Elder Daniel Jackson Picard : Week 14 October 13, 2014 "Conference is the BEST!"

Conference as a missionary is the BEST!! I don't think I have ever got so much out of conference as I did this past weekend! I took the advice of a lot of people and went into conference with questions written down on a piece of paper. I can literally say they weren't all answered directly, but I did write down an answer for every single one of my questions after watching it. Conference was absolutely all I needed to hear and more! We are so blessed to be a part of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and hear from a living prophet and all of his apostles. If I wrote everything I learned during conference my email would be forever long and I don't have that much time sadly enough. Most importantly what I got out of conference was that although we may have trials and times may be hard sometimes we have a loving Father in Heaven that knows us by name and will always be there to help us. It all just depends on how faithful we are of Him and His plan for us. We have been given so much and having the ability to use the enabling power of the Atonement and become clean after we sin is amazing and it is something that should never be taken for granted. I know Jesus Christ lives and He has done His part so know it is time for us to do ours!

Your weeks as a missionary just get better and better. Monday night our less active that teaches us Korean took us to Baskin Robbins and man was it yummy! Tuesday we got to go do service for a lady and clean out her new health and wellness place she just bought. I got put on windows and wasn't given the best supplies to clean them with just newspaper and some windex haha. Those windows were so dirty that it didn't do much but I felt good serving and tried my best so that is all that matters. To get all the windows washed I ended up having to climb out on the roof and did some pretty hardcore parkour window cleaning. It was way fun but then all the Korean ladies started getting scared I was going to fall so they made me come down from off the roof. I had an able enough body to climb up there and be safe so I was determined to clean all the windows I could they were just concerned for my safety :) I ended up having two lunches that day so my stomach felt like it was going to explode. After we were done cleaning they took us to lunch and then right after a guy we met that just likes to take us out to eat and be around us took us to a steakhouse buffet! He is the CEO of 2 companies and we try and bring up gospel every time we meet with him but he mainly just likes to be around us and buy us meals so I guess that is a start. Then since we didn't have time to finish all of our studies because of service, we did that. After that we had another meal appointment with an international lawyer from California who comes here quite a bit and takes out all the missionaries whenever he comes. He took us to a place and we had that super thick 3 layer bacon I have talked about before. If you happened to come pick me up at the end of my mission we are definitely going to go get some because I know Dad would love that stuff. One of the old lady waitresses kept calling me handsome and checking me out haha. Just something I have to get used to I guess here in Korean. Elder Woltjen told me I wasn't man enough to eat a whole pepper so I had to prove him wrong and little did I know that the pepper was a super hot pepper that you are only supposed to eat with really small bites. So yeah I proved him wrong but then had a hot mouth for quite sometime but I got ice cream out of it so its all good.

On Wednesday our meeting with our investigator 강세용 went great!! He thinks everything we teach him is good and very interesting. I can tell he is starting to think a lot about what we teach him and is progressing well. Our ward mission leader came to our lesson and then took us out for dinner. We had zone meeting this week and that went good. We talked a lot about the importance of always having the Spirit with you as a missionary because honestly you won't be successful if you don't have the Spirits help. I always knew this to be true but know I am going to do an even better job of always doing things that will bring the Spirit and stop doing things that don't allow the Spirit to be present. I finally had dog meat soup after 6 weeks of being in country a member took us there for dinner. I am a born Sioux so eating dog is in my blood like my dad said haha. It was pretty good and just tastes like really tender roast beef. We were the other ones in the restaurant and actually were able to teach the lady a lesson when we were eating so that was pretty cool.

At the start Friday was a rough day but man did it flip around for the better. I woke up and just didn't feel good at all and just was really doubting myself and didn't know what to do. I told my companion I needed a minute and went into the other room of our house, fell down to my knees, and just started crying in prayer asking the Lord for help. After praying I had the impression to read my patriarchal blessing with a prayer in my heart to find the guidance I needed so I did. As I read it I felt so at peace and found the answer to my question. It is so cool to have something like that you can always turn to. Every time I read it I think to myself, "Man aren't I lucky to have a blessing straight from God!" What hit me the most is that I need to do a better job of just being 100% obedient and everything will just start to fall in place. I just need to be the Elder Picard my Mom raised me to be. After I went to my companion for advice and said that I just want to become the best I can, he said to me that President told him I would come to him for advice when I was ready to change and become the best I can. President also told my companion it was his job to be an example to me and train me well because he had big things in store for me. So that just made me think of the divine revelation Mission Presidents receive for their missionaries and how cool it was. Now I just have to do my part and be the missionary the Lord wants me to be. Our lesson with 강세용 was amazing and I had an experience I will never forget. He wanted more English practice after we taught him so we both shared with him our favorite scriptures in English and then he read them. We even talked about baptism and I think he wants to get baptized but thinks that he has to know everything before he does so we are going to teach him next time that he doesn't. We taught him the Plan of Salvation again and he thought it was so cool that he could live with all of his family again and he said he wants to go to the Celestial Kingdom. After we taught, my companion wanted to sing a hymn and we ended up singing 4 different ones because he felt so at peace and was loving every moment of it. We sang 2 to him and asked him to join with us for the 3 but you could tell he was kind of hesitant so we started to sing the 3 and see if he would join in. The spirit was so strong in the room and as I was singing the third hymn I heard his voice jump in and start singing with us and at that moment I almost lost it and could barely even sing because I was overjoyed to the point of tears because of the happiness of our investigator. To close he offered the most amazing prayer. I will never forget this experience. God loves me so much!

I watched conference on a computer at the church with all the other missionaries and the sisters made treats so it was a good time. Most of all, I learned that self-doubt only chissels away our faith so if we don't doubt and push on with our eye single to the glory of God we will have nothing to worry about. I will start now to think more and not be the one to betray God and be able to say it is not me Lord! I want to live up to my name and have the strength of Daniel of old and have the utmost faith in my Lord and Savior! I was sent here to bring the Korean people happiness and help the Lord in finding all of His lost sheep. It is my job and my quest to be the Savior on Mt. Zion that the Korean people are looking for so I will do whatever it takes to do just that! I love this gospel so much and am grateful for the never ending joy it brings to me everyday. Lastly I am so grateful for my parents and for all they do for me because I wouldn't be here if it weren't for them!

Hurrah for Israel!!

Love,

Elder Picard