Plzen District- Another Fast Week!

Our District on a cool graffiti wall (photo credit Elder Tingey)

Here are some really fast highlights of the week.  And I forgot my memory card reader, so pictures next week, sorry! Have an awesome week! (I got a couple pictures this last week from other missionaries in the Plzen district… so we can deal with no pictures today!)

• We had a fabulous lesson with Petr. He told us that he doesn't know if these things are true. He believes that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are there and answer prayers, but he doesn't believe that Joseph Smith was a prophet yet, or that the Book of Mormon is true. He was really worried to tell us, because he thought that we would be upset, but we were really glad that he told us, because it shows he is actually thinking about stuff and that he has questions, and a desire to really find the truth, not just what sounds good. So it was a really good, and really important lesson. And Jitka, one of the YSA here taught with us, and she did a great job and really helped out. Teaching with members is such a good idea.
• We sent out a scavenger hunt to our Zone on Tuesday. A list of different people to look for, and a simple way to keep score. It was crazy the amount of miracles that we heard about from it. We wanted to have a day with some fun in it, and make people excited to go find people, and it totally worked. That was a really fun to see how something simple like that was able to spice things up for us nicely.

coolest chairs EVER at the science museum (photo credit Sestra Valentine)

• We also got to help someone walk to the hospital on Tuesday. He was standing in front of a long crosswalk without a stoplight and stopped Elder Tingey to ask if he would help him cross. Then we asked where he was headed and offered to help him walk to the hospital as well. He fell while at work, and messed up his ankle pretty badly. He was really grateful for the helpful and offered to give us beer money, which we declined. He was a really cool guy and we hope to run into him again sometime.
• In the Plzen ward, we keep busy.  Elder Tingey actually plays for choir now, because he is a musical genius. We pass the Sacrament and give talks fairly often. And help home teach. We don't have any big ward activities. FHE every week is generally for YSA, although anyone can come. We also have English class, and then have Game Night on Friday, and Sports Night every other Saturday. We are working with several less actives, including 2 families. They are both really great and we really like them. Our bishopric is all awesome. All of them have families in the church and are great examples. Petr Kyncl is our bishop and his counselors are Brother Štorkan and Brother Holub. There are also a ton of Grandmas in this ward, and they are all great. And then we have other good teachers, and a few YSA, but not a ton.

Elder Pickett & Elder Tingey (repeat picture)

• Exchanges are good although we didn't actually have any last week. Finding has not been great for us these past couple of weeks, we need to make more time for it in our day and find some new ways of finding. We are working on organizing a day in our zone to encourage new and different ways to find, and we are hoping to see success and some new, good ideas from that. We are able to get referrals from time to time. This week on Sunday we are going over to Bishop's house and his family is going to invite someone to come as well. That should be good. 
• There are probably close to a million Petrs and even more Jans in the Czech Republic. They have a lot of repeating names. We had interactions with 4 different Petrs in two days last week, it was pretty nuts. We're joking that this transfer has been the transfer of Petrs.

Christ is in all things, even the trash cans testify of Him (photo credit Elder Tingey)

• I think that is one of the challenges of being an older-in-the-mission missionary is that you start to think you know what you are doing and you've got things covered. That is really not a good idea or a good attitude when you are trying to be an instrument in the Lord's hand. But it really is critical to focus on the things that He thinks are most important and using our time the way He wants us to use it. Which can be tough.

For a spiritual thought I want to talk about looking where we are going. Sometimes in life we are so focused on the path right in front of our feet, that we forget to look at where we are even going to end up. We are trying so hard to just take the next step that we forget to realize what our goal even is. When we agonize about the next step and stress about it, a good way to get over it is to look up, to recognize all that the Lord has provided for us, and to see where we want to go. That makes the next step exciting, and gives us the courage and confidence to keep going. And whenever we look up, we will see that the Savior is beckoning us on. So keep going and keep your head up. Thanks for the prayers and support!

-Elder Pickett

One of our favorite places to eat is an Australian meat pie place. 

Great food, and a great price! Also, the owner is really cool.

An art memorial for General George S. Patton, who freed the city of Plzen 

(photo credit Elder Brockbank)

selfie at the science museum with a HUGE fan! (photo credit Sestra Valentine)

Another Fast Week!

Today at the request of Elder Brockbank we went to an exhibit of recycled plastic. 

This is me pretending to be deep and cultured enough to appreciate art, 

and also a cool multicolored, plastic peacock.

Hello everyone! We had a bit of a crazy week, but a good one as well. We had two exchanges and some good lessons and some interesting lessons.

