never alone. Though we may be the only member in our school, group of friends, work or what have you, we are never alone.

We also had the opportunity to do some service. Besides the service of helping the youth with their English homework and me teaching some piano classes, we went on Saturday and painted the exterior of a member’s house. It was just Elder Sabey, Hermano Borges, and me. We started at 10 in the morning and finished at about 230. It was a lot of fun. I was the only person there who had any painting experience and so I had to take the lead and teach the other two how and where to paint. We did a very good job in my opinion. There weren’t blotchy spots so I guess it was good. We finished off this service project eating empanadas. They were made in the style from Jujuy. They are very similar in the way that Mom and Abuelita make them. She put ground beef instead of chicken, no olives, and she baked them. They were really good. She made about 5 dozen and I think I ate one of those dozens. SO GOOD!

As winter has been coming closer, working in the afternoon is starting to be a little harder. The sun now goes down at about 715 which leaves us two more hours to work but everyone is already inside. Trying to set some citas at night is looking like our best option to overcome this problem. These past couple of weeks have been really humbling for me because we have not been able to find anyone to teach and progress. The missionaries before us have already been everywhere in this town. When we talk to someone, they almost always say that they have talked to us before. We teach them anyway but to no avail. Just have to keep Luchando in this Lucha.

Sunday we had 32 people in sacrament meeting. That’s kind of the average so not really a big deal. We had three investigators there. Victoria, Milagro, and Virginia were all there. They are doing really well. They are basically members but minus the baptisms. We are trying really hard to resolve everything so that they can get baptized. Just crazy stuff.

Zone Conference this week. We are going to be traveling to Buenos Aires to stay with the office elders then the actual conference is in Moreno. In the capilla of Paso del Rey again. It’s going to be fun fun fun! Not much else to contar because the rest is just the normal missionary stuff.

OH! I forgot to say, FELIZ CUMPLEAÑOS ABUELITA last week. I did remember your birthday but I forgot to send an email. And one more thing. Marcos, I love you man. You are just too funny. Next time, get out of the car! Haha I love you. Anyways, I hope to tell more things next week.

Love,
Elder Pickett

2010-04-05T07:41:00.004-06:00

Dear Everyone,

What an incredible week! Being able to listen to the Prophets voice and hear inspired council was amazing. I will start off by telling how my week went. CRAZY! Monday we had normal P-day where we just chilled and I took a siesta. I always take a siesta on P-days because I am so exhausted. My companion hates the siesta. I think all Americans hate the siesta… Oh well, their loss. Tuesday we just worked like normal. We didn’t have district meeting because we were going to have interviews with the President in Chivilcoy on Thursday. But we had Elder and Hermana Henderson come and do some visits. They are Senior Missionaries who work in Chivilcoy. If you haven’t noticed, Chivilcoy is the district center. Elder Henderson is a counselor in the District Presidency. He came down and he did some visits. He also gave us his laptop to borrow for conference. That’s another thing.

The pension needs some TLC

The pension looks nice now

We spent our whole P-day last week looking for an internet provider that we only had to sign up monthly. That took the whole day because we had to get documents and blah blah a lot of stuff went down. We eventually got it all worked out and they installed the internet on Tuesday. So everything was working so we could watch conference. Wednesday was just a normal day. We went to the casita of a church that we have to try and see if we could connect the computer to the tv. This turned out to be harder than we thought. We had our S-video cable and everything and everything fit, but we lack just one step and I’ll get to it later. Thursday we went to Chivilcoy at 8 in the morning and got there at about 10. We had ourselves a mini zone conference and I met the new Elder that just came in last week. He is from Rigby…And when he saw my name, he said “Pickett’s Bambino, right?” And I was really surprised obviously. Come to find out, he has never had a bambino but just knows that place. Elder Hull is his name. Then I had my interview with President. I have been told that the more to the middle of your mission you get, the less President talks to you about stuff. Well, that turned out to be true. My interview went for about 7 minutes and I came out with one thing. I came out with a knowledge of the base of the Atonement. Love. But my companion had his trunky interview. They talked about schooling and life after the mission. I just laughed at him but I know that I’ll have to do that one day. Just not today. In fact, he is doing his registration for BYU right now as I’m typing this.

Once all the interviews were done, we all left for our different areas again. When we got to the bus terminal, the bus we wanted to take was full. We then realized and completely forgot that Thursday was the start of Semana Santa. Everyone was leaving. That bus was at 410. We then asked for the next bus and that one left at 630 and there were only two seats left. One on top and one on bottom. These buses are double-deckers. So we were in a funny situation. So we waited for the bus to come and 630 came around and no bus came. 645…. No bus. No bus at 7 either. 735 is when the bus finally came and there were a lot of people that got on that bus. Luckily for us, there was no one sitting in the seat next to me the whole way so my companion sat next to me. Whew! We got home at 1030 that night. A whole day doing nothing basically.

