La cucaracha y a snake!

Just "chillin" in Minnesota

It was a pretty busy week for Elder Pickering even with all of the cold and snow they have been having.  I admire Ryan for finding things to do in the dead of winter.  I for one don't enjoy going out in the cold, so I commend him.

We were able to chat back and forth with Ryan with this new communication plan.  It is nice to get questions answered in real time now.  Unfortunately, we are not getting the personal emails as we once did.  I understand this but I have to make sure I ask whatever questions I want answered in person.

Things are still going well with M.  The missionaries were able to teach him about Joseph Smith and he accepted the truthfulness of the account.  He has the desire to be baptized and shared this with Roger via Facebook Messenger.  He would like Ryan to be the one to baptize him.  When we chatted with Ryan he expressed some concerns that M doesn't have an in depth understanding of the gospel or the commitments he would be making. The Elders feel that they should spend more time teaching him before they take the next step.  I admire the missionaries for this.  I know sometimes their innermost and sincere desires it to get a baptism.  This shows me that Ryan cares more about the individual than the numbers.  We will continue to pray for M and the Elders as they continue to progress in this journey.

I have also seen various posts on Facebook as Ryan has tried to implement this new initiative with Facebook finding.  I have seen him offer free Bibles and Books of Mormon on various yard sale sites and pages specific for Hispanics.  He also asks for people that would be willing to help him practice his Spanish through teaching about Jesus Christ.  Ryan said that there has been some positive results with this, just not in his area.  So we shall see what happens in the future.  It is amazing that there are so many tools available to us to help share the Gospel.

Other than that, he pretty much summed up his week in the email.  Enjoy:

Hey everybody, so its been a decent week here in Minnesota, pretty crazy with weather and whatnot as usual.

So we started out the week with our weekly service we do, we help at this food shelf type thing where we help give out food and clothing and other little things to those that need it. We do this every Tuesday with a bunch of missionaries and just get to serve. It is a lot of fun usually and you get to talk to a bunch of different people.  

Then later that day we went to a family in our ward and were able to give them both blessings and dedicate their home. It was a really cool experience for them and for us to see and feel the spirit so strong in one evening in their home. But it was very draining though.  

Then the next day, we got our cars grounded again, and it has been getting very hard to find productive things to do in our apartment after being locked in to it so much. We have officially called everyone in our area book and so these locked in days are just hard to get work done now, but it is always nice to have a second to breathe and just catch up I guess.  

Also as a companionship here, we have been chosen to participate in two sort of pilot tests with missionaries.  One is that we are getting headphones sent out to us and we are going to be using them for language study, and that is all we have been told so far.  That should be interesting and I hope it can really help my Spanish!  Also we were selected with a couple other companionships to really put some focus into Facebook finding for Hispanics here, So we had a group video call with the Mission area guy and a couple of other missionaries from around, and got some cool advice and ideas to really push Facebook finding. I am excited to see how that goes and how it works out!  

We tried to teach our English class this week, and rather than the big showing of nadie (no one) last week, we got 6 people to come and it was a whole lot of fun. I really have a good time teaching English to the people, and its just a good way to connect and meet more people. So that is something that should be a good time weekly and hopefully we can keep up the people coming and get even more.  

At dinner one of the days, the member was showing us his taco truck he is going to start, and he had a friend install a new horn that plays "la cucaracha" and that is just something small and random, but I found it amusing, so hopefully you can too.  

We also helped a family moved this week, and in doing so they got to showing us their different hamsters and pets and stuff, and they had a snake, and I actually held it, and am alive to tell the tale!  I am usually not a big fan of snakes at all, they are just creepy and want to eat everything, but it was actually like really soft, it was kinda weird, but boom, fear conquered, so take that snakes.  

And the last thing that happened this week was that most of the churches in our area got canceled due to the blizzard here, so I get some extra time to prepare my talk haha.  So we just had another day that we had to stay inside and just try and stay sane I guess, but we made it, and am not too crazy I hope.  

Well that was our week here in Lakeville.  Hopefully we can actually start leaving our apartment everyday and not just keep getting snowed in this next  week.  Well everyone have a good week, we will talk to you later!

Somos Rebels

Well as many of you are aware there have been some recent changes in the manner of communication between missionaries and families.

https://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/missionaries-family-communication

This comes as a huge changes to the way things have been done for many many years.  It is exciting news both for the families and missionaries.  The hope is to help everyone get involved in missionary work and support those missionaries in the best way possible.  Of course, with the changes, there are definite adjustments that need to be made.  Like so many families, we are prayerfully considering the best way to proceed in the future.