• We left Monday evening to go to Prague and start an exchange with the office Elders, Elder Hymas and Elder Swink . Due to the crazy schedule we ended up helping the elders getting things ready and loading a car for Zone Training and the next day going to get packages from the mail. After 2 failed attempts I almost had a meltdown and we went to a Mexican Restaurant to eat burritos and wait for the workers to change and try again. Then we met a very nice older lady and she solved all of our problems. It was kind of like a flashback for Elder Tingey and me to our office days, but it was good.  I think it helped that we had office experience.
• We already had C-Bud Elders here with us 2 weeks ago. I was with the new missionary, and that was super fun. He doesn't understand too well what people are saying but he just goes for it anyways.  Elder Smith (from my MTC District) is his trainer this transfer. And they are killing it in C-Bud. That city is on fire right now.
• We had a lesson with P., our investigator who has a baptismal date next month, and he is doing great! He found work and a place to live here, and he decided he is not going to move to Liberec like he planned to. He wasn't able to come to church this week since he was being an extra in a film. But next week he should be there again. He has really found just what he is looking for in the Gospel, and it is truly great to see. We are teaching some other people as well, but he is our main guy and making the most progress. We are still working with L., and have some other good people as well.
• We also had an exchange with the other Elders here in Plzen. I went with Elder Terry, and we visited an investigator and less active in a neighboring city. It was a nice, scenic train ride there.

The Plzen District- Elders Pickett & Tingey, Elders Brockbank & Terry, 

Sestras Valentine & Andersen

• Working with Elder Tingey is good. We get each other a lot, and have the same thought process with many different things. Elder Tingey has taught me to keep up with calling our investigators and people we are working with. Also keeping a clean apartment. Also how to set good goals at the end of a mission.

 Our apartment

• Other than that our week was pretty normal. We had a good amount of lessons, and a good amount of time talking to people. We are hoping that our investigators will keep making progress and feeling the Spirit.
• The weather was amazing yesterday and today, but is supposed to freeze again tomorrow. I am pretty down with winter at this point, but oh well. It's decently cold, but my body is much more used to it this year than last. And we have a shoebox full of hot hands here in our apartment. So we are good to go on those.
• Current events are pretty nuts. People still ask us what we think of Trump when they find out we are from the US. That's always fun. (Brad has been gone since Oct 2015 so other than our email information, he is completely out of the political loop.)

For my spiritual thought I wanted to talk about the Book of Mormon. We talk about how important it is in our testimonies of Joseph Smith all the time, but sometimes I think that we forget that it is also foundational in our understanding and testimony of Jesus Christ and His role as our Savior and Redeemer. I want to testify that as we study and read the Book of Mormon, and as we apply the doctrines taught in it, we will truly find ourselves coming closer to the Savior, and finding more joy in life. So keep reading the Book of Mormon! Thanks for the support and prayers!

-Elder Pickett

This is a cool Czech bridge. I see a lot, but I felt like taking a picture of this one.

This is the third largest  Jewish synagogue in the world and a theater that is next to it.

Photo credit to Elder Brockbank

Science!

Elder Brockbank & Elder Tingey being blinded by science!  

We went to a science place called Techmania last week on pday and took pictures with our faces pushing out pixels. I am the top one at an odd angle.

 Techmania!

​

I am Pressed For Time...

I am really pressed for time, so Mom I will email you and do my weekly email in one.  Pictures next week.

• We don't have many youth for mutual, but the missionaries run a FHE and Game Night every week. The turnout depends on the week. And then we have sports night about every other week, and usually have a decent turnout for that. We go to a gym and play soccer.
• The biggest news of the week is that we have someone who accepted a baptismal date.  P. has come to church twice already, and he really gets the gospel and what it does for people. He has had some rough experiences in the past, and he wants to find the right path for him. He is super awesome and we love teaching him. From Elder Tingey: “He said that church was amazing and that he came and forgot all of the worldly worries he had and felt peace. He asked us how he could have that feeling always.”
• The schedule changes that have come from the First Presidency are pretty significant for us. It changes how we count numbers and measure our work, it really simplified it and is aimed to help us really focus on only the most important things. It is really cool. The schedule change is really interesting too. We already modified our schedule here in our mission to have more flexibility with things because mission Presidents can adjust it as they need to) and the new schedule is all about that as well. It tries to make our days a little more flexible ( so that we can use the maximum amount of time in the most effective ways possible. It is really good.
• We had a MLC last week in Prague. Then we did zone training and shared the importance of the Holy Ghost in missionary work, and how to make him a more active part of our work. We emphasized taking time to stop and listen to the Spirit. It went well. We talked about numbers and practices and other important things there and also watched the Worldwide Missionary Broadcast, which is where they announced the new changes. It has been interesting to experience.
• Boldness in missionary work can sometimes be a challenge for me, I am not usually a "let's get up in people's faces who we don't know" kind of guy.  I am learning to do it well and enjoy it. Love really is the way to motivate myself to do it.
• We do teach English. Every Tuesday at 6-7. We get a good turnout here in Pilsen, and have 3 classes with a good amount of students.
• Yes Dad, complaining about your “cold” weather would be pretty wimpy. I have decided that if I can't see my breath all day long, it isn't a cold day at all. I think we have had 1 or 2 days like that in the past couple of weeks.

