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