Our Prague District of Elders watching the Priesthood Session of General Conference in the Mission Office-- right to left: Elder Smith, Elder Andiarena, Elder
Brockbank, Elder Tingey, Elder Petersen, Elder Geier, me.
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Hello everyone. Sorry that I wasn't able
to get to the big email last week. I got onto my email and I had a bajillion
people to respond to, so I decided last week to email the fam individually
instead of doing a big one. I will give
some good updates about last week and this week to make up for it.
- · So two weeks ago most of our district got sick. Essentially 1 person from each companionship was totally wiped out. I didn't get it, but Elder Brockbank did. He was pretty tired and on Sunday came down with a fever. I didn't realize how bad he was until we got to church. President looked at him and told me to get him home after Sacrament Meeting. But in the end we send him home with a different Elder who was also sick. And so I ended bouncing around that afternoon and spent some time with both of the other Elders' companionships here in Prague.
- · Two weeks ago we went and did service and some sort of insect bit me. I have some interesting reactions to insect bites sometimes, and this time it was really bad. I showed President and he ended up sending me to the emergency room just to get it checked out to be safe. And so commenced my second adventure wandering around a Czech hospital trying to figure out where to go. Except that the hospital here in Prague is a whole lot bigger than the one is C-Bud (first hospital trip was for a companion). But I got to talk to a lot of people in Czech and then find out that they actually spoke English as well later on. Oh well, just some good practice I guess. Not to worry, I am totally fine already and there is no lingering sign of a weird swelling and color changing that occurred last week.
Also some pictures of what my bites looked like in the initial stages, things definitely got bigger and worse.
They put some paste on my legs and mummy-wrapped them. But it stopped the itching and by the time the paste fully washed off (5 days maybe) the rash was all gone.
This is a picture we took in the Hospital, because you can't go to a Czech hospital without taking a picture! The hospitals aren't particularly "user friendly." Signage in Czech makes things difficult too.
- · As District Leader, I got to go on an exchange with Elder Smith, one of the Assistants. I learned a whole lot more from spending the day with him than he did. But it was a really enjoyable exchange.
- · We also had an excellent Zone Training on Wednesday, where we learned a lot of good things about how we should teach, how to raise our vision, and how to better end contacts. So that was last week.
- · This week was a lot of contacting and getting out of the office, which was good. We had a few lessons fall through, which was a bummer, but we are going to reschedule for next week. We got to meet a lot of interesting people, and do a lot of singing displays and finding together, which is really effective in a big district, because people feel like they should stop when 5-6 people are singing and 4-5 are talking with everyone around them.
- · We had a good district meeting as well in which we talked about the importance of using our time most effectively, specifically with contacting on trams and metros. We set up a fake tram and had a few companionships try it out, and assigned everyone roles. We pretty much got the spectrum covered: the jerks who laugh at the missionaries, the guy who is offended that you are trying to talk to people, the nice but not interested guy, the interested guy, the guy who thinks you are wasting your time, the girl who is a little freaked out that you are talking to her, the girl who is from America and doesn't know Czech, and the person who speaks no English or Czech. Always fun.
- · We also got to go have dinner at a members house. It was really tasty, and a fun dinner. It is a part member family, the mother is from Utah and married a Czech, and they live here with 3 daughters. The mom and the daughters all come to church, but the dad doesn't. He likes the missionaries though, and was plenty friendly with us, so that was fun.
- · This has been a great LDS General Conference (weekend of talks from our Prophet and other leaders and singing broadcast from Salt Lake City Utah, happens 2x per year). That MTC choir was good, the MTC choir director is AWESOME. He does amazing stuff. We watched the Priesthood session all together in the office today.
- · Here is a picture to commemorate our epic search for a winter coat for Elder Brockbank. After 5 stores we found one that fit and was missionary approved! He is wearing it in the picture. I might actually wait until next year to buy a new one. I think mine will work for this year, and I can get a good one that will last me a long time (meaning after his mission but we don’t talk about that!) next year. Probably from the British store Mark's and Spencer's. It is really nice, and not bad prices, especially during sales.
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Those are the main highlights of the
week.
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Spiritual
thought: we also got to watch general conference, which was awesome! I
especially loved President Uchtdorf's talk from the Saturday morning
session. (here is a link)
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He
talked a little about how perfect God's plan is for each of us, and how he
makes sure that all of the details work out. And I truly believe that it is
perfect. My invitation for you all this is to study the Plan of Happiness that
God prepared for us, so that you can better understand it an find new ways to
apply it into your life. Thanks for all the prayers and
support!
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-Elder Pickett
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