Friday we got to work on getting the TV and computer hooked together but to no avail. But to make matters worse, we couldn’t get any video feed. We worked all Friday morning on it and we didn’t get anywhere. We then had to hurry the rest of the day Friday and tell everyone that conference was going to be in the capilla and we had to tell everyone the times and tell them not to come on Sunday at nine in the morning. That was Friday. Saturday came. Yes. Conference day. The day we have all been waiting for. So we got to the church and we get on the broadcast page and there is a little note that says “If you are using Mozilla Firefox 3.6, you may encounter some technical difficulties. We suggest you downgrade to the most up to date Mozilla Firefox 3.5 (which in our case was 3.5.9)” Well, THERE was the answer to everything. With three hours to go, we got connected. Now the Computer to TV problem. We got ourselves a new adapter for the S-video cable and we plugged everything in and still the same result. Nothing. So we had to restart the computer to downgrade the internet and when the computer fired up again, something amazing happened. The computer screen appeared on the TV! AH! That’s when the mo-tab would come in with Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Something like that. But we finally got everything to work. We hooked up the sound to our sound system that we already have for the microphone and it sounded marvelous. And then the moment we had all been waiting for… CONFERENCE!! YAHOO!

This is how we watched general conference
Conference starts here at one o’clock. So we started the transmission in Spanish and after half hour, no one showed up. So we switched to English. No one showed up for that session of conference. Wow. It was really sad. The afternoon session started at 5 if you do your math right and we had us and three other people. Pathetic. One of them was Virginia who is an investigator that is practically a member. She is awesome. And we didn’t watch Priesthood session because we didn’t think that they broadcast that on the internet. So everything went well as far as the technical stuff. My companion and I were really happy that we got to listen to conference.

There was a lot of great counsel to the members as far as responsibilities. President Packer talked about a priesthood holder in the home. Elder Ballard talked about Mothers and Daughters and the relationship they must have. I don’t have my notes with me but there were a lot of stellar talks. And hearing it translated in Spanish was pretty cool. Some of the apostles translated their own talk and I could understand their Spanish a little better. I understood a lot so don’t worry. I know what each of them said. Sunday we had 14 people show up for conference both sessions. A very small amount of the branch showed up which is very disappointing. But you do all that you can to get everyone there and then it’s up to them.

Thank you Big Mark and Rosie for your email. Thank you Marcos and Sophia for your wonderful letters. I really do appreciate your letters. I love hearing from my brother and sisters. Andi and Sara still have time to make up for the letters they have not written. TIA CUI: SÍ. I would love to get more letters. Thank you for your letter also. I love hearing from family. It is a great comfort to know that one has support at home. As was the theme in my opinion for conference, stay strong in the home and stay close as a family. I love you all and thank you for prayers for me and other missionaries.

Love
Elder Pickett

Go Listen to Conference!

2010-03-29T11:14:00.002-06:00

Dear Everyone,

Who is excited for General Conference? I AM!! We, as a presidency, are trying to get everything set up so that all the members here can watch conference. Since all of the conveys are taken because it’s Easter weekend and everyone wants to travel. I love Semana Santa! We were going to take all the members that could go and wanted to go, up to Chivilcoy to watch the conference. But now we can’t. So we have been frantically working on getting ideas on what to do. We were going to rent out an Internet Café but then something happened I can’t remember. But now we are going to install internet in the capilla. Then we are all going to watch conference on a little computer screen in a little chapel. I’ll take pictures. It should be just wonderful!

Oh the stress of being in a presidency/ bishopric. But, what a great experience. Well this week wasn’t really special except for the last week of transfers. We didn’t go to transfer meeting because we aren’t changing and it would cost a lot of money to go to Bs As. 53 pesos!!! That’s a lot of money here. I just went grocery shopping and spent 46 pesos so I can eat for a week with 53 pesos.

Like I just said like two sentences ago, there really wasn’t anything out of the norm this week so I think I will answer some questions. Grandpa Pickett, we do contacts in the street. It is a requirement to do por lo menos 20 contacts a day. That usually brings some great teaching opportunities. And for food, we have meals with members three times a week. Wednesday for lunch, Friday for lunch and Friday for dinner. Mother, I don’t know which of the field pictures you are talking about but in the green fields, they are growing soy.