That being said, we were able to have a conference call with Ryan on his p-day.  It was amazing, especially since we didn't think we would be able to physically talk to him again until Mother's Day.  He looked happy and it was wonderful to be able to laugh together and more importantly get answers in "real" time.   I am not sure what will happen on future p-days and what this will mean for written communication.  I will miss his personal letters and insights.  I encouraged him to be a good journal writer since that will be the main documentation of his mission.

So I will share a few of the things discussed during our conversation.

He is currently serving in Lakeville and is over a Spanish branch.  There are about 20 people that come regularly.  They have their own Sacrament meeting and then combine with an English ward for the other meeting.  As missionaries, they have the opportunity to serve in all kinds of ways in the Branch.  Next week, Ryan will be giving a talk.

It is difficult in Lakeville to find Hispanic people to teach.  Unlike Minneapolis, there are not concentrated areas where the Latins live or work or shop.  This makes is difficult to fine prospective investigators.  The missionaries do a lot of tracting and if they come across an interested individual that speaks English, they have to turn them over to the English speaking missionaries.  This can be somewhat discouraging and makes the days feel very long.  Especially in this bitter cold weather and lots of snow.

Elder Pickering and his companion are working with an individual right now named M.  He is of Mexican decent but was born in Minnesota.  His primary language is English.  Ryan found him originally by going through an old area book and seeing his name but no further contact.  They reached out to him and he was very open to the missionaries and learning with them.  Since he is a young adult male, the Elders did not have to turn him entirely over to the English missionaries since they are Sisters.  So they are able to work together with him.  He seems like a very nice individual and he has really hit it off with Ryan.  They have a lot of similar interests and Ryan can interact with him on many levels.  He has come to church a couple of times and has enjoyed it.  Later, they came to find out that his Dad was baptized when he was younger in Mexico.  So there may be potential to work with him also.

M likes to post pictures on Facebook and I have enjoyed seeing my son.  Ryan's dad has communicated with him back and forth quite a bit.  They talk of many things and Roger has been able to share his testimony as well.  Isn't technology amazing?  M talks a lot about how much he likes our son and how Ryan is a great teacher and friend.  So it will be interesting to follow his journey.

So that about sums up our conversation with Ryan.  Of course there were a few other random discussions about the cold, biking, food, and we got a visual apartment tour.  When it was time to say goodbye it wasn't hard to do knowing that there will be future conversations.  Overall it was a good
day.

We shall continue to pray for Ryan.  We are so proud of him and his willingness to get up each day and be obedient in spite of all the difficulties.  We hope that he can endure the trials of his area and have faith that miracles and blessings can come.

Until next week . . .

Group Email:

Hey everyone! 

Hope you're all doing well, we are all well over here.  The mission field sure is excited with the new change of being able to talk to your families now, its so exciting.  All these changes we are getting are truly inspired of God, and I am excited to see how this one plays a part in the mission and how things change or come from it. So crazy! 

Well its no surprise I am sure, but we are still dealing with lots of snow and cold weather here.  We are about at 22.5 inches in total for February, which is almost a record for this month, and we are supposed to be getting more this week. So the snow is still coming on here strong in February. There isn't anything super crazy to say this week.  Valentines day has come and gone, and I'm sure this will just be a shocker to you all, but it was just a normal day as a missionary, nothing too exciting.  We had dinner with a member and they made a heart shaped flan, but that is about it ha ha. 

And as some of you might have seen on Facebook and just thought that I have become a rebel out here on my mission, I had the chance to go to a movie this last week.  Someone we are teaching invited us and we talked to the president about the circumstances and the movie and he said that we could go.  So we were all cleared and got to take part in the movie experience and popcorn and a lesson during the previews, so a fun time here. 

Otherwise, that is about all that happened here.  I hope you all enjoy the change if you get to see the outcome of that, and just have a good week! Talk to you all later!

Lots of snow . . .

Conference call with his crazy family.

Let is Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow . . .

Hey everyone!

Just wanted to let everyone know first off here that i am still alive and have not been buried in the snow or frozen just quite yet! Although this week has been crazy with it snowing almost everyday!  It has lead to some crazy roads, and plenty of shoveling! There was one day that we had to shovel out the Hermana's car, and that was quite the feat.  They had managed to get their car into some about knee high snow, so we had to dig around them, and then crawl under the car to dig out the bottom because it was holding the car up and so it would not get unstuck.  So that is some of the adventures of being a missionary here during the winter I guess.

Otherwise, sorry for another pretty boring email week, but nothing really went on.  Because of the snow and cold it has been very very hard to get in to any houses or meet any people, so in that aspect its been hard this week, and we ran out of numbers to call back when we had the two days that we had to stay inside the last week. So yeah a very slow week here in Minnesota, but still keeping on keeping on here.  I hope you all have a great week and can survive the snow if you have it where you are!  Talk to you all later!

