Monday, August 21, 2017

Last email

Hey Mom!
Last email! I can't believe it! I've been doing the same thing today, just procrastinating when to write everybody for the last time. It's been so weird, reading "see you next week" from everybody!
Sounds like you guys had a pretty awesome week! Surprise trip to AZ, that's way fun. I'm a little bummed that I just barely missed Caleb's baptism on the way out, and Nolan's on the way back haha. Oh, well, I'm glad everybody had a fun time. I just remembered that I got the Melchizedek priesthood out in AZ at Hayden's baptism! Val was there, too! If I remember right, we were trying to cram everything in before the LA temple closed on August 1st. Speaking of which, we'll have to make some time pretty soon for a temple trip. Maybe on Saturday? I'm not really sure what the schedule is gonna look like when we're in Provo, but I would be game to wake up early to go. I'll leave it up to you haha!
Luke made the team! Haha that's super exciting from him. Noah said he pretty much had nothing to worry about, but I remember being pretty stressed out for the tryouts. I'm happy for him. It'll be fun to watch them all play this season!
The homecoming date sounds good! Haha it's gonna be sweet to do it the same time as Kai, I'm excited to hear all about his mission. I would anticipate that the European missions are pretty similar to each other. He's probably got a few good stories.
We had a really awesome week. Started things off well, we had a really good district meeting where we were able to set some goals for the rest of the transfer. Everybody was pretty pumped. Preparing a district meeting again was pretty weird, President has me as district leader here til I go. It's been a good throwback for me haha. On Tuesday, we took a train out to Wrocław for zone conference. It was awesome to see the city again! I almost forgot how much I loved the place! The conference was awesome. Elder Sabin from the Area Presidency came to visit. He prepared an awesome conference for us. Told some amazing stories, it was pretty easy to tell that he was an incredible missionary. There was a lot of talk about how we need to do better in letting our light shine. It's true, as members of the Church, we are the only people in the world who are promised the constant presence of the Holy Ghost. If we're worthy and willing, we should always stand out. It's been something I've focused on my entire mission: being a light for others. Part of that means making the choice to be happy, no matter what is going on around you. 
That was kinda the basis for my last testimony in zone conference. President always invites the departing missionaries to speak one more time for everybody. I talked a lot about finding joy in everything. If we keep the commandments, we're meant to be happy. Period. I've tried to be better at believing in that, and then looking for that joy. It was cool that my last conference revolved around joy, it summed up everything very well.
We brought the fire back to Kielce! Haha when we got back we were able to put in some work, and we found some cool people to teach. It's been fun.
On Sunday I gave a talk. It was my last time in church here in Kielce, so it was an opportunity to say goodbye and leave some last words with them. It was pretty cool. 
I guess, to answer your question, I'll be in Warsaw around noon on Sunday. I'm gonna miss church, but I'll get there right as 3rd hour ends, so I get to say one last goodbye to everyone! I'm really excited! I've already gotten in contact with pretty much everyone, so we're gonna have a little party to end things right haha.
We spend about half of this week in Kielce, then on exchange in Kato for the rest. It's a weird way to end the transfer, but it means that I'll get one last goodbye in Katowice, too. That's pretty cool. Elder Liechty and I will travel up to Warsaw together, which is gonna be awesome haha.
This will be the last email, which means that it's time to sign off! I want you guys to know that I have loved every minute of my mission! Sometimes it was hard to see in the moment, but looking back on it all, I can see God's hand my mission. The people here in Poland have had such an impact on the way I look at life. Being with them has made it a lot easier to see how blessed I've been. We are all so blessed to be a part of this church. I know it's true. I have seen miracles and heard answers to prayers here in Poland that I cannot deny. I can't deny the joy I've felt here either. Keeping the commandments is a sure way to be happy, no matter what else happens in life. I'm so grateful for my mission. It's changed who I am. It's going to be so hard to say goodbye, I know it. I want you guys to know that I'm excited to see you again. I've missed you a ton, but there's always been a peace that comes with missing you. I'm grateful that God has looked after things at home for me haha. He's blessing me, and He's blessing you. I love you all so much. I'll see you in a week.
Elder Haskett