Yesterday in church, we had 34 people. That is pretty average. There was no rain this time. There were a lot of unfulfilled promises. O sea Mentirosos! A lot of people said they were going to come for sure. Well, I don’t know what happened between when we visited and Sunday but something happened. I kinda feel bad that I have nothing really special this week. OH WAIT! I completed 6 months on the mission and no one wished me a happy 6 months! I was a bit upset. Just kidding. But wow. I am a quarter done with my mission. Only three more quarters to go. I can’t believe that I already have that much time. Time is flying so fast, it’s scary.

So last night we were at a house of a member who is going through a hard time and he was asking us what we did before the mission and stuff. My companion went to BYUgly and played on the lacrosse team and stuff like that. It got to me and I said that I went to school a little bit and that I refereed soccer. And when I said that his eyes got really big. He then proceeded to tell me that he had never met an American who knew a lot about soccer. I then reminded him that I have Argentine blood. He then calmed down and then all three of us got talking about soccer and the world cup and Argentine soccer history which I am grateful I know a lot. Yup, that was fun. Well, I apologize for the short letter but I guarantee that next week will be better with conference and interviews with President Benton.

Congratulations Cui!!! I am so happy for you. Congratulations Tia Claralina on your date for casamiento. Sara, you look really colorful in your picture. It kinda makes me jealous. And Tessa, YAHOO!!! Gonna go where they are just shaking to see you. Jaja get it? Of course. I am happy for you. And I apologize if you have sent me a letter and I have not responded. I don’t have a lot of time. And if you haven’t written me and you are wondering why you haven’t gotten a letter, it’s probably because I don’t have your address. Hmm. Well, Gotta go. Enjoy conference!!

Love

Elder Pickett

Pictures - 22 March 2010

2010-03-22T13:37:00.004-06:00

Here are some pictures that got lost in space and just barely arrived:

Taking a Walk

Fields go on forever

Hmm, campos!

The two cowboys

(Field of Gold)

The field is white!

Rain, rain, go away!

2010-03-22T08:35:00.002-06:00

Dear Everyone,

Another week come and gone. Time flies so fast out here. We are in the last week of the transfer meaning week number 6. I can’t believe that I have already been here in 9 de Julio for 5 weeks. I have really come to love the people out here in 9 de Julio.

So like I mentioned last week, we have a family night with President Benton and our little Rama. We had a lot of people show up. And when I say a lot, I mean like twenty. We had a great time. President did a presentation of a subject that is very tender in 9 de Julio. Finding the “one”. He talked about finding the person that needs our help the most. The person who has been struggling coming to church or keeping the commandments, etc. It was a really great lesson for the people that showed up. Then we ate choripan con chimichurri. Oh man, that is my favorite meal hands down!

(View of the plaza downtown)

But while we were eating, someone showed up that we really wanted to come. It was one of our investigators named Virginia. She showed up with her daughter Sophia and with someone who we really really wanted to attend. There is a man by the name of Ruben who for 15 years now has been excommunicated. He was branch president and was a great leader. But he has been showing signs of wanting to come back. But the reason why I bring this up is because they, Virginia and Ruben, are together and are not married. Virginia can’t get baptized until they get married. She has a testimony and knows the church is true. She has read mormon.org like 5 times over. She has probably seen dad’s face in there once or twice. Jaja. But she is just great. And so they arrived at the NDH and it was really fun. President talked with Ruben about coming back and about coming to church every Sunday. It was a great talk that they had.

So now fast forward to Sunday. Yesterday it rained, and it rained, and it rained. We had a grand total of…. 17!! In sacrament meeting. That is an overwhelming number. I don’t know about you guys but wow! Chiste. I had to teach primary and jovenes (young people). It was interesting. The primary presidency didn’t show up. The Relief Society President didn’t show up. So my companion taught Relief Society and I taught the young people. Crazy! But it was fun. And the best part was that Ruben showed up with Virginia and her daughter despite the rain. We are so happy. We are hoping they get married soon so that she can enjoy the blessings of being a member and having the Holy Ghost with her. That is all the exciting stuff that happened this week.

This week was kind of a relaxed week, but not really. Never can we relax in the mission. Jaja. The mission has become a norm. So I prepared a lesson for the youth this week and I didn’t get to teach it so I’ll sum it up cause I don’t have much time left. Basically, I focused on Joseph forgiving his brothers. He forgave his brothers because of the blessings that he realized came from it. If he had not gone into Egypt, his family would not have had food because Joseph gave them food. He would not have been able to interpret those dreams and so on and so forth. It’s a sequence of events that He got blessed with. Basically, in the end there are scriptures that explain what we need to do. In DyC it says, "I the Lord forgive whom I will forgive but of you it is required to forgive all men." Well, that’s really clear. Forgive all men. Punto.

