Battle ax!

I don't thing the TSA will approve of this carry-on????? 

January fun!!

Just a little weekly recap!

So this week was crazy cold. It snowed every day. Literally every day, and sometimes all day. Luckily we're making the most of it. We found some plywood in a dumpster and snowboarded the other day. Then when we had crashed to many times and hit too many trees, we took a rope and dragged eachother around tracting. Made the night a lot more fun. My knee hurts a little now though. Oops.

Basically anything like that to make the cold better is awesome for us though. Unfortunately, my shoes are getting trashed. The salt and snow just wrecks leather. I might have to pick up a new pair of shoes at the end of winter.

Other than that tough, this week was fun. On Wednesday, we discovered a little secret. Apparently Polish people are really bad at 20 Questions. We teach 3 different English classes now. WIth the more advanced classes, we usually play word games. And 20 Questions was a little too much for them. We tried to teach them little tricks and stuff, and I always helped them, but man, it was a train wreck. I went first on one, and obviously asked like one of the basic Q's, like "Is it alive?' or something like that. The lady that went next went for, "Is it raining outside?" We told her that didn't make sense, and gave her some suggestions, so the next question was, "Is the chair blue?"

So close.

Also we got a dartboard for the apt. It's fun. Not gonna lie, I might make darts the new ping pong.

Teaching wise, unfortunately we got flaked a lot this week, but we did have a great lesson with a new investigator. She's an arts student who wants to double major in English literature. As you can imagine, she's an interesting character with some weird philosophies. She's got great questions though, and wants really do some investigating with our church. We just have to make sure she doesn't get too science-y with it. I was just really glad I had studied science and world philosophy that morning in language study. Usually sections like that in the flashcards don't exactly come in handy, but what do you know. 

Also, I found a battle ax. I think I might get it. It's really cheap. You should check out the pictures.

I think that's it for this week though! Love you tons Mom!

Elder Haskett

Workout missionary style!!!

Elder Haskett and Elder Torres

I'm not going to say anything about the mess.............

He is "rocking his Euro-skinny pants"

January 18th

Hey Mom!

Sounds like things are back to normal at home, czyli crazy as ever. Sounds like sports are going pretty well, that's sweet!

Can't believe Noah broke his nose that's a bummer, but not a big enough bummer for a break from playing time! I'm still convinced that I broke mine when Brother Henao elbowed me in the face playing basketball at the Church. I couldn't touch my nose for like 8 weeks without it killing. 

I remember nursery used to be your dream calling. No teaching, lots of snacks, lots of kids to hold. Not much to complain about. I taught nursery in Kraków a couple times, that was interesting. Lots of tic tac toe and rock paper scissors.

Things are going pretty well in the ward! The members are really cool and really willing to help in the work. A sister had us over for lunch the other day, and I don't think I've ever eaten so much in my life. That being said, I don't think I've ever eaten anything so weird either. We had this mushroom soup that was really... interesting. After that we had bigos, which is like basically just like the Polish equivalent of sloppy joe meat, so yeah that was fun. She made about 20 lbs of mashed potatoes, so we all put down like 6 huge scoops. BTW, the whole time we were eating, we were drinking this weird brown juice. About halfway through, I asked what it was. Onion Honey Juice. ???

Barbara and Jan couldn't come to church this week, they were out of town. But, last time we met with them, they had 2 friends over. All of them took Books, committed to reading and praying, and then said that they'd get baptized if they got an answer! It was really cool. Also, Barbara took us to a choir tryout the other day. I was a little nervous cause we don't exactly know Polish songs. Anyways, the first one was in Latin.We sang a Gregorian Death Chant. It was wild.

But they did ask us to join the choir, so I guess we killed it.

Yeah the whole Polish Mission President was big news here. The members are super excited. It's a big step forward for the country and for the mission. We'll see what he brings to the table.

So finally, I also was asked to speak in Sacrament this week. President gave me 25-30 minutes on the Atonement. I don't want to say I killed it, but I pretty much killed it. It was a Haskett talk. Unfortunately, not as many jokes, but those'll come with more Polish. Anyways, in Wrocław, half of the memebrs live in a city about an hour away called Legnica. We hold a meeting there too once a month. That was this Sunday. Since I was speaking, I had to speak there too. Awesome.

