Pickett, Taylor PT

DON'T GET LAZY! Or you will lose yourself and forget your testimony. That was my attention grabber, but seriously, it's so sad talking to so many people from whatever religion they might come from that have completely lost their spiritual momentum and ended up losing their faith and testimony. I am reading in the book of Helaman (in the Book of Mormon), and anytime I see the phrase "and they began to prosper," I brace myself because I already know what comes next: a falling away. Helaman 12 1 And thus, we can behold how false and unsteadiness of the hearts of the children of men. Yea, we can see that the Lord, in His great infinite goodness, blesses and prospers those who put their trust in Him. 2 Yea, at the very time when He prospers His people... doing all things for the welfare and happiness of His people; they harden their hearts, forget the Lord their God, and trample under their feet the Holy One—yea, and this is because of their ease and their exceedingly grea...

WOWOWOW on the mission, there are some weeks that, while living in the moment, I already know I will be talking about these moments forever, and this was FOSHO one of those weeks. So much happened, but here are the two highlights: I had an intercambio with Hermana Black in her area, and we saw a ton of miracles. One of these miracles was a part-member family that the hermanas recently began to teach from Venezuela. The mom, dad, and sister have all been baptized; however, the youngest son, Isaias, has not. The members of the ward don't let the missionaries go to their neighborhood of this Venezuelan family alone because they say it is extremely sketchy and unsafe for two gringas. I didn't completely understand why until, while driving, I realized that this family's neighborhood is hidden behind a huge factory, and the houses are basically cardboard boxes mixed with random planks of wood. We got a lot of interesting looks from people for my blonde hair and the red hair of He...

The weeks are literally flying. How is this even possible? Hermana Chavez left me (I love her with all my heart) and now is serving in the north of our mission, and my new companion is from... BRASILLLL. Hermana Dos Santos and I are just thriving together. We are honestly confused about how we got put together because we are SO similar, but #blessed. Spiritual: The first night with Hermana Dos Santos, we passed by the house of one of our friends (Pedro), who was preparing to be baptized. A couple of days ago, Pedro told us his brother was extremely sick, and that he would be in the hospital almost 24/7 taking care of him. Since that call, we haven't heard from him. We decided to pass by his house one more time to see how he was doing, but no one came out. While we were shouting "ALO" at his doorstep, a man walked by, and we started to talk to him. This is how the conversation went: H. Pickett: "Where are you going?" Random Man: "Going to buy milk so my wife...