But the ultimate example of forgiveness is in the New testament when Jesus is on the cross. He says, Father forgive them, for they know not what they do. That is the ultimate example. How can we not forgive others after hearing that. He is hanging on the cross ready to give up the Ghost and he takes the time to forgive all because they didn’t know what they were doing. I challenge everyone to forgive everyone of their trespasses. At times it may be hard but think of the sacrifice the Jesus made for us. The price He paid for us so that we can be free. I am grateful for the sacrifice that He made for me. I am glad to have the knowledge that through his infinite atonement, I can live with my Heavenly Father again. These next couple of weeks, let us think on the great sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus Christ, our savior. Being Easter and such I would think it would be appropriate.

So thank you for destroying my house! And putting it back together. The remodel looks so nice. Christian, I am so proud of you for turning in your papers. Get prepared to come to Argentina Buenos Aires West! Haha jk. That would be pretty cool. Thank you everyone for your support and prayers. The work down here is great. We have a baptism this weekend for Victoria (14 yrs old). Our branch is slowly but surely getting better. Poco a poco we like to say here. Well gotta go. I love you. Write back sometime…. Haha

Love,

Elder Pickett

2010-03-15T08:59:00.004-06:00

Dear Everyone,

What a week en paraíso terrenal!! Our week was pretty cool. This week we decided to get all of our indicators (aka the stuff we have to do everyday) out of the way at the beginning. We worked really hard Tuesday and Wednesday and even Thursday. We just worked and worked and worked. Friday, we went to a little town called French. I know. Weird name. But, previous missionaries decided to go out of 9 de Julio and go look for people. What they forgot to keep in mind was the other missionaries that have to travel to go visit them. Haha. But it’s all good. The only problem with this member that lives a good 20 km away is that she doesn’t have a car nor money to get to church so she saves up every month to come once a month. It’s sad but what can we do? That’s right, visit her. So we go out there and visit for two hours because once the bus drops us off, it doesn’t come back for another two hours. It’s actually kind of funny. But we visited her on Friday, oh I forgot to mention that she is Australian also.

Then Saturday came around and that’s when it started to get busy again. In the morning we had to stop by a members house who used my baptism clothes for his sons baptism the week before and so we went to their house and then made some failed visits. When I say failed visits, I mean that they weren’t home or they were still sleeping. So after that we went straight to the capilla and started filling up our little baptismal font/ swimming pool. We started filling it up at about 12:30 and then we went home to let it fill up because it takes 5 hours to fill up and the baptism was at 5. Yeah, LOCO! So we went home and ate lunch and had ourselves a nice companionship study. Yeah, you thought I was going to say siesta. No, taking siestas here is a no-no. So we got done with studying and stuff at about 3:30 and we went back. When we got back, the water was only up to the top of my ankle and it needed to be at about my waist by now so we started panicking. The water had shut off and then turned back on when we got there so we hurried and grabbed some buckets and started fillin' her up! We had the hose going and my companion and I filling up the pool that needed to be ready in one hour. Let me tell you, I was beat.

The water ended up being really cold water and the wind was blowing extremely hard Saturday. The mission is great no? Then Vanesa shows up with her family but her brother wasn’t there. She said he didn’t know where he was and so there was another concern of our seeing as the other baptismal candidate wasn’t there! He came like ten minutes later but still. Jaja. So then we waited for members to show up and we waited for 45 minutes for at least an Hermana to show up.

But we still didn’t have another Priesthood holder to be the other witness. So it so happened that the next member that came was a priesthood holder just coming home from work and happened to stop by. So we told him, "Stop, in the name of salvation!" Just kidding, but it probably seemed like that. He became our miracle because no other priesthood holders showed up. Even the one that we assigned to speak on the Holy Ghost didn’t show up. We have commitment issues here. But to make a long story short, even though this is already really long, everything went fine. They both got baptized and confirmed so now there are two new members of the church here in 9 de Julio.

And now the Mission President comes tonight to do divisions with my companion and I. That means he just goes out and doesn’t just work with us but tonight we are doing a Family Night/NDH with the Branch and President Benton is going to give a presentation so it should be fun.

My lesson yesterday was about Joseph being sold into Egypt. We talked about how when bad things are happening to us, we still need to keep the commandments and have a positive attitude. I had each joven draw a picture of a coat of many colors to remind them to have a positive attitude the next time something bad happens to them. A lot of times we like to focus on the negative but each trial is a learning experience.