The rest of our District- Sister Andersen, Sister Valentine, 

Elder Terry, Elder Brockbank

• Our District works well together, Sister Andersen and Sister Valentine are great and doing good work together. Elder Brockbank and Elder Terry are working hard, finishing out Elder Terry’s last transfer.  I think Elder Terry is excited about his family coming to pick him up at the end of this transfer.

My spiritual thought relates to the different aspects of what  leadership entails. There is a really good section in the White Missionary Handbook where it talks about the difference between ministering and administering. It says that you have to be a good administrator as a leader and be organized and whatnot, but that the most important work that you will ever do will be in ministering to people. I have really found that to be true. I love giving trainings and planning things for the mission with the other mission leaders, but the most profound impacts I feel like I have had have mostly come from interviews with missionaries on exchanges, and especially from the priesthood blessings I have been asked to give. So in all you are doing in any leadership capacity, remember the people you serve.  Minister to them. Thanks for you continued thoughts, prayers, and encouragement, you rock. Love you lots!

-Elder Pickett

(thanks to Elder Tingey for the pictures!)

People ice skating on the river here

Path to the library where we email 

Answering a Mom question. Sometimes families are able to go pick up their missionaries.  We really want to go to Prague but Brad will finish late November (TOO COLD for us Californians...) Definitely I will want to come back later rather than have you guys come out. That is way too much of a "2 worlds colliding" kind of experience. When I tour around with you guys, I just want to do it as a tourist. Any other way would be too weird for me.  Good thing that is what we want to make happen!

The Week of Cold

Pilsen (or Plzen)

You can probably guess how the weather was this week based on the title of my email. We have had snow on the ground that hasn't melted since last Sunday. So it hasn't exactly been warm. This week was good. A little odd, but still good.

• Tuesday we left for Prague at 12:30ish and were there for MLC until Wednesday afternoon. We had lots of good discussions and talked a lot about what we can do this year to improve as missionaries. We are going to be focusing a lot on working with members, which is the best way to be successful in missionary work. We slept over at the Assistants apartment, and that was a good time. Elder Page is from Elder Tingey's MTC group, and Elder Belshe and I know almost all the same people in the country, so we had a fun time there.  After we got home on Wednesday we went tracting. It was pretty cold.
• Thursday we had district meeting, and then a few lessons. We are also working on preparing a training, which we will give next week at Zone Training. We are excited about the stuff we have found and hope that it will really help the missionaries in our zone. It is already helping us.
• Other than that we have been looking for new people and meeting with a few others as well. We haven't seen a whole lot of progress this week, but we are looking forward to better things, and we found someone who came to church, so we are excited to start working with him.
• Plzen is a ward that is familiar with opposition and still going strong. The members here are awesome.
• We didn't end up having any exchanges, which was a bummer. It was a bit of an unorthodox missionary week. I have a lot of respect for Bishops after Thursday. We had a meeting with an awesome member who just needed a bit of spiritual up boost. Then a meeting with a member with challenging medical issues and that was an emotionally exhausting hour.  That was an emotionally draining day, we went contacting afterwards and our brains were pretty fried already. But it was good.
• I think that the "going all in" part of the gospel is what enduring to the end is all about. Sometimes it is really tough, but we can rely on the enabling power of Christ's Atonement to help us. That's a lesson I have learned on my mission.

Elder Tingey & Elder Pickett (this is a repeat picture)

• Elder Tingey and I are doing a good job of cleaning things up in our apartment and we are doing well. We get each other pretty well, and don't have any problems. We also can give each other a bit of a hard time, so that's been fun.
• Today for pday we are going to lunch together as a district and then we will look around the city some more and talk to some people. It should be good.
• Acquiring Spiritual Knowledge (ASK) is such a great seminary topic. People have an endless supply or questions, but if they don't look for answers in the right places they will never find them.

