Close up picture of Starší Pickett's missionary tag
Sweater Saturday... Brad's Zone of Elders practicing their European GQ look!
Elders going to Czech,
Slovakia, Poland, and one going to England, Slovakian speaking
Czech Elders
Highlights of this week: the good, the bad, and some other
stuff too:
- We are now teaching to
investigators being role-played by our teachers. And our lessons on Friday
and Saturday were on point. It was awesome. Our investigators were asking
questions, we were actually able to understand and answer (miracles do
happen!), it was so great. It's fun to actually have enough knowledge of
Czech to have real lessons instead of just we read a script and hope
really badly that they can understand what we are saying and don't have
too many questions.
- On Monday morning we woke up
without power. That was quite an adventure. All of BYU campus lost power
for a little while. We got it back about 7 minutes later, but it was still
very exciting for us.
- On Saturday night I had a
dream where I was trying to speak Czech to random people. That was a
little bit different. I have also had a dream in the MTC about trying to
teach people in English. Which is interesting, because we don't ever get
to do that here. All of our lessons are in Czech.
- Awesome fact about the MTC.
The song Armies of Helaman, which is the super awesome one about
missionaries and all that, we sing it often. Weird. But when we do, we
change the line at the end of the chorus. The original is "and we
will be the Lord's missionaries to bring the world His truth." In
here we sing it as "and we are now the Lord's missionaries to bring
the world His truth." Chills every time. It is a super awesome song
and I feel the Spirit every time we sing it.
- I have left the MTC twice
this past week. My companion is sort of dying of the plague, so we've gone
to the doctor's here and then walked to the BYU health center to pick up
some prescriptions for him. But he's probably all good now. We mostly
think.
- Choir is super cool. The director is phenomenal and we sang an awesome song. I wasn't in it this week, because I was practicing for a small group performance of “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” in Sacrament Meeting. Also, the choir seats are not good. They are terrible. Really far back and super uncomfortable. Our zone enters by a side door and snags 2nd row seats right in the middle for every devotional.
- Fun things about the language
now: The word pokoj. It is pronounced pokoy. Because, obviously, j's are
actually y's in Czech. What does it mean? That is a very good question. It
means peace. Or room. Depends on the context. The problem I have is that I
forget that it means room. So when our teacher says she's going to look
for a room, I think she says she's going to look for peace. It's a little
bit confusing. Another fun story: I mixed up the verb for "to have"
and "to be able to" during a lesson. I accidentally told our
investigator that "God can body." So that was different. Also, a
fun fact for those of you who are linguistic enthusiasts, most people
think that Russian and Czech are very close languages. They are, sort of.
But not really. The closest is obviously Slovakian, but the second closest
is actually Polish. Cases have begun. They are ridiculous. It is not
absurdly difficult to do when writing out a sentence, but when you are
trying to speak and case at the same time, forget about it. That's where
it becomes sheer lunacy.
- The Injury Count: I am
getting over being sick (congestion, coughing, sore throat, etc.). So
that's fun. And then Saturday. Ahh Saturday. What a strange day that
Saturday was. First off, I was not paying attention while reaching into
the toiletry bag of my dreams (we ordered one on Amazon that looked great... and it ended up taking 3 weeks and about 30 emails back and forth to get it delivered. Hence its name.), and I accidentally grabbed my razor by the
blade instead of the handle. Note, this is a very poor life decision. So I
lost a little chunk on my skin on the side of my finger. But it's fine
now. Also, while I was playing volleyball during gym, I was not my most
coordinated self. I went up for a sweet spike attempt, and I came down a
little...awkwardly. So I was walking it off, it was all good. But then by
body decided it wasn't all good. So I went upstairs and threw up in a
trash can. That was good fun. But it's ok, I'm totally fine now. For those
of you keeping tally at home, you may be asking why they ever let me out
of the house. I swear I am not usually this accident prone. Saturday was
an off day for me. Except teaching. We had a really good lesson. It was an
off day for my coordination I guess.
- Spiritual thought for the week. This week we had Elder Kim B. Clark of the first Quorum of the 70 come speak on Tuesday. He use to be President of BYU-I, and someone asked about RMs. He said that the biggest mistake that he saw from RMs was that they treated their missions as a 2 year episode instead of a foundation for their lives. So my challenge to myself and to all of us is to not treat great spiritual experiences as "episodes" but as foundations. Our baptisms, going through the temple, girls camp, high adventure, wherever it is that we have had great experiences, they should be a foundation for our testimonies and faith that we continue to grow and nourish for the rest of our lives. Conversion is a process, not an event.
- P-day next week (which will fall on Thanksgiving Day!) will be P-day in the morning+extra/different stuff in the evening.
- When the last group of missionaries left the MTC for the Czech Republic, 3 went straight over to Czech, 2 followed late, and 4 got reassigned stateside to be "visa waiters." Most trouble they have ever had with Visas. (I mentioned to Brad that the refugee crisis in Europe will be making the visa process slow and more scrutinized I am sure. Please pray for missionary visas and all the refugees who are fleeing for safety.)
- Thank you Mom for the
package by the way! My companion and I set up a bowling alley on one of our cupboards. (we sent him a table top bowling game and a memory card reader... which is why we have PICTURES this week!!)
That's
all for this week, thank you all for the love, support, letters, emails, DearElders and packages. Also,
please thank the Allisons and Sugdens for their packages. I am working on
writing to thank people, but I have very little time to do so!
Love you all!
-Starší Pickett
Our classroom. That is where I spend up to 11 hours of my
day. Depending on the day of the week.
Elder Anderson and I ended up with matching Mr. Mac ties on!
This is my case card. The front is the one with the Czech
flag. Every noun follows one of 11 pattern words. Every adjective also. And
then they all case differently if they are plural versus singular. Also, all
pronounces and possessives case. Also, some verbs automatically mean you case
what come after it to a certain case. And some certain words. And THEN, some
cases causes "mutations" that make it change. It's good times. Our
teacher told us cases are going to be difficult for the next year. I will most
certainly have more funny stories of language mistakes.
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