March madness

Hey Mom!

Haha Dad sent me an email last week about March Madness, seeing if I wanted to fill out a bracket, so the whole companionship went for it. We had no idea what we were doing, so it's probably not going to be very accurate, but still fun. The madness lives on in Poland!

Sounds like you guys had a pretty fun week though! Glad you got to spend some time with the Jodi and Eldon's kids haha. Is Vivien like almost 2 now? It's gonna be so weird when all the little cousins are old when I come home. It's like hitting the fast forward button on all them for 2 years haha. It's also good to hear that the Missionary Month in the ward is going well. Haha real missionary work doesn't necessarily have to be all cancelled appointments, you get success mixed in too! It's good though that everyone is still having fun, even if it isn't all easy. That's pretty much how it's meant to be.

Way cool that Chase is already done with the mission. I can't believe it went by so fast, it wasn't too long after he went out that I left too. Now he's home, weird. Also, we got to watch the Face to Face too for a district meeting. It was solid. It's cool to hear from the leaders of the church more often than just twice a year though, all these Face to Face events are way cool. But I gotta say, having the BYU devotionals all the time is gonna be sweet haha.

It's crazy that spring break is already here haha. It seems like time back home is just totally flying now. School's gonna be out in no time. Then I come home during summer break, can't believe how fast everything is going.

Everything is going great over here! Pretty much the same as the last few weeks, just a lot of work with the members. We had a few meetings scheduled with some people that we've been asked to meet with by the members, but no one has been able to work out a specific time (and then actually show up) yet. I think that this week we're gonna have a little more luck though, and we've also got Elder Liechty coming to Warsaw for an exchange, so it should be way fun haha. As far as travelling to new cities goes, I haven't had the chance yet. With all the management we've gotta take care of though, I've pretty much met all the other missionaries at this point, at least through phone calls haha. We've also got another training to lead this Thursday on a Skype conference. I guess that doesn't really count as meeting someone, just looking at them through a little screen, but it gets the job done. Gotta remember that the most exciting day of the year is the day we get to Skype home haha! We also didn't move our PDay to Tuesdays, last week was just a little crazy with Zone Training, we had to move it back a day, and even then we had about 30 minutes to email haha. Basically our Pday is pretty subject to emergency rescheduling, haha. I'll try to make sure to always give you a heads up, but last week we had no such luck. Sorry!

Other things that happened last week, we got a new mission car! It's a Hyundai, so we're no longer driving a European car. It's a pretty smooth ride, which is nice, cause I'll probably be getting my license pretty soon here. That, and the speakers are sweet. Makes blasting MoTab that much cooler hahaha.

The weather lately has been way weird. Warmer for sure, but crazy rainy. I'm trying to stop wearing my jacket, so it's been cardigans and sweaters lately, but that also means if it rains, I'm soaked haha. While we were handing out flyers for our English class a girl asked me if I wanted to stand under her umbrella. Naturally I started to sing the song, and she jumped in for the "Eh eh eh" part. It was pretty sweet, we'll see if she comes haha.

Also, I'm not sure if I told you this story or not, but about 3 months ago, a weird lady came and tried to get me to come to her apartment to teach us about her religion. I said no thanks, but she still wanted to give us her holy book. She asked for an address to send it to, obviously we couldn't give it to her, but somehow she got it sent to our chapel haha. Last week I got an envelope addressed "MR LOGAN" with about 200 sheets of printer paper stapled together, covered in all sorts of weird symbols and nonsense haha. It was like a little, pdf printed, crazy person's edition of the Book of Mormon haha. I didn't know what to do with it, throwing it away seemed kinda disrespectful, so we just stashed it away in our apartment. I'd feel bad if somehow all this lead to some missionary joining that church, but I also highly doubt that's ever gonna happen hahaha.

As for the BYU Honor program, I don't really know anything about it, so I'd be down to get some more info. If it's not too crazy sounding, I'd be up to try I guess. Could be fun!

Love you tons Mom!

Elder Haskett

March 13th

Hey Mom!

First of all, that's way cool that Lauryn is going to be on The Voice! Haha I hope she keeps doing well, that would be crazy if she went far! Wish her good luck for me!

Haha it seems like whenever we try to do a hike that isn't Towsley close to home, we end up in the middle of nowhere, blazing our own trail. Sounds like it was a pretty good workout though! I gotta say, I miss hiking haha. We get some pretty good soccer games out here, but that's pretty much our most exciting workout. Last week we played missionaries against Poland, and somehow we won. I guess it helps when we've got Elder Ashworth, who's not American (by not American, I mean he played soccer), but still, it felt like quite the upset. We channel the US Women's National Team when we play, not the men's. I think that's how we pulled off the win.

