So this week was a really good week!

So on my birthday, my comp got sick in the morning so he slept in and I just hung out in the basement and read this book that my member recommended, it's called the Peace Giver it’s really an amazing book and puts a new light on the atonement that I had never seen before! I would recommend it to everyone!

After he was feeling better we went to dinner, and that was great, they fried up some of the best potatoes I've had, and had some really delicious pork roast!  After that we went and visited a really cool family, the McKrackens!  They are both 19 years old and married with a baby!  She has been a member her whole life (not very active but still a member), but he wasn't until last November!  They're super cool, and our age so it's great to visit them and help them out when we can!  So that was the working day of my birthday (still no cake).  After we got home we were just chillin, and my comp has the phone, and he keeps getting texts so I’m thinking, that’s weird.  Then he randomly goes upstairs, and then comes back down holding to boxes, so I got my presents on my birthday!  We went upstairs and cooked those mini browny cake things, so I did get some cake on my birthday, so that was cool!

On Saturday, that was a recent convert whose family was moving to a different part of the area, so we volunteered and got signed up to help.  So we show up and they're all out back taking a quick smoke 'n coffee break before work, but when we showed up we all started on it, aaaaaaand 2 full U-hauls, and 7 hours later we finally got home!  I'm still exhausted!  The worst part was my allergies, or possibly a cold or something, had been annoying all Friday, and then it just got worse during the move, so I was helping out and feeling sick and stuff, but hey! It was tons of fun so yeah!

You haven't told me about the cheesesteak thing, where is it?  And is it better than Spiritos?

Well that was my week in a nutshell!
Have a good one,

Love,
Elder Pickett

Hey Everyone!

Trust me, I don't think I will ever forget my birthday week!  There is an awesome non-member family here who are always excited to see missionaries.  They were asked to feed the missionaries once 8 years ago, and never stopped!  We can go there just about any time, and they have 5 big bowls of candy out on the table for us and the neighbor kids.  They will be taking us out to McGraths fish house this Wednesday as a celebration of my graduation into the 20s, it should be a good outing! 

There is a 14 year old girl in our area who is named Kennedy, and she is getting baptized on the 4th of August!  It has been an awesome time meeting with her and finally setting a date for that to happen!  We are super excited for this to happen and now that it finally is we are really stoked for it!  She is an awesome girl and she is way excited to be baptized, and her mom wants to be baptized but we have to settle some things out first.  She has had a lot of health issues and we are trying to find out how to get her to church, or baptized without needing to go to church, because she literally cannot.  They are an all-around awesome family, and they are die-hard chargers fans who used to live down off of vista way!!

We had a mini missionary this week!  A 17 year old kid who came out with us Thursday and Friday from 8AM to 930PM, his name is Dylan and he is a really great guy!  We had a lot of fun going around and teaching people! 

Have a good week!
Love ya!
Elder Pickett

Hey everybody!

So Hazel Dell ward has an annual tradition of having a 4th of July breakfast on the morning of the fourth!  It was a smashing success with 160 people there!  It suddenly became less successful on Thursday morning when the strawberries took their revenge out on half of the ward!  Everybody got sick and had a bad day after 4th.  And at ward council we heard alot about it.  It was pretty funny because neither I nor my companion got sick so we had nothing to be mad about!

We had dinner with Sis Adams sister last night, and their family is super awesome! 

We had to go in on the fourth so we didn't get to see any cool shows, but buying mortars is legal here so everyone and their mother has their own private show which wasn't a terrible thing but we couldn’t see very well from our backyard haha

It’s pretty warm where I am, basically just a normal San Diego summer. Its temple p-day so it’s on Tuesday, and I got to go to the Portland temple, which was awesome!

There is an awesome opportunity we have this week to receive a "mini missionary" he is a 17 year old guy from Vancouver north stake!  We will hopefully be able to take him through all the aspects of missionary life such as teaching lessons to investigators, less actives, and even members!  He will be with us for 2 days, but he will go home and sleep there at nights which is pretty good since our beds are not of the best quality.  I wish I could have done this before my mission!  It's definitely an awesome opportunity for us and him! 

Sorry about the short E-mail today, I'll have awesome stories next week!
Love,
Elder Pickett

Hey!

