Well, it's cold

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!!

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...

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