El Cruz Rojo

Well it was my birthday this past week and because of the new policy change, Ryan was allowed to call me on that day.  It was such a sweet and tender blessing for me to talk with my son.  I have appreciated these changes and it sure helps me feel connected to him even though he is out working hard and serving the Lord.  It is kind of like icing on the cake.

Anyway, it is always good to talk with him in more detail about his week and the work he does.  I have learned that most boys write and express things differently than girls.  When his sister was on her mission, I received very detailed letters about just about everything.  It is not the same with Ryan.  When I talk with him, I get a better understanding of what he is doing every day, the highs and the lows, the challenges and the successes.  I am grateful to be able to understand his mission better.

We talked a lot this week about how difficult his area can be and how there are not many opportunities to teach.  He goes tracting nearly every day in search of people that are waiting to hear the gospel.  It is hard to find those that are prepared in this manner.  It reminded me of how crucial it is as members to be willing to open our mouths and share the gospel and invite others to listen.  His current branch has many good members that are struggling to stay strong themselves.  I firmly believe that Ryan's purposes right now is to help fortify and strengthen them so that one day new converts will be prepared to come and join with them.  It is difficult at a missionary to see the returns of this kind of work and yet it is every bit as important.

Ryan said that most people are nice when they answer the doors even if they don't want to learn more.  Many haven't heard of the church or know very little.  Ryan tries to share with each person that we are followers of Christ as members of our church.  At least he is willing to share such an important fact with those he comes in contact with.

When they did the volunteer work, Ryan was chosen to drive the big van and pick up many missionaries.  I think the Mission President has a lot of confidence in him.  Not only to drive but to continually be a trainer of new missionaries and follow through with important responsibilities.  This is a great testament to his character and obedience.  I know he is learning so much, even if we have to read between the lines to hear it.

One last positive thing.  A sweet couple that Ryan worked with and got to know really well while in Minneapolis is finalizing the details that will allow them to get married and be baptized on the same day.  More than likely, Ryan will be able to attend this awesome event and feel the joy of watching people make important covenants with Heavenly Father.  I am really happy for all of them.

Group Email: 

Well I am still alive here over in Minnesota everybody.  Had a good week this week, and we had some pretty fun opportunities.  This week we had the chance to go do some service and work with the Red Cross which was super cool.  They were going to some mobile homes to try and install fire alarms to help out the community, and since there are a lot of language speaking missionaries here and a lot of Hispanics and other Ethnicities in the parks, we got to go out and help them with that.  So we got to show off our door knocking skills to the Red Cross people and just help them out.  I did not personally get to use my Spanish, but I got to try my best to explain what we were doing to this Lao speaking lady, so that was an adventure.  Then after that we went over to the temple with a member of ours who was going through for the first time.  So we got to go on over and go through the temple, which is always just an uplifting experience, and it is especially cool to see a member make those steps to make it through and go to the house of the Lord.  So those are the main exciting things of my week, hope you have a great week!

Elder Pickering

Happy Easter

Hey everyone!  I hope you all had an amazing Easter yesterday and were able to remember the beauty of God's plan and how Christ not only died for us, but then was resurrected. Now everyone of us can follow in His steps and conquer the sting of death.  That is such an amazing blessing we are given in our lives, and such a great gift we have been given from God. So I hope that you don't all just move on now that Easter is past, but  be constantly remembering our Savior and all He did for us. Remember Him every week when you go to church and partake of the sacrament, and just all  through your lives!

So this week I got to celebrate my birthday out here in the field! So I was lucky enough not to have it snowing or anything on my birthday, just buckets and buckets of rain! We started off that day trying to find someone we had set up a lesson with, but missionaries in the past never put in an address, so we were wandering around this trailer park in the rain and all soaked head to toe, but we eventually found it, and were able to have a solid lesson with them!  And then later on that day, as it is in Hispanic culture, I did indeed receive a cake to the face, wait... Actually 2 cakes and 2 cupcakes, so I really got to experience that, repeatedly. So that was quite the adventure of a day.  

Well I hope you all have a great week this week! Talk to you all later!

Ryan's current area

Our Trio is Down to Two

So we had good ol transfers this last week, and as you can probably guess by the subject line I am no longer in a trio now.  Elder Nickels moved on to another area and so now it is just Elder Hulse and me doing the work down here in Lakeville. It is definitely different going from three people to two, and there  is now a lot more room in our apartment, so I am hoping for a good transfer here.

So this week, Minnesota decided that it wasn't done with the snow or winter, and it ended up snowing about a foot in most places between Tuesday and Wednesday. So that has been an adventure, we are now back to the snow on the ground after like a few days of somewhat decent weather.  And so the snow came down hard enough that we got grounded on Wednesday, so we thought we were done, but we were all wrong. And since we were stuck and our apartment is far from all our work, it was a pretty chill day. President actually challenged everyone to just go out and build a snowman just for the heck of it and we all had a competition out of it, so that was our adventure, snow man building in April. 

Also I had another first here on my mission this last week.  So while we were out tracting and finding trying to get some new people to teach, I had a Hispanic act like they didn't know Spanish.  Even though we were having a whole conversation back and forth in Spanish they claimed to not know it, so that was a first to me. I have had plenty that will say they don't know English, but never anyone that claims neither English or Spanish, its always an adventure here.

Elder Pickering

Conferencia General

"And He said unto them, "go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature"."

Hey everyone! 

I hope you all had a great conference weekend these past couple days and were able to be enlightened and receive some answers to your questions! It is really such a blessing that we have to listen to the words of apostles and prophets and receive that continuing revelation from God! So whether you watched it all, or missed a few talks or sessions, I would invite you all to study the talks as they come out on Gospel Library. Their words really are scripture for us in our day and as we study those and take them as crucial material to help us in our lives, we will really see blessings come from that.  

So this week was alright here, pretty normal compared to what we usually do, but there was one pretty cool experience.  On Wednesday we went out pretty early in the morning just to break up the normal schedule and get out.  So we went to this one trailer park (We have like 4 trailer parks where all our work is done)  and we decided to try and stop by this one person in our area book while we were there. So we knock on her door and she lets us right in! This isn't a very common experience in our mission, from the door step, I have only been let into 6 doors like that, including this one, so that was a good start.  It turns out it was her one day off of the week and we came at like the perfect time! So we taught her about the restoration and the spirit was just very strong. So hopefully we can see some progression with her as we continue to work with her. 

Hope you all have a great week and will talk to you all later!

Elder Pickering

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

Well hey this email is gonna be record short this week, we are heading out to the Mall of America and don't have much time. So everyone get ready for conference this week and have a question in mind!! And enjoy the extra pictures this week!

Elder Pickering