Christmas is in 51 more weeks

Dear Everyone,

It was so nice to hear from those that I heard from. It really did make my Christmas a whole lot “cooler”. I didn’t realize that I could talk for so long with you guys. I really could have talked for easily another hour or two. Maybe even three. But as we all know, gotta get back to work. So this week wasn’t our greatest because of the holidays. Either everyone was in the Centro or everyone was in their house with their family from out of town. At least, all the people we tried to contact. But as always, we keep working because that is the reason why I was sent here. So we kept working. We got one of our fechas back. Crazy little Lorenzo but at the same time, we are going to wait on Susana because she hasn’t gotten her response that the church is true. Patience is a virtue right?? I’m not really good at being patient but I am working on it.

So I am going to tell you all what I did for Christmas Eve and Christmas because I didn’t have enough time to explain in my phone call. So Christmas Eve, we worked like normal until about five. At five we left at went to the house of a member who lives in another area. He lives in Merlo 2. We had a blast talking and joking around with him and his family. Also the Flia Duarte was there and they love to tease us and make fun of us and so it was a blast. We ate chicken cordon bleu and salad. It was really good. After that, they gave each one of us elders (there were four) a present. The present was a cup. Like a really good cup. Really sturdy. But the three other elders got Boca cups. And, yes, I got the only RIVER cup!! YAHOO!! AGUANTE MILLO!!! Jaja. I was so happy. You have no idea. I have never been filled with so much love and generosity. I know it was just a simple cup but the meaning behind the cup meant a whole lot to me. So after that we went home. I took pictures and everything but I don’t have time right now to put them on. I’ll put some on next week I promise. After we got home, we watched fireworks. They started at 12 and went until 2 in the morning. We only stayed up until 1230 because we were all tired. We woke up Christmas morning to find that Santa was in our living room!! Just kidding. But we did have presents from our families. At least the two people from the United States. The other elder’s packages haven’t arrived yet. But we all opened our presents like little girls and yes I have a picture of that too. It’s pretty funny. After we opened presents, we got dressed and went to the capilla and played with the rest of our zone for our zone activity. We had a ping pong tournament in which I got my trasero handed to. But I got revenge on the Chilenos in fútbol. JAJA. It was so much fun. We ate lunch and then we went back to our pension. We showered, got dressed and went back to our capilla, my companion and I, and we called home. Again, a lot of fun. After that, we went to the house of a member to eat Christmas dinner which was pretty good. Chicken, Lamb, Rice, Stuffed tomatoes, etc… JAJA It was all really good. And then that was the end of Christmas. The End.

I would really love some new pictures of everyone just so I can see how everyone is doing and growing. I wanna see pictures of EVERYONE!! Not just my family. I wanna show people that I actually do have a life outside of my family and the Church so if you could also send some of my soccer pictures or copies of my soccer pictures, that would be nice. I can only show the same pictures so many times before I start getting bored. Anyway, I am running out of time but I will send pictures in the next email.

I love you all and HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Elder Pickett

Navidad!!

Hey Everyone,

I apologize that my letter is a little bit late. We had P-Day Navideño at the offices of the mission. We had a testimony meeting for the Pastores that are leaving tomorrow to be with their families before Christmas, the program of all the zones (which i took pictures of but we are at a different cyber so it won’t read my camera). Our zone was the best one by far. We danced to different versions of “Once there was a Snowman”. The mission president really liked ours. After the programs, we ate. A lot. Jaja. We ate ASADO!! Yes, I know. Be jealous. Jaja. It was so good. I took a picture of that also which I obviously can’t figure out how to download. We also had potatoes and carrots, rice and carrots, salad with olive oil and salt. After that wonderful, juicy, tasty almuerzo, We had the white elephant exchange. It was OK. I got a Buzz Lightyear water color set. Yahoo? Yeah not too cool. And after that, we took a couple more pictures and we left. Now I am here.

This week was DE DIEZ!!! We taught so many lessons and found 18 new investigators! WOW! That is the most I have found since I got here. We found two beautiful families that want to listen and that we have been teaching this past week. I am really excited for us. But this success didn’t come easy as you could have read the past couple emails. I am very grateful for the opportunity to be able to teach more people. It is a great feeling to be able to teach people. When I am able to teach more people, I am able to focus on what I am doing and the time seems to fly. And I love it when time flies. We got one of our fechas back on track. The nine year old kid that we had to wait for the dad to get ready, is now ready. For January the 2nd or 3rd. Not quite sure what the bishop wants yet but we are going to talk with him a lot this next coming weeks. With our other fecha, Susana, we can’t figure out how to put confidence in her. She gets persuaded very easily. She is a psychologist and very smart. She has already gone through all of the psychology of mormonism and can’t find anything wrong with it.We have born testimony to her and have fasted for her to receive a respuesta to her pregunta. We will continue to pray for her and do everything possible to animarle. And that is all i got for this week in the mission. A lot of work was done this week. A lot of growing happened that I had no idea would happen.

