Xmas!!!

Hey Mom!

It was awesome seeing you guys yesterday, so good to talk again! I can't believe that we've only got one more skype call! Time has really flown by. 

The rest of our Christmas was pretty awesome. It was about 8 oclock at night, but we still had time to go to another family's house for Ben and Jerry's! Merry Christmas to us!

Sounds like you guys had a really awesome Christmas, and it also sounds like you're gonna be pretty busy for the next little while! Tell Noah good luck at the tournament!

That's pretty fun that Sabrina might be coming to stay! Hopefully things with the movie go well, and that it's all fun and stuff!

I don't think that I've got a lot to say about our week after skyping yesterday! I think I already covered all the details! The packages were great, and I think I'm pretty much set on hand warmers now haha. Thanks again!

Love you Mom!

Elder Haskett

Xmas

Hey Mom!

Haha I'm jealous of your trip to SLO! Sounds like the tournament has been fun so far, and I saw some pictures of the hike and the beach! Looks beautiful! Once again, I miss the beach. Other than the castle and the rest of the games are you guys planning on doing anything else in SLO? Taking out the quads again or hitting up that apple farm restaurant for those awesome fries?

One more week til Christmas! Haha I can't believe that it's almost time already to Skype again. Should be really fun! As far as that goes, we'll be at a member's house. Pretty much any time works for us between 2-7. So for you guys that's 5-10. Let me know what time works the best and I can confirm on Wednesday!

Our week was pretty quiet. Not as much time in city center, in fact, not as much time in Warsaw at all! We were on an exchange this week in Lublin! It was pretty cool. There was like some weird mojo going on there, and I basically couldn't miss haha. Everybody stopped and wanted to talk, so that was really fun. Only downfall is that it was way cold the whole time. I think we're officially to that time of year again. We had an interesting lesson while we were there though. We were at an investigator's apartment, and about halfway through, she tried to start a pillow fight with us? We were like, uhhh, and pretty much just sat there until it was clear that we wanted to leave haha.

The investigator with the date met the missionaries in April, took a Book, and that was it. First day of this transfer, he showed up in church, and said right away that he thought God led him there that day. As far as the baptism goes, we're all really excited! He passed his interview yesterday, and is pretty much just ready to go. It'll happen the day of Christmas Eve. In the words of Brother Bremner, "the missionaries call that a Wet Christmas". The next week, our investigator in Kato is planning on taking the same step. Fun stuff!

We had the funniest tracting/caroling contact of our lives yesterday. In front of the door, I was talking about how terrible it would be to get a tongue piercing, and I did a little demonstration with my tongue out, and this dude opens the door while I'm standing there all awkward, sticking out my tongue, saying "owowowow". Sister Demordaunt started laughing really hard and couldn't stop so she was all curled up in a ball. Anyways, as professional as we all probably looked at this point, it couldn't be compared to the sight we saw on the other side of the door frame. The dude that opens the door is like a college bro, riding on a tricycle, using his feet to steer on the handles, smoking a bong. His homie is chilling behind him on the couch, also smoking, and they're both looking at us like, "wut". They just looked at us, and I think the guy took like 30 seconds to register before he shut the door. Once that door closed, I don't think I've ever laughed so hard on my mission.  

I'm really excited for our next week though. We're of course looking forward to the baptism, but the district is also planning a bunch of other fun stuff to do as well. We've got culture night, Christmas, and Christmas Eve to look forward to, along with a pretty good amount of member-provided meals! Should be good! 

Can't wait to see you guys! Love you Mom!

Elder Haskett

Xmas pics

Christmas ties!

Christmas!!

Hey Mom!

Haha sounds like you all got a pretty good workout this week! Proud of you guys! I gotta say, 30 mins of working out a day, inside of our apartment hasn't done me too good. I'm not like, gaining weight or anything, but I feel so out of shape. We played ultimate frisbee on Saturday and I was exhausted. Still got some pretty sweet catches though haha.

I'm glad to hear that they're going hard with the Light the World campaign back home too. We've gone crazy with it. Caroling all the time. It's nice this year, cause we have 12 missionaries in Warsaw, so our "choir" is a little more impressive. We've already been offered a ton of money. Haha I've been talking with some of the other guys that are going home this year about coming back to Poland next December and caroling to earn the money for a plane ticket.

I think that you guys inviting the elders over got me some good karma over here. We got invited over for Christmas day and Christmas Eve! Elder Barlow and I are super excited, it's gonna be awesome. I'm hoping that we can skype from their house like last year, but we might be doing it from the mission office. We'll see. Last year we pretty much just ate dinner there, while one missionary at a time skyped with the fam.

Our week was pretty awesome! Like I said, caroling has officially begun! We've had a lot of success, and we're having a good time doing it. It's nice to actually be able to speak Polish this year, I feel like that's a huge part of why it's going so well. But yeah, just last week, we sang to an old lady who invited us in, and then after a short convo said she'd let the sisters come back. We also found a group of college dudes living together from Indonesia who want another visit, so that'll be cool. Yesterday we sang for every person on the top floor of a huge apartment building. It was like a Mormon concert haha.