My spiritual thought this week is about the scriptures. There are sometimes when we read the scriptures just to check it off that we have done it. When we do this, we sometimes fall asleep reading, zone out and read a page without actually taking in a word, or just speed through it without gaining anything from it (I know all of these things from experience). I have found that the best way for me to study the scriptures is to get excited about a questions, or a topic, so that I am really studying with a purpose, not just reading to se that I have read. I challenge you all to prepare adequetely for your scripture study this week by figuring out what you want to study and why it is important to you. You'll have some great experiences. Thanks for the prayers and support!

-Elder Pickett

A delicious lunch. The nickname for the dish is a Moravian Sparrow, 

but there is actually no bird there at all.

This is a beautiful panini we made. We found out why the griller was left though. 

Because after our first use it died. But those were two really good sandwiches.

To Caroline:  They do have good hot chocolate in the Czech Republic, but not the good drink kind. Their hot chocolate is kind of like hot chocolate pudding. A good dessert, but not a good drink.

So it gets pretty cold here...

The Czech/ Slovak Missionaries!

This last week we have seen winter. There is plenty of snow on the ground, and we have had several memorable experiences of blue skies, snow, and freezing cold all in the same day.

• Elder Tingey and I sent off Elder Croney on Wednesday morning. That's really when our transfer together started. We already served around each other, and we had the same assignment in the office at different times, so it still kind of feels like we are on a weird, super long exchange rather than actually being permanent companions. But it has been good. Every new companionship is an adjustment.  Elder Tingey is really different from Elder Croney but he is really good. We work well together, our minds think in a  similar way. We both are here to work, we actually did the same job in the mission office, and we like speaking a lot of Czech.

Plzen is also home to the tallest kostel (cathedral) in the Czech Republic 

(photos from Elders Tingey & Brockbank)

• We weren't able to meet with too many people this week, we had a lot of things set-up that fell-through at the last minute, but we did have some good finding, and a good visit to one of our investigators from Slovakia. He is a really nice guy with a strong testimony of Jesus Christ. He is very sincere in his beliefs, which is great to see. We will see with J, he has some other concerns right now. No luck with the other three possibilities that I told you about last week, unfortunately.
• We are working well with members. They are willing to teach, the main problem is finding a time that works for them. And some of our strongest members live outside of the actually city in little suburb areas around, so it can be tough. We have an awesome ward mission leader. He is pretty quiet, but is really good at helping us focus on doing all that we can control and leaving the rest of God and the individuals. I really like and admire him.
• We have walked around a lot of Plzen this week and frozen, but it's been really good. I have lost count of the amount of times my feet and fingers have gone numb, despite my layers and striving to stay warm. I am still undecided on my opinion of snow. I kind of like it, but I feel that it sticks around too long and once it does it just gets slushy and nasty. But when it is falling it looks nice at least.

We went on a bit of a P-day hike this morning. We live in a beautiful city!

These are little Czech cottages. They have these as a place to go with a garden because they love nature so much. They are right on the outskirts of the city.

• We also are finally in contact with a recent convert again. His phone has been broken, so we saw him only a few times last transfer and couldn't set-up with him at all, but we are finally able to communicate again. He is doing well, and practice taught us a lesson about who God is. He did awesome. It was surprising in a super cool way. He is really cool.
• We went tracting a few times this week in the snow, and are looking forward to the two day MLC we will be having tomorrow and Wednesday in Prague. It should be great.

 Here is our Christmas present from President P, a new temple recommend holder 

(designed by Elder Brockbank)

• We actually will probably bring the Elders to our area this transfer for exchanges. After this transfer when Elder Tingey goes home, I will probably stay here, because Zone Leaders don't usually both leave at the same time, but President took two out and switched their cities last time, so you never really know. Maybe I will leave, maybe I won't. We will see.
• Seeing the potential in others is super important, although it is sometimes really frustrating when they don't rise up to that potential. Really frustrating. But that's agency. Everyone has a right to choose for themselves.
• I didn't have all the right package sending materials to prepare the box, so I will send your Christmas presents next week (sorry I am lame, but we have no good tape at home!).

My spiritual thought for this week actually comes from the practice lesson that our recent convert taught us. He talked about how God knows everything about us, all of our secrets, all our thoughts, and all of our actions. He knows the things about us that we don't like to tell anyone else, and through everything He still loves us perfectly and wants us to be happy. That is pretty incredible to fully realize. I think that can really change the way that we think about prayer and about our relationship with Him. We have no secrets from Him. And when we pray in that way, our prayers become full of the Spirit, and incredibly sincere. I would like to challenge you all to try to pray like that this week. Thanks for the prayers and support! I am glad I am where I am!

