Extra time!

Dear Family, again,

 

Well I got some extra time online somehow...so before the other Elders kick me out, im going to give a little thought/activity! Most of you may know this, and if you do, its cool to revisit, or to tell friends.

 

Read Jesus the Christ by James Talmage and go to the chapter His Death and Burial. Look at the note on the cause of the Savior's physical death and then ponder it. I think it is the icing on the cake for the atonement. I read it all the time to remind myself of what the Savior actually felt, in a word for us. its so awesome.

 

Also, I just shared this with Steve but Ill tell everyone. Go to Alma 32:28, a verse about the Gospel. Now, underline the first letter of each of the 4 things that the Gospel seed does and is.

 

S well within your breast

E nlarge my soul 

E nlighten my understanding

D elicious to me

 

Cute, huh?? Be sure to pray for opportunities to plant or harvest this seed within others, and be willing to act upon the opportunity, and the Lord will answer your prayers. Its all missionaries do, and it sure as heck works for all the other members! Have a great week everyone, and try not to see too many comic book movies while I'm gone!!!

 

Elder Haskin

Life is short. Stunt it!!!

Dear Family,

 

It seems really weird that I'm already writing to you again. I feel like I was just here yesterday. It is starting to get really hot here in Escondido and it SUCKS.

 

So last Tuesday, after we did email, we went and picked up our groceries from the other Elders' apartment, where we leave the fridge stuff during email, then went home and just kinda chilled out for the rest of the P-day. Later that night, we went over to the Evans' with the intent of teaching the plan of salvation. When Shawn said she didn't do her reading, Elder Spendlove decided that we would scratch the plan and just tell our favorite stories/things in the Book of Mormon. After us and Steven (the husband) shared, she said something about it being really interesting even though she wasn't planning on being baptized. Then it was quiet for a minute and I asked her "why don't you plan on being baptized?" and she said it weas cause she didn't know it was true and didn't think she would. So, Steven, being the Gospel Beast that he is, read a couple verses then turned to the intro of the book of Mormon and read the last two paragraphs. Before he read the last one, he asked her what she thought about the blessing she'd been given while pregnant. She said she believes it worked and that the Priesthood was real. Steven proceeded to read the sentence saying once you have recieved a witness, you've recieved a witness that the entire Gospel is true (see the last paragraph, cant remember wording). And she sat for a sec then said "so if I know the blessing was real...then everything else is too?" and we all just left it silent for a few minutes. Steven finished reading, and as he did she started crying. The spirit was so crazy strong in there. She then accepted our invitation to be baptized, and since then has made it known numerous times that she believes the Church is true and that she got her answer.

 

So that was amazingly awesome. And they had us back the NEXT day! Wednesday we had dinner at a less actives house, and had french toast. Then we taught Shawn about the atonement in depth for about an hour and a half. Oh, and I think Steven added us both on Facebook--haha! And he gave us a bunch of CD's from his mission in Lubbick, TX. We spent the rest of the night contacting basically.

 

On Thursday, Elder Spendlove had to go to a training meeting since he is the new District Leader, so I was put with another DLs companion--who was 2 days old! So I basically trained for half the day which was legit. We biked around a lot and got some potentials just from tracting, which is always a miracle. I think I kind of baffled him with my answers/scriptural responses to some of the Anti questions he asked about. I've got some pretty mean Bible knowledge now from having to look that stuff up, which is a blessing! But we never bash, just try to teach and bear testimony, cause as Nephi says, the guilty taketh the truth to be hard! Hahahaha. Later we had dinner at another Inactive's with just him and a guy staying with him, so it was a man's night! Then Spendlove interviewed one of the other Elders' investigators who was then baptized on Saturday. That service was SO SWEET, but only Joe could make it of our investigators. One of our other dinners was at an older Mexican member's house and she made us some ridiculously good thin steak tacos. Oh man that was awesome. On Saturday I attended the ZL/DL conference and learned about a lot of revelation President Cook has gotten for this mission, so this transfer is gonna be sweet! Our district baptism goal is 15, but we think we're going to exceed it already.

 

Church was great Sunday. We fasted for our district and so all across it some sweet things happened. We broke our fast at Candy's for dinner. She is from Lousiana so she had some ribs, beans and chicken cooked cajun style and that was great. Wre went and taught Shawn after that and she took the Plan of Salvation well, even the Kingdoms of Glory, finally! We're going over there tonight for dinner. After we leave we have a district activity. OH and I made phad thai for dinner last night!! That was really good. I felt like I was at home. Well, better write the individges. In closing, and Ill explain this more next week, our new zone motto is...

