Light The World Week 1

Group Email:

Hello everyone!  I am finally back on a Monday pday, I know its been a while.  And it has only been a couple days since my last pday here.  But this week as you may be able to tell from the pictures, we have gotten a little bit of snow here. It came down so hard on the 1st, and we were caught biking in the middle of it.  I must say it was something like I've never done before, biking through tons of snow, in the city, with very very limited visibility, it was an adventure, and a lot of fun.  

Also Light the World started this week since December has started, so we got to get right into that here.  We decided to hold a night of service for our ward to come and do.  We had a bunch of different stations of service you could do, like writing thank you cards, putting your testimony in a Book of Mormon that you would give to a friend, and a couple other things.  It was cool to help the ward kick of the season with service and see the willing hearts of the members.  

On that note, I want to remind everyone that it is now the first week of December, so get out there and light the world for this first week!  We all have this light in the gospel that we get to share.  And in the light the world event, it gives us the opportunity to share that light and happiness of the gospel in natural ways with everyone, and that is a great chance to better the world, so get out there and serve!  

Other than lighting the world, the week has been good.  We've had lessons with our usual people and found more to try and work with.  The ever going struggle as a missionary here though is getting the people we are teaching to act.  We can bring the gospel and spirit into their house on the daily, but then the acting is all on them, and sadly we have seen a lot of people that don't have this gospel as a priority or whatnot in their lives.  And its too bad, because now is the time with this gospel!  We have this chance and are being tested right now, it is more important than ever before to have our own personal testimony in this world.  That is why the whole change in the church schedule is happening.  So as we get closer to this change, I urge you all to find a way to not only implement it, but make it so it will make you stronger as a family and individual in faith, more than ever before.  

So hey everyone stay warm this week, I'll do my best too, talk to you all later!

Elder Pickering

Random Tidbits:

We put some hearing aids together that morning that are getting shipped off to South America and Africa, so that was a pretty good time.  

So transfers are on the 13th, so I will find out for sure what is going to happen to me next Tuesday, which is crazy.  President still hasn't come to a solid conclusion yet, but I have a hunch that I might be opening an area and training, but we will see.  I may be in a new area later on next week, so we will see.  

We haven't really seen much difference in the fact that it is around Christmas time now, the only difference is now we have a harder time finding people outside which was the best way that I found of contacting Hispanics, so now it is a little trickier, but there are some ways to find them and make it all work, and the more I do it the better it will go every time.  Its a little sad being away for Christmas, because it really just isn't the same, but it will be alright, it can be a different kind of fun.  

I am glad that you like my Christmas decked out bike, it sure gets lots of conversations started, and is just a fun thing to have.  Also those goggles you see that I got, were such a blessing.  I could not see where I was going at all because it was dumping snow so hard.  And finally I had to stop because I literally could not see where I was going.  I said a quick prayer and realized we were outside of a Savers, which is just like a thrift store.  I walked in there and there just so happened to be a pair of ski goggles underneath this baseball mitt for 2 dollars, not only is it a steal, but it allowed me to bike and see and will help out a bit here more in the future  as I continue biking.   It sure is an adventure biking through all this snow, but its kinda a blast too.  

I also got to conduct my first baptismal interview as district leader, so that was neat!