Week 49 June 15, 2015 "I believe that God loves broken me."

      When you get out of the shower dry but then 5 seconds later you are sweating again you know you are in Korea!! The humidity here is rough... My face is always sweating, even in the house! It doesn't help that I already normally sweat like crazy either. The hot weather is coming and I am predicting it will be one rough summer. I bought these super thin super pants that have been good so far so hopefully they help. I guess one good thing about humidity and sweating is that I should be able to lose all the weight I put on during the winter pretty fast haha. I wasn't as tired this week with being able to exercise in the afternoon so that was good. Either way I just have to realize and figure how to put up with being tired because that is just the life of a missionary. Hot weather does help either so man do I pound water! My comp and I are getting along really well so that's great! We have really good talks every week and if anything thing comes up we do good at figuring it out together. We get transfer calls Saturday again so there is a possibility for a new comp but I hope not because Elder Ely and I are doing great! He has been here for 4 transfers so he could leave and maybe go ZL or something. If he leaves this will be my first one and done with a companion. I guess we will just have to wait and see what happens. 

        For Sister Kelly's birthday in my district we went to this Burger place in 청라 that pretty much is like In and Out in America. Our thinking is that a Korean went to America and stole the idea to bring it back too Korea. It even tasted American but man did it destroy my tummy. It tasted good but I am starting to think American food will blow me up when I get home because it is so fatty haha. Elder Ely and I went to this super good buffet called Miss Grill by Bennigan's this past week. While we were eating there I heard this little Korean boy close by our table speak English so it really caught me by surprise. I was looking over in that direction and his mom looked over at me so to make it not awkward I asked if they speak English in Korean. They responded in English and said they were from America. It was super weird because they spoke with no accent really at all and I probably spoke better Korean then their kids did haha. We were then able to talk to that family about missionaries, our church, why we are here, etc. It was just a super good talk and we told them to if they ever saw missionaries in America to say hi. Our area doctor called me about my exhaustion lately and gave me some good ideas. He was just a super happy dude and said a really good quote that I am trying to put in play more. So as you all know I have struggled with anger pretty much all of my life but it has significantly improved during my mish. He said that I need "to act instead of react." So instead of anger being my reaction I need to make happy be my action. That doesn't really make any sense but oh well haha. Cut me some slack I am learning Korean over here haha. 

         We taught a few really good practice lessons this week. During one of the lessons I asked our member acting as an investigator if he could ask one question to God what would it be. He said that it would be about the Lotto and how to win. Then I responded of course all in Korean in a way it didn't even think I could. I said money can disappear but the eternal blessings of this gospel can't. After the lesson he said that was really good what I said. Now that I think about it, it is true. A lot of times us as humans get too distracted on things of this world when we really should be focusing on things that will last eternally. I read a DearElder from my mom that really hit me and was nice too read just looking through old mail. She said that I need to find joy in serving and taking care of the Lord's sheep even if at times I have to pick up their poop. Seems kind of funny but is totally true. Sometimes we don't like doing the hard things people need from us and our selfishness holds us back from helping people. I sure hope that through my mission I can become that person. The one who no matter what wants to serve even if that means picking up poop! My mom sure does love me and always has such great advice. I just have the greatest mom and better yet the BEST family! 

          I finished TIP with the Assistants!! Woo hoo!!!!! I am done with TIP! TIP is the program President Morrise made for us to better our teaching in Korean just in case you all forgot what it was. It was good and all but I sure am glad to be done with it. It was a lot of memorizing scriptures in Korean and vocab. So now I can really hit it on my language study. We fasted a few times this week for different things but with the humidity you have to drink water while you fast or else you will die haha. Fasting truly is a powerful thing and works.There is a song that comes on every once and a while in our house when we are listening to music and it says "I believe that God loves broken me." Now that I have been thinking about it man is that true!! God does love all of His children no matter are short comings or imperfections are!! There really is no reason to feel discouraged ever because He is there and knows what we are going through! I love this gospel and I love being out here teaching people about God, the nature of Him, and letting people know that God does exist and loves all His children. It sure can be hard sometimes don't get me wrong but EVERY one of God's children needs to be found and guided back to the restored gospel and to the blessing it brings and that is what I am doing!! So cool!!! 

Love, 

Elder Picard 

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No pictures this week so I took the liberty to post one from almost a year ago when we went to Silverwood.