 

STUNT IT!

 

Stay tuned for the meaning! Its an acronym...

Love you,

Elder Haskin

Torch

Yooo hooo!

 

Speaking of which, one of the elders in my district is obsessed with the dink yoohoo...so we arent the only ones! And by that i mean drink.

 

This past week has been pretty busy. Well, kind of. Last friday we had a PMG Fundamentals training at the Felicita building (it's sweet looking...google map it) with President Cook. He is seriously like a GA. He said so many incredible inspired things. It was awesome. He had me read/answer things a lot...I think he is starting to like me! Haha. It was 3 zones, and we did a lot of practicing and watched video clips and read, etc. One interesting thing to do is to read D&C 76 thinking of it as a walkthrough of the doctrine of Christ. We did that and it was suweet! For lunch their relief society made us bag lunches with these huge sandwiches and cookies. They had a special bag for me off to the side that said "no cheese" on it, which was really cool. During lunch we watched the documentary of the Joseph Smith papers, describing a lot of things, including how he translated, a part where Oliver Cowdrey fell asleep, etc. A big point they made is that people who think the BOM is fake/a story obviously have never seen the couple hundred pages they have of the manuscript. It is written in flow, with no punctuation, at a quick velocity, to the point where it is literally possible to prove that they took no time whatsoever to plan, correct, or fix anything. The only part that was changed, was when Oliver spelled "Coriantummer" and Joseph corrected him with the spelling "Coriantumr," a phonetic device that did not exist in the English language, but rather Aramaic.

 

Another thing, which is epic, is that he talked of a time he interviewed an Arabic man. He was having issues with the Book of Mormon's authenticity, so President Cook referred him to 1 Nephi 5? I think 5. maybe not. Where Nephi says to Zoram "As the Lord liveth.." he will spare him, outside Jerusalem. The man was shocked. A middle eastern tradition which is basically a life or death oath originating from the time is "wa hayat Allah." Meaning in old english "As God liveth." Bam. That guy was like, okay nevermind some white american guy with a 3rd grade education did not pull that from thin air. Hahaha.

 

So that was awesome. We met with Candy again and she is progressing well. We'll be meeting more this week, since she is busy now. Suco has been dodgy but we met with him once....and he was high as crud. He kept laughing at random things. Sooo yeah. Candy wants her baby blessed "when" she is baptized, so she has the right attitude! Man it's so hard finding here, but we are working on it! One of my tires popped the other day, so I've been using a different one from another bike. We bike a ton, and my legs are definitely getting pretty strong. It's weird haha.

 

The ward is starting to trust us a lot. The Young Women's leader flat out said that she trusted us and loved us. Some awesome young couple we had dinner with said that it was nice having confident, trustworthy elders. Bam! Plus our bishop is just sweet. We had a special 3rd hour ward missionary presentation by Brother Lopez, which was sweetastic and got all the members way excited to live as an example and do missionary work! As President Hinckley said, "our people become the most meaningful symbol of our faith" instead of the cross.

 

So, all is well. We are pretty well fed finally! I had a Mountain Dew Supersonic vanilla milkshake at the other elders' today...that was like pure menergy. Oh, also, candy calls me "Torch" because she says my personality reminds her of the human torch from fantastic four. Haha!

 

Have a great week everyone, love you!

 

Elder Haskin

Update from Escondido

So, this week we went on exxhanges AGAIN! And I was with another greenie--one from my MTC class! It was pretty awesome, though we weren't too successful.

 

We are now teaching a guy named Joe, who is living with a member of the church ( plans on marrying her), and he wants to have the "happiness" she has. We invited him to be baptized next month and he is all for it, and is super interested in the Gospel. So far he hasn't come to church, but he really wants to. Speaking of which, another person we are teaching named Elizabeth, but she goes by Candy (black woman duh), came to church on Sunday! We havent had the chance to meet with her since, but we think she really enjoyed it and there were some good talks. Amy and Suco have been really hard to get to cause they're so busy but hopefully this week we will!

 

Some of the ward missionaries are the Barnharts, a younger couple, who also have the responsibilty of getting dinners for us. They are doing a great job, and we have met with tons of members and less actives because of it. Brother B is so awesome; he is a convert of a few years, and has a crazy story. He used to be into all sorts of drugs, and actuall died TWICE in one week from heroin overdose! After that, he decided he needed a change and joined the navy, and a few years later married a mormon girl and decided he wanted to join the church! He's 6'7" and has a bunch of tattoos and a goatee, so he's pretty intimidating, right? Wrong. He is the biggest goober EVER. He is so awesome, and he loves to come out with us!