Monday, August 14, 2017

August 14th

Goodbyes are tough

August 14th

Hey Mom!
Haha sounds like you've had a really busy week! I'm glad to hear that you guys got everything done with Nema and Grandpa B's house though! It's weird to think that they're gonna be somewhere else now! I'm gonna miss their old place haha. I'm excited to see what the new place is gonna be like though!
Haha Caleb might just be the most vocal about how he isn't excited for school. I don't think that any of us were particularly excited for August to roll around, at the very least, I wasn't haha. What grade is he going into now?
It's super weird to think that Elders Einfeldt and Alvarez are already home! Haha when they left it was a really weird day! 
Last week was a pretty weird one for me in a lot of ways. The goodbye to Warsaw was pretty tough. I can't believe how much that place has turned into home for me. You already heard about the last day in Church, but the days after were pretty similar. We were jam packed with meetings that were pretty much all goodbyes haha. On Monday, we had our last dinner over at the Reese's. They're an awesome family, I'm gonna miss those guys. They're making a plan for me to move out to Warsaw haha. I think she sent you an email with a picture?
Tuesday we had a few more meetings, mostly with members, which was really cool. It was just awesome to see how much everyone has changed and grown in the last year. The branch has made some huge steps, which is awesome. 
Wednesday we had a meeting for every hour of the working day, which was awesome. We met with some investigators, some Jehovah's Witnesses that tracted into our apartment (a story for another time haha), and had one last English class. They were fun, a lot of the students brought little treats to say goodbye haha. We sang a goodbye song and everything! After class we watched Ephraim's Rescue with Bart and Wasyl. It was really cool. They are super good guys. It's been cool to work with Wasyl for so long, I've learned a lot from him. Bart is getting really excited for the States! I think he's more trunky than me!
My train was early Thursday morning, and since then we've had a lot of time to meet with a few of the members! Kielce is tiny! Like we can walk from one end of the city to the other in a couple hours! It's really quiet compared with Warsaw. So it's quite the adjustment haha! It's been good though. The members are pretty cool. There's not too many of them haha! Like 4 in church last week! It was a lot different! Funny to be back somewhere, where the missionaries do pretty much everything in sacrament meeting! 
One thing that was rough, the apartment. Man, I don't think I've ever seen a place so dirty. It was rank! I've put about 6 hours of cleaning into it already, so it's liveable now, but the place still needs some serious work. 
We met this really cool guy the other day from Morocco! He's a boss, we actually met him playing basketball! I took that tradition from Warsaw with me haha! He's pretty good, and he's down to meet with us, which is awesome. He's gonna be out of town for the week, but we're hoping that when he comes back we'll be able to have some meetings, and maybe set up a couple games with him and his friends!
We're also doing a really cool service project at this farm outside of the city! They love the missionaries, so we're there once a week! The family that works it is super nice. We actually had to walk about halfway there (about 2 hours!) last week with a lady that was going to help there too. She's super nice, and the sisters are gonna get to meet with her next week! Kind of a weird miracle, but we'll take it haha.
Love you Mom! Have an awesome week, and good luck with the new calling!
Elder Haskett

Monday, August 7, 2017


July 30th

Hey Mom!
Haha writing to Powell again, you've got me a little jealous! The weather has picked up here though, so at least we're warm!
It sounds like the boys had an awesome week! Fun that the tournaments and camps all went well. That's awesome you got to talk to someone about  You did find my people! Volleyball players like Jeeps, it's only natural! I miss the Jeep haha, it's gonna be fun to go for a drive again. There's a significant difference between a Jeep Wrangler and a Hyundai i20...
Haha, that's way cool you got to talk to someone from the team about the mission and everything. I think everyone in the world thinks that a mission is just building houses haha. We met a group of guys from the South just like that a few hours ago, they're doing a bunch of volunteer work here in Poland for about 10 days. Cool stuff! A little different from our idea of a mission, but they were awesome people, and they were excited to meet some fellow Americans haha.
The work really has been going well lately. The run thing was awesome haha! It was a really different way to get our name out there, but I think different is exactly what we need right now. We're teaching a little family because of that! And a ton of people came to check out our English class, which was awesome.
The work on our end is going really well. This week we had a lot of lessons. Right off the bat we met with this one investigator who I've been working with since coming to Warsaw. He's been making a lot of progress lately, and during our meeting on Tuesday, we talked again about enduring to the end. He was asking how it's even possible to keep making progress, and learning for your entire life, and we just talked about how reading the Book of Mormon over and over again always teaches you something new. It got him pretty hyped, and then we all got hyped, and then we decided to all read the Book of Mormon from start to finish before I go home! Haha then later that day, we met with some other people that joined us in the Book of Mormon challenge. Now we've got most of Warsaw's YSA, the missionaries, and other members all over Poland joining in with us! Haha we started a little movement. It's been going really well though. I've been keeping up with all the people that started with us, and everybody's having positive experiences. We'll see what happens! 
Another cool meeting with that same investigator, we were talking about specific commandments later in the week and we got pretty deep into prayer. We were discussing what prayer should actually look like, and the question came up, "If Heavenly Father already knows everything, then why do I even have to ask for blessings?" As we were talking about it, he kinda came to the conclusion himself, that he's just gotta be more humble, and accept that even if not everything makes sense to him, it's what Heavenly Father asked us to do, so we do it. Then he was just so happy that all of the sudden, things made sense. Overall, this guy understands the gospel so well, it's incredible. I feel like he's grasped other, more complicated topics and principles that I didn't figure out until the MTC. It's cool, we just imagine how wise this guy is gonna be 10 years down the road with the gift of the Holy Ghost. It's cool stuff.
Pretty awesome meeting with a member the other day that got baptized in 1988, before the Poland Warsaw Mission even existed! Haha he's got the very first edition of the Book of Mormon, and remembers meeting in some of the building that most missionaries have only seen pictures of haha. He's a fossil! Super cool, impressive guy. When he walked into the room, he just kinda had like this leaderly impression. You couldn't help but respect the guy haha. We're excited to keep meeting.
Our Saturday was pretty much unbelievable. I think I already told you that we got into an international basketball tournament. So we showed up to find out that our team got booted for some reason. That was a real bummer, but I think it was all part of the plan haha. After being there for about 5 minutes, the announcer was like, "OH HEY, looks like we've got some Americans here with us today!" And then he came over and had us introduce ourselves. That got us a chance to talk to pretty much everyone there, players and spectators. Then the guy gave me the mike and asked me to do some commentary on the games in English! Haha it was so funny, I had a blast. Turns out this MC guy is a famous rapper, and we got his number cause he wants to meet! He also shared our English class on Facebook, and talked our church up too! So random! The pictures were hilarious haha!
The plan is still for me to go to Kielce. It's gonna be cool, but I'm definitely gonna miss Warsaw a lot. It's my home in Poland haha. It's been really cool to be here so long, get close with the members, and see the city and branch change. I'm definitely grateful for the time I've had here. But yeah, it'll be interesting to see what the new city brings!
I hope you guys have a great time at Lake Powell! Love you Mom!
Elder Haskett