Week 48 June 8, 2015 "The Holy Ghost is my bud"

     This week was good but the heat is coming more and more so that part is rough. It isn't that the heat itself is killer but the humidity is no fun. I am going to have to try and find some new super thin slacks so that I don't die this summer haha. Last Pday my comp and I were going to go to the gym and lift but when we got there the lady wouldn't let us in because we didn't care our exercise clothes in a bag and change there. It was pretty frustrating because we were in nice exercise clothes and she still wouldn't let us in. So instead of lifting we decided to go down to the river and run because as a missionaries you just need as much exercise as you can get. We pretty much were like Forrest Gump and just kept running. For not running a long distance in a while we did pretty good. We ran like 8 or so miles. I was so pooped afterwards but I didn't die so its all good. After running we went to a members house for dinner so that was nice because we were both starving and didn't have to cook anything! 

      It was kind of a hard week too because my body just isn't liking this mission schedule thing. I have just been getting crazy tired and sometimes even fall asleep when we are teaching people :( I interviewed with President and let him know. The area doctor is supposed to be calling me soon to try and help in figuring it out. As for now I got permission to exercise in the afternoon to see if getting my body moving more helps. Of course we walk and all but obviously that hasn't helped yet with being so tired. So to like wake me up during the middle of the day we are going to see if running or some other hard exercise works. I have also had a cough for a few weeks now that comes only at night. It is weird that it only comes at night but also is way annoying. I just want to get back to full health and not have anything wrong with me. The heat plus being crazy tired doesn't help my attitude too much either. I can just get angry that much quicker when my body is uncomfortable. I am trying to cope with it as best as I can but man is it hard. Hopefully Elder Hansen, the doctor, is magically and will be able to get me fixed up quick. I just want to be able to work hard and have the energy to do so. I want to be an energetic happy boy not a tired angry missionary haha. Whatever is wrong with me or whatever trial I am going through God knows I needed it so I just have to have faith that whatever is happening right now is what I need and that is for the good. I just thought I would let you know but don't worry mom I will be fine. I just hope I don't have MERS or else I might die haha. 

       We had Zone training this week and it was really good. We are doing a Zone fast to help us in finding more investigators and in being blessed with more opportunities to teach lessons. With extraordinary faith we can do extraordinary things is one thing they mentioned. The Holy Ghost also helps in accomplishing tasks we can't do on our own. With the Holy Ghost we can do anything and impossible is nothing. We are so blessed to have the companionship of the Holy Ghost to be our bud and always help us out. We taught a recent convert this week at his house. We taught him through showing the Bible videos and then the Because of Him video. We taught the first part of the second lesson and a lot about our purpose her on the earth. We showed a video on the Good Samaritan and man is that just a great lesson for us all. Christ was always willing to help others so why aren't we? So what it can be hard, we are promised that if we serve others and care more for others than ourselves that we will constantly receive countless blessings. That sounds like a good gig to me. The recent convert we met lives with his older bro who is not a member and at the beginning of the lesson I said that I wanted to say hi to his bro. He was busy at first but actually came out to the living room and we able to teach both of them! It was awesome such a miracle. We watched the videos on their huge big screen TV so that was really cool too. His bro said that he looked forward to seeing me at church. He didn't come yesterday but we are going to keep in touch and maybe even try and pick him up as an investigator. 

         We taught our investigator, 배성호, with a member this week and that lesson went extremely well. We showed the Mormon message called "The Hope of God's Light" and man is that video clutch. The spirit was definitely there helping us teach and also having a Korean there was super helpful too. He came out to church again this week so that was sweet. We are going to try and give him a baptismal date this week but I guess we will just have to wait and see. We had a sports day with a member and one of the other Elder's investigators named Denny and that was really fun. We played basketball and football. Then ate Dominoes pizza!! 

