Hey everyone!

So Ellensburg is a farm town in a valley up in the mountains somewhere, it's where Central Washington University is, so there are a lot of college kids up here. We cover the biggest area in the mission, but most of it isn’t inhabited. We cover 2 wards, the Ellensburg 3rd and the Cle Ellum branch, which are 21 miles apart from each other so that is a very long drive for the small amount of miles we get each month. My companion is awesome, he's pretty short but he's a hard working dude.

The missionaries before us really liked to just hang out with the investigators, so we are having a hard time finding people who really want to have a lesson, rather than just sitting around and chatting.

I have done all the firsts you have mention, and tracting is actually really fun! We set a goal to talk to at least 12 people a day and have 84 at the end of the week. Cle Ellum is tiny, and my first door approach I said,” Hi, how are you”, then the guy shut the door. Our first lesson was to an older lady, she's turning 79 soon. She's a Native American named Ann, and she seems very excited to get a BoM that she could actually read. We had to get her a large text because she can't see very well. My first street approach was to a guy named CJ, he's going to CWU and we had to refer him to the other elders because he was in the 2nd ward.

Cle Ellum hasn't been actively proselyted for over 2 years so we are going to go start tapping into the potential it has. Which is also hard to do because of the mile shortage that we have.

Well keep up the hard work mom! Tell everyone I said hello. You should send me pictures when you start riding your trike!

Love, Elder Pickett

Hey!

So I'm going to the Northernmost point of the mission. It's a town called Ellensberg, and it sound like a fantastic place! So I get to see the first snow of everyone in the mission. My trainer is named Elder Gibson. From the sound of thing, he is a really good guy. We will have a car, and hopefully, our own apartment. Although staying with members sound cool too.

Robby's generation will probably all have iPads when they come here. I might even have one toward the end of my mission.

Well it's time to get ready for bed now, I love you all.

love,

E. Pickett

Dear Elder Pickett's family,

I am sure you are surprised to receive this e-mail from a stranger. I was able to take some pictures of Elder Pickett at the MTC and thought you might like seeing them.

Thank you very much for sending such a wonderful elder!!

Regards,

Junichi

Hey everyone! OCTOBER 17

I leave tomorrow morning so I will be able to call you at about 9 o’clock your time I believe, probably before that. So be ready at any time!!

This last week has been great, I got a letter from the Penrods on the 15th that they sent on the 2nd so that was super crazy, I hope my letters don't take that long to send!!

Half of our district is gone now, they went to the West Indies mission, and they were super cool people! I haven't got my quilt yet, and Spencer says he sent my some stuff too so I hope I get it all today, or else I’m not sure what happens to it.

I don’t know the address of the mission home yet so i don’t know where to send packages.

That is awesome that Sam is doing so well, could you send me his address so I can write him today? I'll be on later tonight so I can get it.

I don't get the ensign so I won't be able to read that issue, we'll see if I can get it once I’m out in the field.

It’s great that you are riding your trike!! Keep it up! I wanna cruise the coast highway when I get back home!! And keep workin hard at the CC! No slacking just because I’m gone…okay ;)

Well I’d best be off now. We waited for an hour and a half to get into initiatories and missed breakfast, so we need to go get some food!

Love,
Elder Pickett

Hi, Oct 10

That's awesome that you got your bike!!! And I know you'll be fine and you'll be tearin up the coast highway before I get back home. I didn't see Amy at all the first week I was here, but over the past three days I saw her once each day hahaha.

Thats an awesome story! My companion went inactive at about 12 when his parents divorced, but his friends got him to start going again, and now he's out on a mission!

Its great that your still progressing, pretty soon you won't need the cane at all eh? :P But how's the challenge center?

So my companion had his dad send him 5 ghost peppers, which are the hottest pepper on earth, and I ate one last night! It was the craziest thing ever, it made all of us cry and it cleaned out our distreict leaders sinus' pretty well... Gross!

I forgot a laundry bag! so I just use one of the left over pillow cases :)

When I talk about districts and all that, its pretty much 3 classrooms are grouped together in a zone, and every individual classroom is a district, our zone leaders just left so we got new ones, and they are actually younger than us! We are now the oldest district in our zone!!

Elder Hollands talk was great! I loved how he was so blunt with everyone!

Kevin can join my scooter gang when I get back I guess!

That is awesome that they would make that sacrifice to help others who are in need!

Teaching is great! Our teachers have investigator profiles that they act as and we go teach them!!


Love,
Elder Pickett

Hey!                                                                                                  October 3

That is so awesome about Alex!!! yeah I hope Kevin goes somewhere awesome like that.

Conference was awesome! And I didnt even fall asleep! The missionaries talks were fantastic, you should watch Holland's from priesthood session.

Tell robby to suck it up and stop being sick, and yes I am going to be in the choir.

The spirit here is fantastic!  That's my new favorite word now, it is used just about every day in my journal :)

I just got back from the temple, we had to wake up at 5:30!!!!  Which actually wasn't too horrible now, but a week ago I would have died at the thought.

So we have roleplay lessons where we go to teach an "investigator" who is really just the teacher, and me and Elder Grant bombed, we got so nervous and just didn't know what to say, but the teacher let us start over and we nailed it from there!  It was great just knowing that if we just take a deep breath, we can actually do this!

My room is the coolest, the other companionship in it is Elder Florence, and Elder Belliston, they are both about my same height, but they are total bean poles! But they are great. 

Well I have 20 minutes left so if you are monitoring the computer just hit me back!

Love,
Elder Pickett

His first letter.

Hey Mom and family!

I’m here at the MTC, as you know, and I had some extra time so I decided to write a letter. I’m writing on the 29^th of September so I’ve only completed one real day here, and it was a long day!! I hope everything went smoothly on the plane and you got home safe and sound.

My companion is named Elder Grant, and he is a cool guy. He grew up in rural Utah and looks the part too! Waking up at 6:30 is not as hard as it seems, especially when one of the roommate’s alarm clock sounds like a crow with a megaphone. Our teacher is a very cool guy named Brother Bacon and he is super excited about teaching us.

The food here is very good, and every now and then it is ice cream night. And it so happened that this was one night, and it is Creamery ice cream! The showers are nice, and always hot. The bathroom we have is way funny, because it was converted into a boy’s bathroom from a girl’s bathroom.

General Conference is this weekend, and I’m not exactly sure about what’s going to happen but all I know is that we have a meal between sessions, so the Pickett tradition will continue even in the MTC. The days feel like weeks, and I’ve heard “the weeks feel like days”, so I’m excited for that to kick in!

Well I gotta get going to classes and dinner. I miss you all but I know coming was the right decision.

Love,

Elder Brandon Scott Pickett

Going to the MTC.

The MTC has changed the way you drop off your missionary. When Ryan and Spencer left for they missions, we got to the MTC, and had a short meeting, followed by the missionary going out one door and the family going out another. For Brandon, we drove up to a curb, there were other missionaries waiting to help him with his luggage, He gave me a kiss good-bye, and walked away. I thing the missionary with his luggage told him to not look back.