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