          One night this week we all just started telling stories and talking about Christ. We talked a lot about the church to and just all our beliefs, the Second Coming, etc. Some of the other elders told stories about people nowadays who have seen Jesus Christ. I was laying in my bed, listening, and couldn't help but get the chills from the spirit. Our church is just amazing and is true!!! I know it! I know Jesus Christ lives and I know He has the power to visit people today's day. I know that we have a Prophet who receives direct revelation from God and Jesus Christ on how to direct this church. Christ will come again. Our church just makes sense. We don't have to see Christ to know He is there. I have never seen Him but that doesn't mean I don't know He is there. We are on the earth right now to prepare to enter into His presence again. Our main focus should be to do just that. We obviously will make mistakes but we can't let those hold us back. We can't let Satan win us over. He won't win us over! Christ has all power, He lives, and for that reason we have nothing to worry about!! Life will be hard but I can testify Christ will always help us no matter what because we are His children and He loves us more than we can imagine. I am so lucky to be able to be on a mission sharing that very joy that Jesus Christ has given me. I may not be the best missionary but I am trying. I love you all so much! Thanks for all the love and prayers!!!

Love, 

Elder Picard

He didn't send a picture so I thought I would post this one from right before he left. We love our boat and lake time as a family and will be sending "cool & refreshing" thoughts to him as he sweats it out in Korea this summer!

Week 47 June 1, 2015 "The Lord truly does watch over and is constantly preparing people!!!

 It is June... What the??? A month from tomorrow I hit my year mark...so weird...haha. Time just flies for sure. I think I am making the most of my mission but maybe I will have to sit down and think about what more I can change. There is always something we as people can change because we aren't perfect and are constantly in need of change. The language will probably forever be a struggle but I am getting there and my conversations with people and fluency of speech is getting better so that's good. Korean has so many grammar forms and crazy rules that sure make it dang hard. My comp keeps saying that I am a lot better than I think and that I don't give myself enough credit so I don't know maybe I just need to be easier on myself. I had a stinking cough/sore throat all week long and it is finally starting to go away so that's nice. My body lately is just trying to get me to stop doing missionary work or something but I wont let it haha. Missionary work and talking to people is too much fun to give up.

     Last P-Day it was happy birthday buddha so of course we had to go to a buddhist temple. We did not know what we were getting ourselves into... The temple was really cool and it was interesting to see the buddhist beliefs and practices up close. So we get there and go up to like the 5th floor because it was a pretty big one. When we got up there we went into this worship room thing to look around and some ladies of course came up and started talking to us. People were like paying buddha, giving him food, and other kinds of worship. Then these guys come up to us who were loading like over 700 kilos of rice into bags that we originally paid to buddha for respect or something and they asked us to carry the bags. So yep we were blessed with a service opportunity when we weren't even looking for one. We had to carry the bags from the 5th floor to the 3rd floor but luckily there was an elevator or else we probably would of died. We had 6 missionaries there and a kid who was visiting from BYUI came with us. So my guess is that when all the buddhist people saw us they were like "hey we should just make all these Americans carry the rice for us" then the others said something like "good idea they probably won't even see it coming" haha. After we were their work horses they took us down to the cafeteria and fed us lunch! We had a bunch of watermelon and a Korean rice dish called bibimbap. So weren't expecting the meal so that was a pretty good deal I will say. After that we went to the members house that the kid from BYUI, Tyler, was staying at. They are members of our ward and had a really nice place. The dinner they made for us was yummy and we taught on the Book of Mormon as our message. I shared Dad's conversion story again and the members loved it. I followed that with my testimony and it was just a spirit filled meeting. It is cool to have a parent who is a convert because it helps in teaching a lot. Plus having a Mom that is just awesome and raised me so well and was so true to the faith and her religion all of her life really helps too. 

     We met this lady on the street who thought she knew us but we both had no clue who she was. She said she had a missionary friend and then walked us into a mart close by to meet her friend. When we got in there she asked her friend if she knew who we were and without hesitation in command form Korean told her not to talk to us. The lady was confused because she thought we were good people and her friend said we weren't. As we walked and my comp talked to her you could tell she was hesitant and worried about her friends' comment. My comp talked about the Book of Mormon and a bunch of other things with her. Afterwards we were just talking and man is it hard to take comments like that. Some people rely so heavily on others opinions and they won't give us a chance. I don't let stuff like that beat me up but it is just interesting. 

     The day of the conference literally everywhere we went there was someone prepared that we were supposed       to talk to. It was crazy we had so many miracles that day!!! Then the other day we saw these guys playing             ball so of course we had to jump in and play. Turns out that two of the guys  we played with have met                   missionaries before and one of them even has a Book of Mormon! Crazy huh? The same guys' grandfather           has a Book  of Mormon and believes it to be God's word. Super cool right? We are playing ball again this week     and are going to try and pick him up as investigator.  The Lord truly does watch over and is constantly                   preparing people!!!  