 

Hmm other than what I've said there isnt much news. We ate at Bishop Dye's again, and it was tuna salad. Nasty. But I ate it. A couple also cooked us each about 20 oz of steak! That was awesome. We have biked a lot and man sometimes it hurts! Going north or east, you are ALWAYS going uphill!! It sucks, but the way back is always good!

Well, I havent gotten any mail this week so far, which sucks. But that's okay. Hopefully soon! Have a great week!

 

Elder Haskin

P.S. - A couple pictures since im short on time!!

First photos from the mission

That's me! You may have seen Mr. Bean with a similar facial expression...

?

Most people don't know it, but Mormon missionaries get lightsabers.

Yeah--mine is orange.

On the plane from training in Utah to mission work in California

The San Diego Temple. For a cool explanation of why we build such magnificent buildings, check out this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-x_-TQivCx8  

Each mission has a "Mission President" that lives in the area and directs missionaries. Here's my presdient's home.

My apartment--Escondido, California

Apartment

Apartment

My trainer--Elder Spendlove

PS

"HEY! HOLA!

Somos los missionarios y que remos darle una tarajeta! Si tiene interes de aprinde hey missionarios que habla espagnol!"

That sums up HALF of my life. I don't know how to spell spanish so I probably made some mistakes. That's the first I've written it! So many people here only speak spanish..it's ridiculous. Half the time, they can speak English and they just say "no, no english," but then after about two minutes of talking you realize they were lying. But it's all good.

Life has been going pretty good here in the ol' Escondido hills. It's getting hot though--it was 92 the other day and we were biking!

So we had a couple potentials, and older Mexican lady named Gertrudes and a woman named Amy. It was going pretty well with the former, then she said she wasn't interested now, and the latter kinda disappeared recently..so we haven't gotten in a real lesson yet! We taught the boy Jorge a couple more times and got him to commit to baptism, and he seemed pretty interested, but we haven't seen him for days!! Man this area is HARD. People are nice, but super flakey.

I went on exchanges sunday to monday with my district leader which was cool. We had dinner at some members' house named the Jorgensons. Apparently he owned like 4000 acres of hill land and stuff, but it all got turned into subdivisions, and he recently bought a lot of it and designed and built a house on the top of a hill. It is HUGE and really cool. They have like a quarter acre garden and a view overlooking the whole city. We had "porkchops" and mashed potatoes, with frozen yogurt and strawberries from their garden for dessert. And when I say porkchops, i mean ARMADILLO. We had roadkill for dinner!! It was pretty good.

We visited a young couple to talk to them about missionary work. He had a pretty nice drumset all mic'd up, and played guitar and piano too, and said I should come over on P-days....but he is in a different area!! So dumb. Monday night I was back with Elder Spendlove and we had brinner at a member's house. I had 3 entire waffles (the whole iron) with peanut butter, syrup, strawberries and whipped cream. That was so good! After that we went and taught a less active guy about the Book of Mormon and got him to commit to start reading it again. Then, we pretty much wandered around the "Flower Streets" (Aster, Begonia, Camellia, Daisy, etc) in our area looking for contacts/people we knew. We caught a young, inactive couple, the McCorkels, just bringing their stuff in from the beach, so we talked to them for about thirty minutes. Apparently, they will feed us whenever we want! We didnt eat at that time though.

Hmmm...I don't know what else to say. Not too much has happened and we don't really have investigators. So hopefully that will change soon! It's hard to believe a month of my mission is gone already--and apparently it starts going even faster! I get home May 29th, for whoever is wondering. Well, my ministerial license expires then anyway. Hmm. I got my bike last p-day after emailing. Its a Kona Lana'i, which, according to a bunch of mountain bikers i talked to on the street last weekend, is an extremely nice bike. And it is. It's probably the most awesome bike I've ever ridden. It works super well, and I definitely want to keep it after my mission. Hopefully this will work--maybe I can have Todd come pick it up from the Mission Office when he gets back to CA after picking me up, then somehow we can get it to Utah for me to use at school! Having a shoulder bag is really nice cause it doesn't make your back overheat, plus the Taska ones have  a little thing you can put around your waist so it doesnt get in the way while biking. Basically, I have the hookup!

I don't think there is much else to tell the family. I can't recall if I told you this already, but make sure to use the USPS Flat Rate priority mail boxes for shipping to me, or else I have to wait for Zone Conference! I forget the zip code, but send it to   451 W Bobier Dr  Vista, CA. They forward those to us, only USPS though. I could use food any time by the way! Heheheh

Well, off to individual letters. Then I'm going to our distrcit activity, which is kickball I think. Then home to chill out. Peace!

