Hey everybody!                                                                                           1-22-13

So this week has been soooooooooooooo good!  Elder Stucki and I are staying together!!  (First time I haven't had a companion switch during transfers since my trainer!!!!!)  I am super stoked for it too!  He has been out just 3 months less than me!  So we both know what we're doing and it's easy just to get down to work!

Speaking of work!  We have been doing toooons of finding these past couple of weeks!  It has been pretty successful!  People tell us to come back every now and again! One guy who told us to come back was named Thelton!  He is legally blind and can't read very well, so when we talked to him and gave him a mormon.org pass along card, he thought we were Jehovah’s Witnesses and said we could come back.  About twenty minutes later we were walking back and he was taking his dog for a walk!  He saw us and yelled for us to come over to him, and he told us he thought we were JWs but when he read the card and found out we were Mormons, he really wanted to talk to us!  We've been by a couple times, his dog bit Elder Stucki a little, and we're excited to start teaching him! (as long as that dog isn't in the room)

I hope you all have an awesome week!
Love,
Elder Pickett

Hey Everybody!                                                                            January 15,  2013

This week was sooooooo great!!!  Austin (I know I talk about him all the time but he's the most interested/ progressing investigator right now!) came to church this week!!!!  It was awesome!  I was on exchanges when they committed him to come so I didn’t even expect him to chow up, but then right after the prayer he walks on in!  We flagged him down and he came over and sat with us, he may have fallen asleep a little but that’s okay!  (The talks were on family history, not the most engaging for a 17 year old)    Sadly he didn't stay for 2nd or 3rd hour :(  it would've been way good for him though!  It was all about how we get close to our Father in Heaven!

A cool story happened in Washougal!  So I mentioned earlier I left the area I’m in to go on exchanges... Well I went to this tiny little town called Washougal!!  It is way cool, and way up in the mountains/forests over here!  So I was with my zone leaders Elder Mitchell, and we had an appointment to teach a lady named Melissa!  It was an awesome lesson, and she is super cool!!!  She invited the missionaries back because she "wanted the Lord back in her house" and when we left she said she could already start feeling it, and she was super excited to read the Book of Mormon!  The best part (people don't usually like when we tell them they need to be baptized again) was when we invited her to be baptized (You invite on the first lesson every time now!)  she was like, "Yeah I guess since the priesthood was gone, the guy who baptized me was just a guy...  Yeah I’ll get baptized if I find out this is true."  It was sooooooooooo cool that she understood apostasy so easily!

Well that was my awesome week!
I hope you have one too!
Love,
Elder Pickett

Hey Everybody!                                                                               January 7, 2013

We had such an amazing experience on Saturday!  So in another ward in a different stake, the elders were teaching a lady named Emily.  She was super excited about the gospel and they put her on date for baptism on January 5th, so last Saturday!  The Sunday before rolls around, and they find out that she lives in Fairway Village ward!  (Where I am serving)  And they introduce us to her and we taught her a few times this past week, and then she was baptized on Saturday!  It was probably the best experience I have ever had in my life!  When she was baptized she came out of the water laughing/crying and it was really cool! 

We're still working with Austin and it is still going way good!  This week we watched the restoration video with him!  He was having a really bad day with some of his friends and a lot of high school drama and whatnot!  But when he left he was a lot more chill and calm then when we showed up, it was awesome to see the spirit work on him and calm him down!

Last week we did something super awesome!  We went to Multnomah Falls!  It was an awesome hike and the big waterfall is about 600 ft.!!!!!!!  The one mile hike took about an hour though!  It was pretty much straight up!!!  The picture is on a lookout thing that extends over the falls a little bit, I was far away from that end though :)

We have interviews this Wednesday too!  I can't wait to just be able to talk to President Greer!!  It's always awesome and it always gets me re-pumped up about doin work!!  It's gonna be a really awesome time!

Sorry about the crazy random e-mail today!
love,
Elder Pickett

Hey Everybody!!

So this week was sooooooooo good!  We've been working with a less-active lady lately, her name is Tiffany!  She is super cool and we always enjoy going over there, this week was especially cool because her husband sat in when we were there!  His name is Don and he is a non-member!  It was awesome talking to him and getting to know him a little better (he really hasn't sat in on anything yet so it was awesome hearing his religious background and finding out where exactly he is coming from!)  Well he is pretty interested, but is afraid of getting too far into the Book of Mormon, because his family really doesn't like us :(  We'll keep working with him though!

Quick update on Austin!  His little brother sat in and now we are teaching both of them!  Awesome little tid bit!  We are gonna go back and hopefully find a day for their baptism!

Christmas was such a wonderful day, kinda like the BEST DAY EVER!!  It was great Skyping home, and getting Christmas cards from all of you!  Thank you so much for everything and all the support!

Well time is getting short,
Love,
Elder Pickett