     We got a lot of practice lessons with members this week so that was good. This week we had a combined mission conference with the Seoul mission where Elder Maynes from the Quorum of the 70 spoke. It was way cool to see all of my buddies from the MTC that went to the Seoul mission. I got to see all of my favorite Koreans from the MTC so that was fun to talk with and see them again. President Ringwood was also at the conference and he gave a great talk! I learned too much at the conference and it would take me forever to write it all so I will end on something I really liked from Elder Maynes' talk. He talked about goals and the importance of them along with a bunch of other things. Life is hard and we are constantly learning new things and being blessed with more and more trials. We can't give up and have to keep growing and bettering ourselves. If you look at it from the aspect of sports particularly basketball. When you are done playing for the day you can't end on a miss right? You gotta end on a make!! You gotta get buckets and when you do then you can take a break. 

Love, 

Elder Picard

Buddhist Temple

All the rice bags I carried. 

Happy Birthday Buddha! 

Our study/planning area 

The kitchen I keep clean 

Sleeping area, guess which area is mine?

Laundry/closet area

Week 46 May 25, 2015 "I can testify that life is hard but that Jesus Christ truly does LOVE us!"

     Well time just keeps flying May is almost over! I am excited but also not that excited because I heard summers here are brutal and I hate sweating! Hopefully I can endure without getting too angry or ripping any heads off because I am so hot. The humidity by far will be the worst part. I could do hot but I have been told that the humidity here makes summers straight brutal. I forgot to take pics of my apartment but I will try and remember to do it so I can send some next week. I may just keep forgetting because it is a mess. My comp and I are the only ones that ever clean the place so that is kind of frustrating. I just can't live in a pig sty because I am so used to a mom that keeps the house so clean. I feel like the mom of the house sometimes because I seem to always be cleaning up after the another elders in my house or asking them politely to clean their dishes haha. We all get along really well in the house and have a great time together. Sometimes it even seems impossible to stop laughing because of all the fun we have. Of course we work too because you can't just have fun on your mission you gotta work too. 

     We met a recent convert this week with a girl that he teaches English too. We all had lunch together and were even able to tell the girl a bit about our church so that was pretty cool. As we were coming home one of the nights this week I talked with this really cool guy on the bus. It was funny how we met and I will now explain that. I was standing on the bus and a guy walked by me and even said "excuse me" so obviously I got out of his way. It at first was really strange  because it took me a sec to realize that he just had spoken English too me. Adding to the fact of him speaking English he even said "excuse me" and that never happens in Korea people just push their way right on through. As I stood there I decided to talk to him even though he had headphones in. I greeted him in Korea and then he asked me "why are you speaking Korean?" haha so then I just switched into English. He teaches English at a school here so he was really good. We had a good conversation and he seemed to be a little interested in the church so I gave him my card as I got off the train. So yeah that was just the meeting him part I will explain the miracle later. 

      We went to the old ward mission leaders' house this week and man does he have quite the character. He was super funny! It was later at night so we all just had a little bit of soup. All the elders came and for the message we just had a testimony meeting. As we left the house the old ward mission leader gave us hugs and even kissed us all on the cheek! Since you can't receive a kiss and not give one back we all kissed him on the cheek too. He was telling us the way he showed love for his comp on his mission was by kissing him on the cheek and giving him spankings haha. I am not sure I will start that and express my love in that way but I guess we will see. We got to go to the temple this week and my comp and I did initiatories. The workers were really cool and a few of them spoke English so it was 50/50 Korean and English. One of the guys asked me if I understood Korean and then switched to Korean on me for practice. I could pick out a few words and understand a lot more than I thought I would be able to so that was really cool. After temple we went to 영등포 after we went to Costco to play basketball. We showed up at the building and the elders of that area were there to tell us that we couldn't play because their bishop didn't want people using the building if the elders of that building weren't present. Good thing we had a bunch of Koreans there to save the day. They called the bishop and we ending up being able to play. We played for a while and had a blast. 

