Another week in Minnesota . . and this week has been the best of all!

Finally, Ryan had a somewhat normal week of missionary work.  Not only is he feeling so much better, he is just thrilled to be out working and seeing the Lord's hand in his life.  He shared so much with us in various letters that I will try and piece some of them together so that everyone can get the full story.

Hey Mom!  So I will try to answer a lot of your questions, but there were a lot!  I am doing so much better even from last week!  I am able to eat without any issues now and am able to have started working out again, and mainly just function as a normal person and that has been so nice.  It was definitely something I wouldn't have minded never having to experience, but hey, like so many people here at the mission know me now as the kid that almost died the first week, and I am better now.

We visit a fair amount of people and teach quite a few lessons throughout the week, whether on a doorstep or actually being let in.  We do a decent amount of tracting, but it is hard trying to find the Hispanics to be able to tract.  They are everywhere here, it is just finding where they are at, and then more often than not, trying to get into apartments,  which is always an adventure.  The members do help us, and as we grow closer to them and they begin to trust us more and more they feel more comfortable to share. I absolutely love the members here.

Our service we do is mainly just at a veterans home and its just pure service, we aren't allowed to tract, but it is so fun and all the old guys just are a crack up and have a blast when we come every week.  They tell you all of their stories and its just a good time.  

Also if we tract into a Somalian family, we just ask to do service because they are Muslim and we aren't allowed to teach them at all, and there are so many of them here!  

The language is slowly coming,  it is harder to understand some people more than others, but it is getting there and the Lord has helped with that a lot. Me and my companion have had a great time, we get a lot of work done. All over the city we just find things to laugh about and it is so crazy here so we find plenty of things everyday that just give us a laugh and its been a good time with him.  

So with Facebook we can use messenger and use the actual status and whatnot however we feel directed to spread good messages and the gospel in one way or another.  So we will see how we will use it and how it goes in teaching people all over, here and back home.  

Also a little more info on my area.  So we are Minneapolis central kinda, but it is whatever is Minneapolis south of downtown.  It is big, but the Hispanics clump together so it works out.  The ward is a decent size, nothing like Utah, but it is not bad at all, and like I said, the ward is amazing.  And I think a lot of them are from Mexico, but there are some from all over as well.  We meet a good variety of people here, it is such a diverse place here it amazes me.  

So this week has been good, crazy, but good!  We did my first real finding and whatnot, and it went well!  We got a lot of return appointments, I got us into my first door I knocked, and we have retaught them a couple times!  We just got lucky getting into this really hard apartment, and we got in multiple times when no one has been able to before, and we expounded the work there and it was a very good faith building experience.  Also my companion was having me give out my first Book of Mormon, and was just going to do it with whoever first for practice, and got yelled at, so woot woot, great first attempt.  We had some great progress with a less active family though!!  We went and gave her husband a blessing, he was in the hospital on life support. And I anointed the oil, my first time in Spanish!!  And we gave the blessing, and the spirit was so strong, then we just told the wife, since the guy was in a  coma, that she is welcome to the ward, and they are like a family.  So through the week, her husband made so much progress health wise and it is looking like he is going to be completely okay!!! Miracles!!  And then at church guess who shows up?  The wife and son show up when they haven't in a long time, so that was a blessing this week. 

I miss you guys a lot, but it will all work out I know that for sure.  I am supposed to be here, and then I will be able to see you all again after my time here, and then at some point show you guys the people I taught, and members that let us in and treated us as family.   I love you!!!

Group Email:

Another week by here in Minnesota, and this week has been best of all.  I have been running back on full health for the most part of the week, and I want to thank you all for your concerns and the many prayers from you all, I appreciate them and know they aided me in my recovery this week.

So since I have been able to get back to health, this week we went full steam on the missionary work, and had a lot of success in the work we did.  We stopped by this one hard to get into apartment building that no other missionary has been able to get into as of yet.  And we decided we would go there and try to see what we could do. So we get there and prayers were answered, the door was propped open by a garbage can, and we were able to get in and tract there.  We knocked every door on every floor and had a lot of success!  There were a lot of different people who showed interest in learning more about the mysterious book we gave them, and how our message will help their families, God knew when we needed to get into this building, and hopefully we can continue to visit and teach those people.  And every time we have gone back to the apartment, we have had no problem at all getting in, blessings are real.  

Other than that, some crazy things that happened.  Me and my companion got stuck out walking in the rain at one point and we were completely soaked head to toe and that sure was an adventure, it was just sprinkling at first and we figured we would be able to make it.  Also the people here are just crazy, from riding really tall bikes, to dressing like Luige, we have things that we are able to laugh about every single day here in Minneapolis. Also people here will steal the front tire off of peoples bikes, we have seen probably 4 or 5 bikes this week where someone stole just the front tire, isn't that just terrible??  And yes, one of those pictures attached on the email is a triceratops head in the front yard of someone, that about sums up the people here.  

Well thanks again for all the prayers for my health, I know prayers are answered, and God will do anything He can to answer prayers and give blessings to His children. He loves everyone of you and knows you perfectly, all you have to do is ask and he will bless you in numerous ways!

-Elder Pickering