Now for Friday. Everyone wants to hear Elder Pickett and his funny accent, I know. But I only have an hour to speak. Or less. Depending on the hormonal phone card I get. Hopefully I can talk for an hour. I already have a list of what I am going to talk about and if you guys have questions during my story telling, I will permit it. I have like twenty things I am going to talk about. And it might be in English or it might be in Spanish. It depends on how my brain wants to function. I will talk a lot more this coming Friday so don’t worry that this letter is short. I will be calling at 130 Utah time. UTAH TIME! Not Argentine time. I will be calling at 530 Buenos Aires time. Read this section very carefully. I am not waiting for anyone because we have dinner at 8 at a member’s house and I will be very hungry lol. Thank you to Mom, Dad, Marcos, Tia Lelani, Tia Lina, Bishop, Abuelita and Grandpa, Grandma and Grandpa Packard, And Britney for setting aside time in your busy schedule to write a little something to me. Well, I’ll talk to everyone Friday! BYE!

Elder Pickett

No Mail Today

Paul here...
I just got word from another parent who has a daughter in Allen's mission that they are doing a P-day Navideño on Friday. So hang on until then... I will leave you with a picture of the AP's van full of Christmas packages for the missionaries. Enjoy!

Feliz P-Day!

Allen found someone that will listen to him teach and won't make fun of his accent!

Hello Everyone,

How is everything going? Hopefully really well. Well, to start off, I'll tell you about this week. Not much happened. We just worked everyday. Just like any other day. Learning and loving is what is happening. I learn to love the people. We did a lot of contacting this week. We taught a lot of lessons to a lot of people just sitting on their porches. There are a lot of interesting people that like to sit and watch people. And apparently we are very popular amongst the old folks. We talk to some of them and they tell us that they have been watching us Mormons for 30+ years. We ask if they have talked to us and they say they have not. ever. Well... Permiso! That means, well then, let us teach you. Ok, not literally but that's how we use it here.


A street that Allen frequents on his mission.

Mom, our fechas name is Susana. Dora is a recent convert that we like to visit. Susana is a great lady. She definitely wants to get baptized. But as usual, we keep searching for more to bring back into the fold. We are finding a lot more than before. Probably because we got all the people that don't want to hear out of the way. We found a couple of good families yesterday that we are going to go teach tonight. Oh, the beauty of missionary work.


Looks like we have a winner here.

It has actually become fun to contact people in the street. You meet some very interesting people which keeps everything quite interesting. I love meeting new people out here. We definitely love talking to the people who heard something about the church that was wrong and then teach them correctly what we believe or what goes on with us. But other than that, nothing went on this week. There are really long lines for the Correo. Gee whiz. So I won't be going there for like a month. Literally.


Just follow the sign.

The non-mission stuff. I have only received the tree package. Every other package is lost between you and me. I hope that they come soon. Elder Decker already has all his presents under his tree. The other three of us, well, it looks kinda bare. jaja. Now the information that everyone wants to hear... Christmas! So I will be calling from my Church at 530 (1730) BS AS time. That would be like 130 (1330) your time. I think.


Street around the corner from Allen's pension.

Oh, Estoy engordando, pero mucho! Ok, not literally but it feels like it. My shoes are getting worn out and I need more garments in like a month or two please, lol. We went to the farmacia and did the scale thing. I weigh 60 Kilos (which is very light. I think I lost weight)[edit: 132 lbs.] and 174 CM or 1.74 Metros [edit: 5' 8"]. Just so you guys know how I am doing.

Well, gotta run. Love you all.

Elder Pickett

More Lost Pictures

Allen sent a bunch more pictures today. Click on the pictures and you'll see a bigger version. If it's still not big enough then push CTRL +++ to make the picture bigger:


Allen's Christmas card for all - the small tree is the one Jen sent to him.


