Elder Brad Pickett: One Last Week of the Transfer!

My nametag on the namesti (town square) then next to the church building

(view from the Black Tower)

Hello everyone. This week has been amazing. This upcoming week is my final week before transfers. I could stay here in C-Bud , but that is very unlikely, I will most likely be somewhere else in this beautiful country. No idea where! I don't have much time, so here's what happened.

We had an awesome lesson on Tuesday. We have an investigator and he has been on date for May 7th to be baptized. We taught with an awesome member, the same one we run with in the morning, and he had a great explanation of how we receive answers from the Spirit to our questions, and how we feel the Spirit. It was, quite literally, General Authority status. And it was exactly what our investigator needed to here to make him realize the spiritual experiences he has had, and to feel like he is ready for baptism! It was awesome, and really showed to me the benefit of teaching with members whenever possible.

Our party with Olina, the less-active we visit every week

We also had culture night this week, on Thursday. We went up the Black Tower, a giant clock tower next to a big church here, that's right around the corner from out building. We also got a tour of our beautiful city by one of the sisters' English students who is a C-Bud native, and knows a lot about the history of this oh-so-wonderful city. After that we got ice cream, always good, and then tried to buy last minute tickets for the orchestra. Unfortunately, they were all sold out, so they let us stand in the back for free instead. What a rough life. It was really good. And then we finished the night with some delicious svickova and kofola at our favorite Czech restaurant. It was a good night of culture for us.

Beautiful C-Bud from the top of Black Tower

Culture Night at the orchestra

This week I have really noticed a difference in my ability to understand Czech. It has been really cool to see. I still don't understand most of it (obviously), but I feel like I can focus more on the MEANING of what people are saying, and the Spirit, than on the WORDS they are using. That has been really great. I am not so lost during conversations and lessons, so I can start to work on how to improve my teaching and on how to create a better environment for the Spirit. I am getting to the point where I don't have to just translate everything word for word inside of my head to try to understand it. Certain words are just the same for me in Czech and English. That has been especially great.
As my Czech is getting better, I have been working on how to approach contacting. Contacting for me is really difficult, because I don't really like talking to random people anyways, and then when I start the conversation I sometimes struggle to teach any real doctrine and commit them to do something. I have been learning a lot from Sister Manners actually about that. She loves contacting and is really good at it too, so I have been asking her advice. It's been improving. I have also found that the hard work I did in high school and the constant stress I am used to has transitioned to me feeling pretty comfortable here on my mission.

Today I bought myself an early birthday present. It is a Prim watch. They are a Czech watch company that makes very nice, very expensive watches. But, even cooler, if you go look in antique stores, you can find cheaper, older ones that still work, and say Czechoslovakia on them. They are sort of legendary among missionaries, and I found one that I really like here in an antique shop.

My spiritual thought for the week is to always remember who you are! We often get so caught up in how the world evaluates our actions, our worth, and what we do, that we forget some important things. We are children of God! He loves us, and He wants us to be happy! Just that knowledge alone can fill us with hope and light. When we remember our worth is great in his sight (D&C 18:10) we can be confident that we have worth, and that we ought to be joyful, and be kind and loving to those around us. So REMEMBER. That's my challenge.

Thanks for all of the prayers and support!

Elder Pickett