So I am getting transferred this coming Wednesday! And I'm making a cross state trip to the western side of Vancouver!  It's gonna be awesome to see green everywhere and finally get out of the desert!  I'm super excited for my new companion, Elder Nawahine.  It's pronounced now- uh- he- neigh!  Cool little story, the missionary that returned home to Oceanside in April trained this guy, and he is from La Jolla!  So it’ll be 2 Cali boys trying to survive in the rain!  I've only met him a handful of times, but I'm sure we'll have a ton of fun, and get a bunch of work done!

This week was a really funny week.  We keep running into Seventh Day Adventists!  It's kind of funny how many we've ran into!  This one, Lee Murphy is probably the coolest 79 year old I've ever met.  We were walking down the road and saw him doing yard work while leaning on crutches.  So we offered to help, and he said "I thought you'd never ask!"  So we went down into his basement, which isn't finished yet; only the foundation is remade, and helped him remove some trees that were growing into the side of it.  It was a fun little project and afterward he invited us in for some juice!  We sat down and got to talking, and he was on crutches because he broke his leg 2 months ago falling out of a tree while he was up there trimming it with a chainsaw!  (This guy’s intense.)  We then had a really good lesson, and he said he would read the Book of Mormon and pray to ask if it's true!  I won't be able to see him again, but I hope he will find the truth in the message!

We had a fireside yesterday and it was so good!  We had 3 recent converts speak and share their testimonies, one of which was TJ, who was baptized the Saturday I came into the area.  We then sang our mission song which is super cool, and then President Greer (mission president) and President Andelin (stake president) talked. It was a super good meeting and the investigators there loved it! 

Well that is my week in a nutshell!
Love,
Elder Pickett

Subject: Your missionary had lunch at my house today!!
To:

P-day lunch at the Pierces!! It was a pleasure to have them in our home!!

We love the missionaries!!

Love Sister Pierce in Pasco

Who's putting his dish in the dish washer?

Hello!

So I sent you new mission address, so don't forget to let people know that it's not the same one!  Our new address will be: 8202 W. Quinault Ave. #D, Kennewick, Washington  99336

Secondly, Happy Birthday Mom!!!
Sorry to hear about your Bursitis.  Aw, manL  but at least it’s slowed the progress but not stopped the progress.

Thirdly,  this week was way good! But mostly yesterday was so cool!  As a zone, we have set a goal of 30 new investigators per week!  And yesterday as a zone we needed 9 of them!  So I and Ruetti went to our appointment with the Coaly family, where we got 5 new investigators!  Then as we were walking home we knocked on a potentials door, and got 2 more right there!  It was such a good day yesterday!!

The lesson with the Coaly's was probably the best of my mission!  It started off kind of weird (Especially since they won't call us Elder so I'm Brandon when I go over there)  but other than that, it was super awesome and the spirit was there super strong!  So we taught them, and as a family they are going to read the Book of Mormon!  It is going to be super cool going back there and teaching them again, I kinda hope I stay because I don't want to miss out on that!

That AJ Edwards story is so cool!  I sent you a link to the Mormon Message they made out of that talk, it is really such an awesome story! http://www.lds.org/media-library/video/mormon-messages-for-youth?lang=eng&start=1&end=12#2011-09-005-sanctify-yourselves
AJ Edwards is the bomb!

We are doing a Book of Mormon challenge, and as a mission we will finish the Book of Mormon on Dads B-day!  It has been a really awesome experience, and I'm in Helaman 7 now!  It'll be my second time through on my mission.  I know what you mean about its kind of a new book every time!  I love it so much, and after I finish reading, up next is the New Testament!!  Have a good week!

Have a great week everyone!
Love,
Elder Pickett

Hey everybody!!

  The ward is doing good, and the work is really picking up!  This week we had the best week for the area in about the past year or so!  This specific ward is very very small so it is hard to find people that haven't already been tracted out or anything, but we are definitely being blessed with people all the time! 

So there is this one investigator, Linda.  We haven't decided whether she's super golden, or just super crazy... She is probably more golden than crazy, but yeah the first visit we had with her she said she was deciding whether she was going to be Mormon or Christian, and she took us coming over as a sign that she's supposed to be Mormon, so she keeps telling us she's going to be Mormon now.  That is pretty cool to be blessed with a golden investigator.

Another cool thing that’s happening here is we are starting to have "cottage meetings."  Or mini firesides that members host where other members or investigators or less actives, or anyone can come and we will share a thought, and then have desert or something!  It's going to be awesome, and the Snake River ward (Matt's ward) do them every Sunday.  The cool thing is every gator that has gone to one of them, has been baptized! So we're hoping that this will help the work tremendously!

Don't forget to feed the missionaries!!
Love,
Elder Pickett