Elder Pickering

Fools Gold

Outside in -35 degrees thanks to a fire alarm in their apartment complex

Well,  it was great to receive an email from Ryan to know that he is still kicking after this past week that was extremely cold.  He rode it out like a trouper and even had a few adventures.  On one of the coldest days, the fire alarm went off in their apartment building and they had to evacuate.  I am glad that he remembered his coat since it was about -35 at the time.  But I wish he had also grabbed his hat.  A mother never stops worrying.  Obviously they came out unscathed neither burned or frozen. :)  I will add a few more details from his various emails to family members.

So far Lakeville is treating me pretty well.  As I am still fairly new to this area, there is still figuring out to do and getting it all down, but so far it has been good, it is extremely different from Minneapolis, and a lot less Spanish opportunities, but it has been good!

The cold this week was definitely crazy.  Its cold enough that when you breathe it just feels like you didn't breath a good breath. It is just like light and you feel it all the way to the lungs, and you breath through your nose and it just instantly freezes, so its pretty crazy, but it makes the weather we have right now feel amazing!! But yeah we got home bound for two days this last week, and that was quite the adventure, and there is only so much you can do even as a missionary. We did plenty of calls to different people, made cookies, studies, and had interviews with the president over the phone, so it was different, and a pretty long two days that is for sure. Me and my comp are still getting a long well, so it was good, so it wasn't near as bad as it could've been, and it was a good mental rest from going out in the cold and working all day long.  

The branch is good, it is still really weird just how small it is, and it makes meetings and church feel so much different than I have always been used to, its weird.  But the members are nice. I was getting very used to having Mexican food all the time and with a smaller branch it doesn't happen as often. But hopefully we can get a little bit more while I am here and really help build a relationship with the members and get on the same page and team with missionary work.  

The fire alarm was just someones bad cooking that set the alarm and we weren't outside too long. The fire department did show up and it was just a random little thing, but added something interesting to the day I guess, and yes I still have my ears.  I havens really had a super hard time staying warm, especially now that I have a car, it is so much easier to stay warm and do the work.  But I do miss biking too, I grew to love it a lot. 

So far there isn't a whole lot of work to be done here, so there has been a lot of finding and knocking doors and calls, but hopefully that can change and get better. We are doing are best and hopefully we can see the miracles come from that, and thank you all so much for fasting and praying, I really hope to see the effects of that and see what God has in store. 

Group Email: 

Well everyone, I am still alive and going after the crazy freeze that we went through here in Minnesota that many of you may have seen on the news as of late. We hit temperatures of below -50 this week, and that was very crazy, but needless to say, I survived, and didn't even get frostbite or anything!  Also due to the cold, our mission president grounded us to our apartments for 2 days this week!  We were told not to leave out and go try and do missionary work, as it is, our cars would not have started anyways, so it would not have been an issue.  So we did a whole lot of calling people trying to set up lessons for later in the week, and lots of studying, and it was just a very different missionary experience.  Its hard to find 2 days worth of productive activities in a missionary apartment that is for sure!

Well besides that whole fiasco, we had one other notable experience this week, and sorry for the roller coaster of emotions it might bring to some, believe me, it was for us too.

So it started out, that the missionaries in this area before me, met this guy at a restaurant and he gave them a note just saying he wanted help from them. His mom was sick and he did not want to lose her. So they gave him their number, and called it at that.  They never followed up on it. So when I got here, I saw this and decided to set up a lesson with this guy.  So Elder Nickels and I went and had just this phenomenal lesson with him.  He was asking all sorts of questions and was very interested and it was bizarre, he was super prepared and just really had that desire.  So the next morning we get a call from him, and he tells us that he has been thinking about what we said, and he wants to be a member of our church! That was such a shock, it was like a story you hear about when you think of missions, it was just so unreal. So we invited him to church the next day and went from there.  And there at church, he was there waiting all dressed up nice and ready to go.  And he just loved it! The testimonies seemed to fit right to him and it was just so perfect.  So we were just ecstatic, he was the golden investigator you always hear about, and we were so excited. So it was all good, until that night came, and we get a call from him, and he basically just says that he was talking to some friends, and they don't support him in this decision he is making and he doesn't want to lose those friends. So he told us he is sorry, but he wont be able to keep going to church or listening to our message.  So in the matter of 4 days we met the guy, he told us he wants to be baptized and came to church, then called it off.  So it was fun times here in Lakeville.  

So hope you all had a good week and will have another good one coming up.  Hopefully you are all staying warm wherever you are and keep on going doing the things you should be doing. There are a lot of blessings in life that all we have to do is be willing to reach up and grab them!

Elder Pickering