January 15th

Hey Mom!

Bummer to hear that basketball is off to a rough start. I guess that's West Ranch though, if we're not on top of our 3 point game, we're not doing too hot. Hopefully Austin and the guys come together, I'd like to hear about a win this week with Hart haha. How's Noah doing by the way?

The know vs. know about Heavenly Father question is always a good food for thought question. It's usually pretty safe to say that with people we're meeting with over here, the majority of people just know about God. The relationship is rarely personal, and that's what it's meant to be. It's a pretty self-evaluating question to ask, and I think it's a good way to get people to think a little more about their prayers and things like that.

Our week was pretty solid haha. Things warmed up a bit, so getting out and working wasn't too bad. Still cold, don't get me wrong, and it's still snowing, but I think the Siberian winds thing passed by already. Hopefully the worst is behind us. As far as investigators are doing, things are still going really well. Our solid investigator is still going strong with his resolve to quit smoking. Now he's had all the lessons, and accepted all the commitments, so it's crunch time haha. He's feeling good about baptism though. We set up the service the other day, cause he came to President Turek's daughter's baptism and wanted to know how his was gonna look. He's also pretty concerned about the quality of the food that's gonna be served there. The brownies we had last Saturday are gonna be pretty hard to beat haha. I think that we're actually gonna make a cake with him haha. Should be sweet, the yellow cake we made last week was first class.

We had zone training again last week. That was pretty cool, and then when we did a big finding activity, President came with us. We actually tag teamed it for a while haha. Met a crazy politician that wants to meet with us, we'll see how it goes!

I think I'm gonna send all the BYU stuff in a separate email! That's all I got this week!

Love you!

Elder Haskett

Brrrrrr!

Hey Mom!

Haha rain in California, hopefully it keeps up till I get home so I'll see some green! Haha I've heard that pretty much ever since I've been gone, the drought has gotten better. Are we still on all those water restrictions? Haha Elder Einfeldt always jokes around about that and says that we shouldn't worry about it so much, cause we can just use the ocean. I always shoot back and say that him and the rest of Utah should start drinking out of the Great Salt Lake haha.

Glad to hear that Noah's still doing well in basketball. Can't believe that season already starts this week. Let me know how things go, and if we have another Malice in the Palace incident this year hahaha.

So yeah, you could say that it's been cold lately, and that would be an understatement haha. Last week things pretty much froze. The hand warmers have been saving my life, but it's still so cold. Apparently there's some like Siberian winds blowing through lately, and so everything's freezing. Whenever Siberia, or Siberian is used, it generally implies really cold. We did that thing last week where you boil water, and then throw it off the balcony and it freezes in mid air. A video is on the way haha.

Our week was pretty cool though! We've been meeting with that one solid investigator still, and things have been getting pretty serious. We finally did the Word of Wisdom lesson with him, and I knew it was going to be a big one cause he's been smoking for 10 years now, and he also has a drinking problem. He said that he'd try his best, but he was really worried about it. We offered him a blessing, and he said he thought it would help. Basically the blessing was nuts, and he said that he'd never felt the Spirit like that and to be honest I don't think I had either, and he hasn't smoked since. It was awesome. He came to church again this week, stayed for all 3 hours, and we're feeling pretty good. Cool stuff! Other than that, we're planning on meeting a few new people this week, and we actually got a referral from an investigator last week, so things are looking good!

Caroling is finally over, that's a bummer:( We did end off with a bang though. The last door we knocked on let us in, and we got to talk with a really cool family for about an hour! They fed us this really weird, but pretty good fruit, said I'd make a good lawyer, all that good stuff. I swear, everybody here either says I'd be a great lawyer or politician haha.

Also some pretty classic awkward moments this week. At church, my hands were getting really dry, and I was getting really desperate, so I asked one of the sisters to use her hand lotion. Right in the middle of our little handoff, one of the other sisters in the branch was like, Elder Haskett, are you using girl lotion? I was caught pink, fruit-scented, handed. Then earlier this week, I was on the phone with a sister, and I was trying to say bye, and out of reflex, I was about one second from saying "Love you", but I caught myself on the "Lo-" and then was like, "Aaahhh gotta go bye". If it wasn't bad enough, she figured out what I was about to say, and now pretty much the whole district is making fun of me for it haha.

There was this guy on the metro with us yesterday that was a little crazy. We were standing there, and he started singing a song to us, then saying 'tenor' over and over again. Then he would just say, "beautiful music" and smile. It was right at the end of a particularly cold finding activity, so I think that was a little tender mercy of the Lord for me haha.

As far as BYU goes, I'm on top of everything. I sent in the request through myBYU, and I think I have an interview scheduled for tomorrow with Pres at Zone Training. I think I might be rooming with Elder Liechty, but I'm not sure how the whole request roomate process works. Do you have to talk to his mom or something? Also, as far as location goes, I've heard that Heritage isn't bad, but I guess I don't know much at all about it haha. I'll talk to some other missionaries to figure it out. Do you need anything else?

One more thing, did you get the package I sent? I hope it got there on time and in one piece!

I think that's it for this week though! Love you Mom! Enjoy the back to school grind!

Elder Haskett 

2017!!