August 6th

August 6th

Hey Mom!
Haha I had the same thoughts this last Sunday at fast and testimony meeting. As I got up I think I finally realized how long I've been in the branch here. I didn't really ever expect to say goodbye. I don't think the members were expecting it either, everybody thought I was a permanent fixture here haha.
Anyways, I'm glad Lake Powell went so well, haha what else was I expecting? Not one person sent me any pictures, I'll be waiting on those next week!
Wow, I can't believe summer is already over for the boys! It went by really fast haha. Is Luke pretty excited for West Ranch? I guess the orientation stuff is probably already done, it's getting real haha! I can't wait to see him get into sports and all that stuff. I was actually just thinking the other day that it would be fun to drive Noah and Luke to school one of these days just for old time's sake. I get updates from Kati every once in a while that confirm that the life lessons I taught Noah on the way to school his freshman year have stuck with him, for better or for worse haha. It's crazy to think he's a senior now.
The sushi surprise last week was awesome haha! We met the family last week in church, they were visiting, and they invited us out! We had some pretty adventurous foods there, try raw salmon with raw egg on top for example, and pretty much just had a good time. They were super nice.
Things are still going really well here in Warsaw. We had a crazy week last week. Just trying to meet with all the people we've met the last few days has been nuts, but also awesome. We got out to see that family the other day, which was awesome! They're doing really well. Only problem is they live way out of Warsaw, so it's hard for them to get to us, and for us to get to them, but we'll see what we can do.
We also met with this girl the other day we met at the basketball tournament. We met this awesome group of students, and she was one of them. At first, she didn't seem so interested, but she started messaging us, asking all these questions, and it sounded like she was doing a ton of research. We had a meeting last night, and it was really powerful. She pretty much soaked up everything like a sponge, and the whole time was just like, "Wow, this is so different. I've never felt like this before". Then later that night she said she couldn't stop thinking about it all, and felt an overwhelming urge to start making changes in her life. She read the Book and other stuff we gave her all night long. Crazy stuff!
Last Saturday we had another race! This one was right in front of the chapel, so we got a bunch of the members, and all of the missionaries involved. It was awesome! President even ran with us! Haha, we had a good time, and we actually placed really well! Kriser, Wood, Mandla, and I all placed top ten for our age group, and Bart placed top ten as well! Wood actually came in first out of everyone for our heat, which was awesome hahaha. We've all got medals and some cool shirts and stuff.  The race was also a really cool opportunity to talk to people about the church and then invite them in. We lead tours for the rest of the afternoon, and then 2 new people were in sacrament meeting yesterday because of it! Really cool!
Other good news, me leaving meant that a bunch of members wanted to feed us last week, and we're set up a few times this week too! Haha yesterday we were at this American family's house. They were way awesome. Had some amazing homeade bread and lasagna. That's a rare treat in Poland haha. It was also kinda weird, because their daughter and her friend were visitng from home, they go to university in the States, so we were just talking about school and stuff. One of them is going to BYU, so we might run into eachother sometime. It was weird talking about classes and stuff though, kinda reminded me that it's all coming up soon.
The goodbye part of this week has already been rough. Like I said, the members weren't expecting it. It was hard, Warsaw has pretty much become my home branch haha. I did promise them we'd be coming back though, so we've gotta make that happen! They're pretty excited haha!
I'll be heading off for Kielce on Thursday pretty early in the morning. It's bittersweet for sure. I definitely don't want to say goodbye to Warsaw, but I'm excited to make some things happen in Kielce. I feel good about it. I know that time is going to fly there though, I think I've only got like 16 days there? Crazy fast.
Elders Einfeldt and Alvarez go home on Friday! It's insane! I'm gonna miss those guys!
Welp, I hope you have an awesome week, Mom! This is me signing off in Warsaw:,)
Love you Mom!
Elder Haskett