      I ate something not even that spicy this week for dinner but it sure did come back to haunt me during our meeting with the ward mission leader. Turns out my tummy does not like spicy food. I got up and ran to the bathroom during the meeting and when I arrived into the bathroom it happened. It felt like I had a little goblin in my stomach trying to stab its way out the pain was brutal. I ended up having to have my comp go to the pharmacy with a man from our ward to get me some medicine because the pain was so bad. The bus ride home was the worst and once I got off the bus it was a straight sprint to the house... In all that pain on the bus I looked to my left and saw the man I had met earlier in the week!!! He had not called us and I was wishing I got his number. My comp talked because I was in so much pain. We got his number and it seems like he will come to church with us next week. Even in pain you can experience miracles! It was such a cool experience. 

      One of our investigators, 배성호, came to church yesterday with us so that was really cool. He is a way solid dude and has so much potential. My comp has even talked to him about baptism before and he is so concerned about it and doesn't want to do it unworthily. He truly does care and really is searching for truth. I hope my comp and I can continue to help him out. Last night we had dinner with a member and they even had beef steak there so I was in heaven. The dad kept saying to me in English "beef steak eat a lot" so of course I didn't hesitate. The message I want to end on is something I learned this week during personal study. I was reading in the Book of Mormon manual I have after I read the actual book of Mormon and it talked about why Christ even coming to this Earth was a true act of love. If you think about it Christ was in heaven with God living in all glory and power. Then accepting His Fathers' will he agreed and entered this world through His mother Mary. He went from all power to having to be 100% dependent on Mary and Joseph, His earthy parents, to nurture and look after him. Adding to that instead of being showered by jewels and all wealth He was born in a stable!! What an act of love!!! I can testify that life is hard but that Jesus Christ truly does LOVE us and did what He did because of the LOVE He has for us!!! 

Love, 

Elder Picard

He didn't send any pictures this week so I thought I would send a blast from the past. This is his artistic impression of Captain Underpants which I thought was appropriate since he keeps talking about his "tummy" issues with the food lately.  He has always added lots of laughter to our home.

Week 45 May 18, 2015 "My first week in Incheon"

    So I loved talking to you all last week, it was the best!! My new area is sweet and my new comp is super cool. His name is Elder Ely and he is from Georgia. My new ward is called the 청라 ward and it is a great ward! Everyone is super cool and the ward missionary leader is awesome. We had our first district meeting and missionary meeting this week and they both went really well. Our district has 10 missionaries in it so it is pretty big. During missionary meeting I was making the ward mission leader laugh his head off and he was loving it. I learned some dialect from Busan that not to many foreign people know and for some reason when I use that dialect the Koreans cant not laugh. Then I told the ward missionary leader he could become an apostle because he is so awesome and he thought that was pretty funny. My new house has 2 floors!!! It is the coolest house ever. I will take some pics to send next week or later on I just forgot to take some this past week. It is on main floor but then it has a loft where we all sleep. It also has 2 bathrooms and is way bigger than both the other houses I have lived in so I am in heaven and hope I stay here for a long time. 

     Before I left Siheung I had to say good bye to all of my buddies. I got 3 meals the day before I left so man was I stuffed. Siheung was a good place and I learned a lot there. My comp and I weren't always on the same page but it was good. Serving is the country definitely wasn't my favorite but it was something different that I needed. My new house has 6 in it and we all get along great so it is a blast! One of the older missionaries in the house, Elder Dewey, is training and the Elder he is training is a Mexican! Woo hoo!!! My prayers have been answered I get to serve with an amigo in my district! He speaks Spanish so sometimes he will speak to me in Spanish so that is pretty fun. He is also super funny so it just makes it better much better. 

      Out of nowhere this week my body just went whack and my stomach was trashed. We had service that day at an old people home and the whole bus ride to the place I felt like I was going to throw up... When we got to the service I was still just feeling like poo but decided to just fight it out instead of going home. I told some of the ladies there who were cooking with us for the old people and then one of them had me sit down. When I sat down she grabbed my hand and squeezed some pressure points super hard and then gave me a massage. I don't know how it was supposed to work but it really didn't do much. They hard someone go buy me medicine and the person who did brought back two bottles of I don't know what haha. I drank them and they didn't do too much but I couldn't go number "2" for the next few days so if that was what the medicine was supposed to do to me it worked. My tummy lately has just been kind of funky and pretty much rejects and or doesn't like a lot of what I eat. I don't know for sure what is wrong with it but it is common is Korea for your tummy to get funky so I don't think it is anything that bad. 

