Happy March (almost)

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

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

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

[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

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