In other news, I finally finished my 12 week training period. I'm a full-fledged missionary now!

I think that's it for this week! Love you guys so much!

Elder Haskett

Cool statues in Wroclaw

January 11th

Hey Mom!

Sounds like it's been a busy week haha!

Anyways we've had a pretty sweet week this week! Lot of fun stuff, it warmed up a bit from last week, there were even a few days where the snow was melting, which was nice. I forgot how horrible walking on snow all the time was. Kinda wrecks your shoes. 

About the adventurous food thing: I don't eat food that makes me sick if I can avoid it, but we have had a fun transfer as far as cooking goes. Elder Torres can cook pretty dang well, we made fried chicken the other night, and apparently we're going to be making cheesecake tonight. I don't really know how that's gonna work out, but it sounds pretty cool to me.

Barbara and Jan did come to church again! Between us and the rest of the district here, we had 4 investigators there this week! It was crazy, we ended up taking them out and having our own "Sunday School" with them (it was a missionary discussion). But yeah we're meeting with them again tonight and hopefully we'll be able to commit them to baptism. Other than that, we've spent a lot of time trying to contact other former investigators that have disappeared. We've had some success! We've got a couple lessons set up for this week, including a meeting with a lady who recently gave birth. Her daughter Helena isn't doing too well. She wants me to bless her. Like in Polish. It should be a really cool experience though. Wish me luck.

I guess I can be grateful to Poland for being so cold, all the snakes are dead. That's kind of a plus. Spiders can't live here either. Woohoo.

Also one more thing! I got the package from Sean and Michelle! It's awesome, but I don't have their email, could you tell them super thanks and then maybe sent it to me? That'd be awesome!

Anyways I think that's it for this week! I'm not sure, but I'm guessing I've missed a ward newsletter or 2 recently. I don't really know the schedule for that, but sorry if I've been blowing it lately!

Love you guys!

Następnym razem,

Elder Haskett

It got cold!!!

It's a new year!!!!

Hey Mom!

Kind of a crazy week this week! I think I already told you that we couldn't move into our apartment first thing last week. We stayed in an old one for a couple days while the sisters moved out and then we took over. We basically spent the first 3 or 4 days of the transfer moving and closing down apartments.

On top of that, it was FREEZING. The first day we were here I noticed it was a little colder than Kraków, but it just dropped. The last few days it's been hovering between -20 to -10C, which I think is something like 0 to 10F or something like that. We got snow on New Years day, and that storm lasted about 15 hours, so we got a lot of it. Then it all froze, so people are just slipping and sliding right now. I finally broke out the thermal garments, as well as some leather gloves, a beanie, 2 pairs of wool socks, and now I'm double-dipping with my coats. Apparently it'll only get colder. So yeah, the hand-warmers are doing me well. 

So as far as the work goes here- we've already found 2 really cool investigators! Their names are Barbara and Jan. They're pretty old, but they work at a university, so they're super cool. We met them while it was snowing, and they invited us over the next day. The lesson went really well, and then they actually came to Church. They broke my zero streak there. That was really cool. I think they're really helping me with my Polish too. Now that I'm not with Vance anymore, I get to speak a lot more often. I guess I should say I'm forced to speak more often. It is working though.

Anyways, the members here are awesome, they were super nice to Barb and Jan. President Cieleński here is awesome. His English is the best I've heard from any Polish person, and he's barely got an accent. He uses normal phrases too. He called one of the elders here a nerd, and I'm gonna quote him here, "It's too cold, the streets are all icy, and I keep slipping and eating crap." Sounds pretty American to me.

So yeah on another note, I got my first European haircut. That was a real language stretcher for me. None of the missionaries here know how to ask the right way, so they just make it up as they go. It worked out all right. Becky will be happy to know that Epic Salon still does it better.

I got the first 25 days of Christmas package this week, along with a box from Grandma Lou! They were awesome. I especially like the American Kleenex. It's so cold here our noses just run all the time, and Polish tissues are pretty horrible. You'll have to tell Grandma Lou thanks for me! I don't have their email address yet! Can you send it to me?

I think that's it for this week, all good stuff! Love you so much!

Elder Haskett