      We met an investigator named 강문선 who supposedly recently has had more English interest lately but when we met her we were able to talk about the Book of Mormon. It went well and was a pretty good meeting. This area has an English class that isn't just old people so that is awesome and I was stoked to have a super awesome English class. We don't teach every week but it still should be fun. We have a boy getting baptized in a few weeks whose parents are both members but he is older than 8 so they had to teach him all of the lessons and this past week we went to their house to do his interview. Elder Dewey interviewed but we all went to the members house and while we were waiting I was sitting there with the other Elders and the parents talking and because Elder Corona is a greenie he was super lost. It was kind of fun because he kept asking me what everyone was saying and I was able to translate. It made me think back to when I was being trained and in those same shoes. I guess my Korean has improved and I can understand more and more over time so that's good. 

     We were riding the bus this past week and I almost punched a girl straight in the face by accident. I was telling all the Elders a story and during the story I swung my arm showing an action of what happened in the story and this girl comes out of nowhere. I didn't even see her and wouldn't have swung if I did. My comp was sitting by a guy from the Philippines who saw what happened and he along with everyone else was laughing so hard. Then right after that I accidentally lead Elder Corona into the girls bathroom. He had to pee really bad the whole bus ride and as soon as we got off I walked him into a building and sent him into the first bathroom I saw. The door was open and I didn't see the sign but as soon as he got in the bathroom and was going I noticed that it was the woman's bathroom. Then some lady comes walking out of the stall and kind of freaks out but man was it so hard not to laugh. We had some many laughs that day it was crazy. We had a boss meal last night at the ward missionary leader's house and since I said during sacrament meeting that I was a 식신 which means "God of food" I had to eat a lot! I was so stuffed but the food was tasty so I wasn't complaining. 

     Well that is enough on what I did. To end this email I want to share something I learned this week. I was reading somewhere on hard times and why we have them. You can look at it from the aspect that just like a gardner who wants his plants to grow to what they are supposed to become. If those plants grow into something besides that he will chop them down and wait for them to grow again. God likewise does this to us. He cuts us down and gives us hard times because He loves us and knows our potential. He knows the beautiful plant that we are supposed turn into and won't accept anything but that. 

Love, 

Elder Picard

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My new companion, Elder Ely from Georgia.

My new area, love the city!

Week 44 May 11, 2015 “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.”—Phillipians 4:13

    Happy Mother's Day Mom!!!!!! You are the best. I am so lucky to have such a great family and THE BEST mama ever! I loved being able to talk to all of you over the phone for Mother's Day, it was great. Now I just have to wait till Christmas which will probably come before I know it. Well we got transfer calls and I am going to a new area! My new companion's name is Elder Ely and I will go exchange and get him Wednesday. My new area is call Gajeong and it is in the city of Incheon. I look forward to going back to a city because country is alright and all but I think I like the city more because there is more people to talk to. My new house in Gajeong is the biggest house in the mission so I am pretty stoked about that!! Also everyone in the house is way cool and they all love sports so it will be a blast! 

    Well with the combination of wards and all we got a new building like I said and it is way nice. Since we have such a nice new building missionaries are always there now to do tours and stuff. The stake president wants 4 missionaries there everyday so we have a rotation and did it on Tuesday this past week. We pretty much just became visitor center missionaries for a day. It was awesome because we were actually able to get like 4 people in, have good conversations with them, and give them a tour of the church. The way we got them in was we just stood outside the church and asking people if the wanted to see our church. We also did some proselyting around a park close by and on the intersection by the church. It was a way cool experience and I really enjoyed it. One girl in particular came by that I felt impressed to say hello to actually was curious about our church and asked me why I was speaking Korean to her haha. She spoke English well and we took her inside and were able to talk about the Book of Mormon and how our church is different. Another guy we gave a tour was a guy we saw on Sunday and then saw him again. He is a seventh day adventist and really respects our church. He even said a while ago he met with missionaries and taught them Korean. He was an old guy but spoke English super well. Maybe E. Willy and his new comp will be able to meet all those people that would be cool.