I've got another story from the town square. So last week the sisters were talking to a guy that seemed pretty cool. The town drunk (literally we have one of those) came in and started out with his usual routine, screaming at all the people who are trying to sell random stuff, but he went for the sisters. Elder Barlow and I jumped in, and I started to talk to him to distract him, and, after about an hour, I think I became his best friend. We talked about cowboys, we danced, we sang ABBA songs, and just had a grand, old time. At one point he started talking about how he had no one, and I said, "Andrzej, don't forget old friend, you've got me." Then we hugged, and he cried into my shoulder for about 5 mins. Real tender moment. Anyways, other than that, he proposed to Sister Beem, we took pictures, and said our goodbyes.

So one of the kids in the branch got baptized last week! One of our investigators came!... a little buzzed. Haha I could smell it on his breath like right away. Other than that he said it was a good experience. He said he felt really good being around the other members. Then as a Merry Christmas he gave me a little statue of Mary. I guess I wasn't expecting that when I invited him to the baptism, but at least he came.

Haha other than that though our other investigators are doing well. I think that people are just happy in general. Christmas is doing it's magic and whatnot.

Also, my wish came true! We had the primary program this week! It was awesome, they asked me to translate, so I felt like one of the kids. It was half English, half Polish. I translated from English to Polish, so that was fun. The Turek kids also sang I Am a Child of God in German, so we were just crazy multi-cultural. Super fun Sunday.

That's all I got though. Love you Mom!

Elder Haskett

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Xmas

December!!!!

Hey Mom!

Haha to start things off, I got the Christmas package! Super fun thanks! Also we already got to decorating the apartment, and I took some pictures for you to see, it's looking good. I guessed the winter coat right first try, I think you guys said to open it so I did. It's awesome, thanks so much! 

Sounds like you guys have been doing well! Tough week for Luke in vball, those tournaments are no fun, but it's cool, it sounds like his team will be pretty good if they play the right guys. Glad to hear Noah's having fun in basketball.

It also sounds like church went well last week too haha. Good to know that the answers I gave for Sister Woodard were up to par. Haha hopefully someone learned something.

Excited to hear about Austin's mission call! She emailed me this week too, she seems really psyched. Not a lot of time to prep, haha I can't imagine finding out that I would have to leave in a month. I think I got like 3 or 4?

So Elder McMaster had to take a driver's test cause he's an office elder and has a car. I won't have to test unless I go into the office or become an AP. I'm hoping neither of those things happen. If I could be a regular missionary till the end, that'd be ideal.

Our week was pretty darn good. We had the chance to meet with all of our investigators, everyone is doing well. I think within the next couple transfers some cool things will be happenning with them. We'll see if I stay.

I've also got a lot of stories from the city center I was talking about a bit ago for this week. We probably spent about 10ish hours there in the last 4 days.

1. I think we talked to the Polish, non-pirate version of Captain Jack Sparrow. He was weird, talked like him, and high as a kite. He talked to us for about 15 minutes, and during the time read our palms and took off his shirt to show Elder Barlow a tatoo on his chest. After talking to us, he walked off with a gypsy girl who pickpocketed him. Then he did some interpretive dancing on the square for a while.

2. Gypsy girl turned out to be a fire-dancer. She and a friend brought speakers to the square and preformed for about an hour. One of the songs played was "Give You Hell" by the All-American Rejects.

3. The Hare Krishnas came and did their own preformance on the square. They gave us cookies.

4. A really drunk man that screams on the square at all the people that are trying to sell stuff got in a fight this week. He took a mean right hook to the face and dropped to the ground. I walked over and contacted both, talked to them about Christmas, and gave them Word of Wisdom pamphlets.

5. I finally talked to the drummer guy that just drums all day long on trash. Found out his name's Paul. He was in a warehouse about 12 years back, started drumming on some scrap metal, and decided it makes him feel good. His life has never been the same.

6. We contacted an old guy. He started saying The Lord's Prayer in Hebrew, and of course drew a crowd of old people, cause they're used to all their pastors saying the same thing. Well, then he started to sing another prayer, which caused an old lady to ask if he was drunk. He said yeah, and then the old people started yelling at eachother to settle whether or not it's appropriate to pray when you're drunk. One swore, and then they all went off on him. "If you were in Russia and you had a mouth like that, they'd kill you in the streets." Bold statement, and a call to repentance from an old Polish woman.

We of course had some good contacts too. One group of college kids wants to meet again this week. 

Exchange with Elder Einfeldt was really fun. Throwback to the good old days. Fun to see how far we've come.

I think that's everything this week! Just a heads up, last week I finally caved and bought a pair of gloves, mine had holes and I was dying, haha! That was the charge on the card. I might have to get a new white shirt this week too, but we'll see.

Love you so much Mom!

Elder Haskett