Allen walking the streets of Merlo


Sister Dora and Allen


A stray mutt that likes to follow Allen around


Milanesa sandwiches, Allen's new drug of choice


Welcome to Merlo sign


Allen and Elder Palacios - his trainer


Buenos Aires Temple


With President and Sister Benton


With Josh Riches in the MTC


With Elder Isaac Hinckley in the MTC

The maté is better on the other side!

Dear Everyone,

Yet another week on the mission and I am still alive. And this week also was a blah week because of some things that happened. I will start with what happened on Wednesday. So we get a call from our ward mission leader saying that a 9 year old boy wants to get baptized this Sunday (yesterday). His name is Lorenzo. Of course I was like ok… and…. And he says that he needs the lessons. Well, Elder González and I went right away to start teaching him. Now I have seen him at church every Sunday and I have never seen a kid with so much energy and so clingy to the mother in my life. Oh, and he loves to hit his mother too. Weird, I know. So we start teaching him and the mother was against doing all this. Ok against is a strong word. She just thought that he wasn’t ready to be baptized. And I had this thought in my head, And you have waited a year for…. What? Pigs to fly? She was very frustrating to work with. So we ended up teaching him everything and he already knew everything and I was very impressed. So we scheduled with him to have the interview Saturday morning so that way we can get everything prepared for Sunday for the baptism. But, for who knows what reason, when we showed up for the interview at his house, the mother was like ¨he isn’t going to be baptized. He isn’t behaving well.¨ And I was like ¨ni importa, él esta listo.¨ And she was like ¨no sé¨. So basically, he didn’t get baptized because his mother didn’t want him to. UGH!

Next story. We have had this fecha named Juan for the past month. A WHOLE MONTH! Well, we have been teaching him for awhile. He is also 9 years old. He had taught him everything and toda estaba listo para el 6 de diciembre. His dad is the one that was going to baptize him, but in one manera or another, he couldn’t baptize his son because of some issues. ARGH! We give them a month to prepare, they need two. Jaja oh well, that’s how it goes. So we HAD two baptisms for yesterday and right now I am still at zero baptisms for the area.

It’s ok. We had an investigator come to church. Her name is Susana and she is the most fragile woman on this planet. She is very, very petite. She calls me her ¨Angelito¨. Cute, no? Jaja my companion makes fun of me all the time for it. Oh, something really cool with her, we taught her the Word of Wisdom (La Palabra de Sabiduría) and asked her if she had a problem with any of the things on the list of don’ts. She had a guilty look on her face, which was funny, and she said that she smoked two or three cigarettes every night because she is so lonely. And so we asked her if she would stop smoking that day so that way she could get baptized and she said yes! She immediately stopped from that day until today. A whole five days! Doesn’t sound like big news but it’s a miracle. She is planning on getting baptized the 26th or 27th. But she is excepting everything and she is keeping all of her commitments so we are looking at a baptism at the end of the month. I am way excited for that.

And Friday we had zone conference which was fun. Teaching us how to do references and how to contact them with members and such. It’s on the Preach my Gospel dvd set if you really want to check it out. But we watch a section of the dvd and guess who was the member doing the referencing?? Remember Mark Bush in our ward back like 5, 6,7 years ago?? Mark and Susanne Bush I think? But yeah. It was really cool to see them on the video. Speaking of other people I knew that are in church publications, Abuelo Sill was in the Liahona. They had a little article commemorating everything that he done in archeology and in the church. It was really cool also.

Now on to the important matters jaja. For Christmas, I want everyone to think about questions they want to ask or things they want to talk about with me or stories that they want me to tell. I will think of some questions for you guys in general. I will tell you specifics in weeks to come but start thinking of questions now so that way I can answer them before you ask them. Make any sense? Hopefully. If not, ask the nearest adult, and if you are an adult, well… just kidding lol jaja. I’m just full of chistes.

I sent some pictures to my father again and hopefully everyone will be able to see those soon. Thank you to Mom, Dad (for a little bit), Abuelita y Grandpa, Grandma and Grandpa Packard, Tia Lina, and Alyssa for the letters. I really enjoyed hearing from all of you. If you sent packages, hopefully I will receive them tomorrow or the following week. Well, gotta go but I love you all and Hopefully all is well with everyone.

Love from a hot and sweaty,
Elder Pickett

Lost Pictures

We just received some pictures of Allen from another missionary. So we share them with you. Enjoy:

Allen's MTC District


Allen's MTC District


Allen and Sis. Lopez learning signs to remember Doctrine and Covenants 4


Allen calling home from the airport


Allen's first day in Buenos Aires in front of the Temple



Allen in his first zone conference