    I got to go to the temple again so that was great like always! We had Zone training this week and that was really good. We have like 5 missionaries going home in our zone that gave their farewells and they were all really good. They had lots of good advice that I for sure will apply to my mission so that it can be that much better! Elder Bodily talked again on the fact that we need to find it in ourselves to be happy during the hard times because it is during those times that we grow the most. I think this can apply to life as well and not just a mission. Missions are hard but life is too. God gives us trials so that we can learn and grow but not to completely destroy us. We are only given things we can handle and God knows what those things are. Worry can also come into the picture but honestly if we are doing all we can to improve and better ourselves there should be nothing to worry about. Not only the lost sheep are the ones that Jesus helps, He helps all of us! He will carry all of us through our hard times and with Jesus Christ and His help there is NO reason to worry. I have struggled with this a lot on my mission but I am going to stop wasting countless energy on this and use that energy on something that matters other than worrying. I want to end with a scripture that is just great. “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.”—Phillipians 4:13

Love, 

Elder Dj Picard

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You HAVE to watch this movie. Some fun trivia, this was Angie's (Elder Picards Mom) first 45 record she ever bought and her 4th grade teacher Mrs. Burnham would let the kids rock out to it occasionally, great memories!

Week 43 May 4, 2015 "May the 4th be with you"

Happy early Mother's Day Mom, you are the best!!!!! Well down in the books goes my first full week of being 20 years old. It doesn't really feel like I am 20 or anything at all. I mean I still don't have facial hair or chest hair so I still feel like a little kid in appearance haha. This past week was a good one and was filled with lots of fun activities. For my birthday last week my comp and I went bowling for 3 hours and that was a lot more tiring then I thought it would be. After that 2 of our LA buddies took us out to dinner at this really good buffet. Then of course we had to get Baskin and Robbins for desert because you only turn 20 once after all. I am coming up on my year mark too so I think it is time that I buckle down and work as hard as I can. Not saying that I haven't been working but I mean you can always work harder. Missions constantly push you in lots of different ways so there is always some way you can improve yourself. I read in PMG this week that your attitude determines pretty much everything. Most of all it determines how much you love the Lord. When I read that it really made me think and realize that a lot of the time my attitude isn't the best. It is really easy to get a selfish and or angry attitude for me so I think I found something I can improve on. My whole life I have had a bad attitude sometimes and I would love to be able to be sitting on the plane on the way home from my mission and be able to say that my attitude changed to a good one. So yeah attitude I realized is way more important than I thought.

    We had Zone Conference this week and it was really fun. We went to a really cool island and our leaders gave us some of the trainings at a park until it started raining and we had to go back to the church. All of the trainings were way good but I personally liked President's. He hit on a lot of good things. He said that we all need to quit with sarcasm, back biting, and complaining. Instead of doing these things he said we need to compliment others, smile, and just be happy. I do tend to have a lot of negative energy for no reason and there really is no reason for that. Being happy is a lot more fun than being angry for sure. A scripture that has become one of my favorite scriptures is Proverbs 16:32 and I would suggest that you all check it out because it is a good one :) The times I get angry I read this and it really helps me straighten up. When you are angry it doesn't help anyone but when you are happy you can BRIGHTEN someone's day! At Zone Conference we did this 7 min workout competition and I beat President so yeah I am pretty boss. Not really though because beating a 60 year old man isn't saying much haha that is what President told me after I jokingly was bragging haha. 

    I went on an exchange with the ZL's this week and got to go with Elder Bodily again. He came to Siheung for the exchange and we just had a blast together. He was trained here so we actually got to teach one of his old investigators so that was cool. Also we taught Alex, Kevin, and their family again and just had another way solid lesson. Elder Bodily was super stoked after the lesson and said I was lucky to be teaching such a prepared family. They really are a great family and I am lucky to be teaching them. Elder Bodily goes home in a week or so and we were able to have some more good talks on the mission and he was able to give me some more tips. One thing I really like that he told me was that I need to find a way to be happy during the hard times and not let them get me down. The reason for being happy during the hard times is because it is during the hard times that we learn. I mean if we never had hard times and life was a piece of cake we would never learn. He said missions aren't supposed to be easy they are instead supposed to be hard and change you into a better person so he told me to just let the mission do its thing and not worry. I passed off Lesson 4 in TIP to Elder Bodily so now I only have 1 more lesson left then the AP pass off left. We had a really cool miracle this week and ran into this guy on the street who invited us to go eat with him. We were able to give him a Book of Mormon and he said he wants to meet again so that was really cool. 

   Recently I have been really tired so if any of you that went through a similar problem during your mission have any tips on how I can overcome being tired please let me know. Well we have transfer calls this weekend so we will see if I leave Siheung or what happens. It is crazy to think next transfer will be my 7th transfer!! 

Love, 

Elder Picard

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