brad

brad

Monday, May 29, 2017

1st 2 weeks in HK


 Elder Beazer and I made cookies for a YW activity. They were awesome.

 We tried to make brownies for English class...Didn't work too well.

Hello everyone, it has been a crazy start to the transfer, and it is weird for me to think that we are already starting week 3. I am going to give a big report with a lot of highlights. Lots of things have happened, hopefully I don't forget anything and leave it out.
  • HK is a similar sized city as C-Bud. Smaller than Pilsen for sure. There are no trams here, but there are buses, cars, and a billion or so bikes. Cyclists are everywhere, and there is quite literally a giant tower for bike parking near the train station. I'll have to get a picture at some point. There is a nice university, a beautiful center, and a river. Basically, I am still in the Czech Republic. HK has a kind of modernish feel to it, hard to describe exactly. It almost reminds me of San Francisco. We have a really strong ward here, with several families. And there is a lot of musical talent in the ward. We live outside of the center a little ways, and the other Elder live on the main square, right across from the church building. The sisters live in Pardubice, a city about 20 minutes away, and travel in for church, sports day, and some finding or lessons during the week. 
  • From Elder Beazer I have learned: 1) Fun new English slang 2) Some good new Bible bashing scriptures 3) How to do a better job of talking to everyone. He is really great, and we have a lot of fun. He has a funny vocabulary from the sporty kind of cool kid high school group.  He played rugby, football, and wrestled. Apparently people can be described as having "no chill."
  • We don't have a lot of people we are working with right now, so we are doing a lot of finding. We have been tracting and contacting a lot, and we are slowly seeing results. We really need families in the church here in the Czech Republic. It's our biggest challenge right now. It has been good, and we are hoping to find time to work with everyone this week. Our schedule is filling up pretty fast, which is usually a nice thing for missionaries.
 We had 2 killer chalk displays. First one by Elder Beazer and me. 

Second by Elder Beazer and Elder Paxton

  • Our area is not doing so hot right now, but we are going to change that. The other Elders here are doing awesome though, which is always good. Things in our zone are going pretty well. The city Olomouc is struggling, which is unfortunate, but we are going to see how things work out. Olomouc just changed into our zone at the beginning of this transfer, so we are still trying to really get a feel for what's happening there. Elder Beazer served there for 2 transfers before coming here, so he knows the members and a lot of the investigators, which is nice.
  • The heat has rolled into the country. We are all melting, and eating plenty of ice cream to stay cool. Should be hot all week I assume.
  • We got to visit the Bishop and his family this last week. They are great, and they have a son on a mission in England, so they are very curious about how the whole mission thing works. They asked lots of good questions about what was hard at the beginning of our missions, what is still hard, what we like, what has been fun, lots of good things. There are 9 Czech missionaries from the Stake here serving full time missions. We also played spoons, and I didn't come in last, so that was nice.
Bishop's family. He took the picture. 

  • We also went on an exchange in Liberec, which is a beautiful city up in the hills on the country. I also thought it was small, but I was quite mistaken with that. It is plenty big and really nice. We had a great exchange there, and I got to meet the recent convert that Sister Player (a friend from our ward in Roseville, CA) taught in Denmark, so fun small-world connections happened.
 Liberec

  • While in Liberec I got bitten by a bug. And my leg swelled up pretty bad. I got some medicine though, so I am normal now. No visit to the hospital this time, because the Bishop's wife is a nurse, and when I called asking for a recommendation on where to go, she showed up and helped me out. Insects and I don't get along super well. 
My legs after the bite.  Brad-0, Bugs- 2

  • Thanks for the thought Dad from  Elder Ronald A. Rasband, I really loved that talk during conference. "First promptings are pure inspiration from heaven. When they confirm or testify to us, we need to recognize them for what they are and never let them slip past. So often, it is the Spirit inspiring us to reach out to someone in need, family and friends in particular. Thus … the still small voice, which whispereth through and pierceth all things, points us to opportunities to teach the gospel, to bear testimony of the Restoration and Jesus Christ, to offer support and concern, and to rescue one of God’s precious children."  I am working on that, the idea of not hesitating so much. I have realized I am naturally a pretty cautious person, but sometimes in missionary work you have to throw caution out the window a bit and just go for it. I have been working on that principle.
My spiritual thought for the week is about pressing forward. Elder Beazer and I have been talking about how the amount of rejection that we regularly face as missionaries would have been really hard for us before a mission, but it is manageable now. I have realized that I have learned a lot about persistence as a missionary. Things that we want in life rarely just come to us, and sometimes we may face a lot of rejection before we get to what we want. I know that these rejections help to teach us important things, and prepare us for the time when we will have success. So don't be disappointed when something doesn't work out the way you hoped your first try. Keep going, and keep learning. Thanks for the support and prayers!

-Elder Pickett 
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