-Elder Pickett

To Caroline: Thank you for sharing that powerful quote about the Atonement. The Atonement is something that I have a strong testimony of. Whenever we feel totally alone, Jesus knows how we feel too.

I wish I could say that I am trying really hard to eat super healthy too, but that would be lying...We have tasty food here.  From Elder Tingey:  “The members are great. And they like to stuff us with food. Literally, it is eat until you drop, then put two more dumplings on your plate.”  

(Scenery pictures from Elder Brockbank)

 Buildings on the namesti (main square)

Trams that run throughout the city

New Beginnings

Elder Croney and Elder Pickett at the church building & at the Mission Conference

Hello everyone! This last week has been filled with snow, contacting on public transportation, transfer calls, and some fun lessons!

• We'll see what happens, but our area is doing pretty good and I am excited about the potential of some of our investigators. J. we teach today, he is the dancer. O. we are not in contact with right now, no idea what's going on there. L. is a super sassy Czech man and we'll see how J. and I. pan out. They both expressed interest, but then haven't responded to our invitations to set-up.

A house I drew during English class to help our students practice new words.

• We visited one of our investigators this week twice and had good lessons about faith and coming to find spiritual answers. He made us some food and tried to offer us alcohol, which we refused. It was good practice for refusing temptation and peer pressure. Actually he was just joking, and it was pretty entertaining.
• We had our last District Meeting of the transfer, which was a good testimony meeting together.
• We also good food together for lunch on Saturday, had a lesson with someone new, and had a really fun sports night, although very few people came.
•  This transfer I will be with Elder Tingey. He is in Elder Terry's group, so this is his final transfer (2 in a row for me!). It is interesting to be serving with a final transfer companion. In Plzen will be me with Elder Tingey, Elder Brockbank with Elder Terry, and Sister Andersen with Sister Valentine.

Elder Tingey (new companion) and me outside of the church building. Elder Tingey actually served with Elder Croney in Brno about 8 months ago or so.

• Church was interesting, we had lots of people wish the missionaries the best and they were sad to see people go. Elder Croney has been here for a while and the member really like him, so they are sad he is leaving.

Elder Croney and I this morning on transfer day. 

We had breakfast as a district with some friends before people left.

•  Inactive vs. active here in the Czech Republic varies widely depending on the city, but usually we have a whole lot more people on the role than actually ever come. Prague is the worst, because there are a lot of international people and no one knows if they have moved or not. We tried to help a little with that, but there is a whole ton of work to do
• Snow driving? We are doing a bit of that as well. Elder Croney is from Utah, so he knows how, but Elder Tingey is from Washington... We've had some good snow as well. I used hot hands for tracting the other night, and that was a great choice. It gets pretty cold here, although hasn't gotten to -17 F or anything like that. Luckily we are at low elevation, so we are a bit luckier in that respect.

So this great spiritual thought from my Dad is about judging righteously and is something that I have been thinking about recently actually. From my Dad:  “There are many times that we judge something or someone. As a result, we often don't see the potential in someone, or we don't see what the Lord has in store for that person. If we do judge then we sometimes miss seeing what their potential is or what they really can become. Only the Lord is one who can judge justly or righteously. So as you are out talking to people, deciding whom to approach and who not, remember to approach or talk to whomever you can. Don't just decide who, because you never know what they might be or what their potential to become is. Only the Lord knows that.”  It is sometimes difficult for us to predict how people will connect with the gospel, or how they will respond to the promptings of the Spirit, that's why we talk to everyone we can!  So remember, we don’t know people’s potential by their outward appearance. 

Thanks for the support and prayers!

-Elder Pickett

Christmas present opening!

 The view from the hotel we went to for our 3 day Missionwide Conference that I talked about last week. It didn't snow, but the dew froze into frost, and the whole countryside was covered in frost, it was amazing.

My MTC group! All of the Czechs in the mission, and we were all together at a training. 1st time so far in my mission! 

Back row Elder Paxton, Elder Anderson/ Middle row Elder Smith, Sister Heap, Sister DeMann, Sister Humphries, Sister Andersen, Elder Pickett/ Model pose Elder Chadwick

                          A goofy picture of Elder Smith and Elder Chadwick from training

A very unhealthy burger from McDonald's that is a special here. It is a regular hamburger, but also has a patty of deep-fried cheese on it (deep-fried cheese is actually a common thing here)