Getting Older

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

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.

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