Minecraft wiki entry for Survival_in_an_infinite_desert, associated text: The most important items you can retrieve from a village are the crafting table and tools - most importantly an iron pickaxe if you are lucky - from the weaponsmith or toolsmith chest. You can also find iron ingots and diamond in these chests, or even use gold ingots (also found in village temple chests) to make tools - most likely a gold pickaxe that you would use only to obtain enough cobblestone to make a stone pickaxe.