Thank you for the email Elena. I really liked it. Voy a contestar tus preguntas. Primero, como misioneros, caminamos todo el día buscando personas que quieren escucharnos. A veces usamos las bicis. Te felicito a aprender a leer. Te amo mucho. Bueno, thank you all for your prayers and support of all missionaries. If you still have questions, I am more than willing to contestarlas. Until next week, BYE

Love,
Elder Pickett

I Hope They Call Me on a Mission

2010-03-08T10:05:00.004-07:00

Dear Everyone,

What a week with Chile just rocking and everything. Just so everyone knows, we did get effected by the earthquakes. We did get a little rumble of like 2 point something but don’t worry, I was asleep. Didn’t feel a thing. But yes, we did get something.

This week was kind of a hectic week. Well, Tuesday went normal, then came the rest of the week. Wednesday, we had to travel to Buenos Aires to spend the night in the pension of the offices. We left 9 de Julio at three and got to BA at 8 I think. So we spent the night there. Wahoo… Then on Thursday we had zone conference in Paso del Rey which is in Moreno. Only like half hour from the offices. We were there from 9 in the morning to about 6 in the afternoon. It was so long. I was about ready to just take myself a little siesta. You know, when you have to travel long distances to sit for a long time and listen to people, you get tempted to fall asleep. But, I did not fall asleep. In fact, I had to give a discurso or sometimes known as a talk. I had to give it on the characteristics of Ammon.

I gave it on the humility part of him, how he gave thanks to the Lord for the help of converting the whole house of Lamoni. He was so overjoyed that he had to give thanks. I related it to us as missionaries with how often we receive success or one of our investigators get baptized, how times do we just drop to our knees to give thanks? We need to recognize the Lord’s hand in everything. So after I gave my little 10 minute discurso and after zone conference, we went back to Ramos (the offices) to once again sleep there because we couldn’t catch a bus that night. In other words, we didn’t want to travel that night because that would be 5 hours of bus in the middle of the night. So we left the next morning at 8 to get back to 9 de Julio.

We got back at about 230ish because the bus was late in BA and so we got back on Friday and we went scrambling because we as a branch presidency forgot to plan a baptism for the branch that would happen Saturday night. Oh boy. So we started planning like crazy. Once we got that done, we went and worked for a good hour or two. We then went to the house of a member to have dinner and we ate empanadas. It was ok. Ok, so far so good. Saturday was a bit more crazy. Saturday we went out to work in the morning and we worked hard because we wouldn’t be able to work the rest of the day. So we hurried and visited our fechas and taught them. Then we did some contacts and some more lessons.

Then we ate lunch and went straight to the capilla to go fill up the baptism font. It takes about 5 hours or so to fill up the font. And we have to construct it so yeah it takes some time. So we did our studying while the font was filling because during the hours of 1230 and 430, there is no one in the street. The siesta here is more holy than Gauchito Gil. I know, that is incomprehensible. But nevertheless, that’s how it is.

Then we had the baptismal service and it went all great. Then after the baptism we had branch leadership meeting that no one showed up to. Ok, that’s a lie. The young mens president showed up and his wife who is the primary president. But we just excused them after half hour of waiting for everyone. That was Saturday. Sunday was pretty cool. Let me just start off with our attendance in sacrament meeting. We had 38 with 22 of them being 18 years old or younger. Holy cow! Then I taught my class but we just watched a movie. We watch between heaven and earth. It’s about temples. I really liked it because it is not only leaders of our church speaking but also other churches. Really cool. But then after church, we went home and ate and studied then we left at about 5 and just worked like crazy. We taught 10 lessons in 4 hours. That’s a lot by the way. Seeing how we have to have 25 for the whole week, we did a lot in 4 hours. And so we were exhausted last night and today.

So that is my week. I am tired but so happy that we still have baptisms on track. We have two for this weekend and one other for the next and hopefully another also for the 20th. There have been so many miracles in the past three weeks that I am in utter shock with how well everything is going. I guess it does pay off to be obedient. I am proud of the way I have been working, not to be prideful. I am humbly confident, as my comp would say. This mission is the best thing that has happened in my life, my very short life.

So I have some questions and pedidos. My companion and I were having a little argument about Utah sports vs. Colorado sports. He claims that Colorado went to the MLS CUP but lost. Will someone verify this? Also, what is the name of the paper company off of The Office? And will someone send me the schedule of the world cup with the groups and everything. ThanksJ. Well hasta luego from the land of Malta and Pan con dulce de leche. Oh and would love to get my friends weekly emails too please.

Love,
Elder Pickett