Things in Warsaw are going really well right now! We've been really busy, so the trio has been coming in handy haha. President wants us to work with the members all the time, so we're always going on splits with people. This week actually Elder Bebel will be going to Katowice for an exchange with Elder Mandla (I'm pretty jealous haha), and Elder Einfeldt and I are gonna hold down the fort. We'll be doing our own exchange with the Zone Leaders here. That means we'll have a real throwback to the MTC with Elder Alvarez! It should be cool haha.

The work has been really different though lately, and I really like it. There's so much focus on work with the members, and people in the branch are starting to get excited. We're trying to meet with as many people as we can to discuss the European Area Plan. It's a 3 step program to help strengthen the Church here. The steps are inviting a friend to learn about us, obtaining spiritual and temporal self-reliance, and finding an ancestor. We're still on step 1 with most people, invite a friend, and we're hoping that we can start working together as a branch to find new people who will be interested. I don't know how much it's going to take before we start seeing the results, but us and President seem to think this is what the Church in Poland has been missing. It's taking some getting used to, considering all I've ever known is just going out on the streets and talking to random people for hours, but I think this is going to be a lot more effective. Part of inviting someone to come to church includes inviting less-active members! We're helping members reach out to their friends who have stopped coming. It's been really cool, and I think that all the members are excited to see old friends come back.

I got the letter you sent with the stuff from the ward last week! Actually there was a pretty big build up of mail for me haha, and I got a bunch of stuff that was supposed to come at Christmas time. I'm going to have to send out a lot of thank you letters this week haha. Tell the ward thanks though!

I'm glad you liked the video Bart took! He likes keeping all the missionary moms posted haha. He's actually doing a better job than I am this week, I forgot my camera at the apartment. There'll be a good picture for you guys next week though, the whole MTC group got together for MLC and we got a squad pic haha. It was good seeing all the guys again.

That's pretty much my week in a nutshell! Love you Mom!

Elder Haskett

Socks

The socks :)

March!!!

Hey Mom!

Sounds like you guys had a sweet time in San Fran haha. Got to the trolley, ate some sourdough, the Golden Gate Bridge, I think that was all I had for you to do last week haha. The tour of Alcatraz sounds like it was cool, did you see any dementors?

Also, I can't remember for sure, but wasn't there a Ghiradelli factory on the way from home to Provo? You've inspired me, I might have to request a stop on the way to school haha.

It's also good to hear that missionary month in the ward is going well! I still remember when we did that a while back, it was pretty fun. I think that a bunch of the older kids got to meet with some less active members, and even some investigators. Is that happening again this year? We're going pretty hard over here as far as work with the members is concerned. I think that the church in general is really starting to encourage all the members to get going on missionary work, inviting friends and family. It's the best way to go about it, that's for sure.

Things are going pretty well here though! Weather hasn't been too bad lately, a little wet, but warm! I think that winter might finally be over! We try to be careful saying that, don't want to jinx it haha. Yesterday we were talking to a member about the weather, and he said that it once snowed in June. I really, really hope that doesn't go down this year...

The work is going really well! I guess we were pretty busy with the new calling this week, we had to do a lot of work with the new missionaries and their trainers, a few meetings with President for planning, but other than that things are pretty normal. Not too much paper or office work, but not a whole lot of street contacting anymore. We do a lot of planning, and then we try to fill the rest of our time with meetings or with visits to less active members. Like I said, we're really focusing a lot on work with the members. We want to try to start meeting with the families in the branch, with less actives, and with recent converts, and try to help them start doing missionary work too. We're scheduled for more meetings in the next few days than I've ever had in a transfer haha. It's really cool, and we're hoping to see a lot of finding and teaching come out of it. President Turek has some pretty big goals for the mission right now, one of which is to have 121 baptisms this year. As far as I'm concerned, member missionary work is the way to make it happen. We'll see!

So... we also got in a little scrape driving the other day haha. We bumped into the car in front of us, but the guy didn't even notice, and there was no damage, so he just drove away. It was a miracle, but nonetheless I have to get my Polish driver's license now and start driving haha. President asked me to take care of it yesterday, so I guess it's my next assignment. According to Elder Einfeldt and Elder McMaster, the test is pretty dang hard, but we'll see. Should be fun.

I'll be sure to keep the Cawley's in my prayers! That's so sad to hear she's got a brain tumor, but I'm sure she's got a good team rooting for her with the whole stake involved. I'll be praying for everything to turn out ok!

Elder Park is already attending BYU! You can email his mom! I think he said phone might be better, but you can try both!

Love you Mom! Enjoy the warmer weather!

Elder Haskett