Elder Haskin

PS- The subject is PS because suddenly EVERYONE had a PS in their email this week!! Me too now.

First Field P-day + Empty Inbox = ?

Hey Family, what's up?

So, my P-day is Tuesday, and Mom and Dad should have gotten a letter about it,  but anyway you know now.

I'll just start with the basic things. My area is Escondido Hills B, and I'm in the Escondido Hills Ward. My companion's name is Elder Spendlove, and he is only about 5 months out, but he is really good. Our apartment is on the ghetto side of town, so it's pretty dinky, but it works. I haven't gotten my bike from Bob yet so I'm borrowing one from a zone leader. My companion actually has the exact bike I'm getting, the Kona Lana'i, just 2 inches bigger. It's pretty dang nice.

We started out with next to nothing. Our area book didn't have dump in it, so from wednesday to saturday we basically just tracted about a tenth of the area. People are pretty nice, and in our part of town, there are a lot of Hispanic people who are even nicer. We got nothing out of knocking doors and just gave away about 100 or so pass along cards. I had a few doors slammed in my face but most of the time people are nice enough to realize we're human beings. We've probably biked like 20 miles in the region we tracted. We do have a part time car, Monday through Wednesday, which is nice.

We taught an older lady with an insane spanish name I can't spell, but we cut it short cause there were a lot of distractions. Hopefully we'll have a return appointment. We also found a lady named Amy who actually voluntarily gave us her number and told us to call her to set something up. And, we found a kid named Jorge who is about 18 and let us come teach him about the Restoration last night. He took it pretty well, but he is super nice so it's hard to tell if its feigned. We are going back to teach him tonight at 8, about the Plan of Salvation.

Our ward mission leader, Brother Lopez, is way awesome. He is super into everything and has all this intricate stuff for us and the ward that I couldnt even begin to explain. He is really helpful. We went to Ward Council Sunday at 9 and met all the leaders which was good. They started to get a few dinner appointments for us, since we've just been eating on our own mostly, the first being the Bishop's family who had us that evening. Last night we ate at the Navarrete's, a part member family. The mom is white and a member, and the kids are members, but the Dad isn't. He is way awesome though. He's definitely Young Men's leader material. Super cool. We had what tasted pretty much exactly like Chipotle Burritos, which was SWEET.

I should probably mention. We were tracting some day last week, and had just had sandwiches for dinner. And at about 730, some guy came out on the street and asked us to come in. Then he gave us each 2 chicken and rice burritos and said his roommate was a member and usually feeds us. So we'll be going back there sometime.

At home all we have been eating is mostly peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and frozen burritos/chimichongas. Which are pretty good. We have worked so hard that we eat like ravenous wolves when we do, and I fall asleep at about 1031 every night. I have a nice tan line from my watch already.

I don't know what else to tell you...whoever gets this first, I have a little over 40 minutes left on the computer, so text/call everyone and tell them to quick send me an email so I have something to reply to for them. And if not, I guess I'll talk to you next week!

Love,

Elder Haskin

Week 2 Down

Whats up, family!

Man I hate this time limit crap! Good thing next time I email, in the field, I'll have an hour, and itwont cut off at the last second! So that will be much nicer. I've been pretty rushed today so I'll try to think straight to write a letter.

I've been reading and sudying a lot. My scriptures are starting to get heavier from all the lead and ink in them. I've learned so many things, both pertaining to the lessons and just the Gospel in general. I have learned, surprisingly, a TON about the Celestial Order, and how Heaven works. Which is awesome. I also have taugh the first vision about ten times and taught like 30 lessons at least. Our district, since last Friday, has had the goal of teaching 200 lessons by the time we leave for CA, and so far we're at almost 100, so its not too shabby. Also, I'd encourage you to read 1 Nephi 9:3-5? i think it is. It shows how Nephi had NO idea why he was commanded to write the same things as his father, but the Lord had a purpose, which purpose was to prepare for the loss of the 116 pages of the Book of Lehi by Martin Harris! It's so cool how the Lord just takes care of EVERYTHING.

We got our flight plans. We go to the travel office at 5 AM tuesday and have like a 845am flight to San Diego (Delta of course!). But I have to pay for checked bags which is dumb. Prepare for a big charge, Dad! Sorry! That will be so exciting. Elder Kikuchi spoke to us last night, and told us how some missionaries at the end of their rope decided to tract down his street 50 years ago, and ended up converting him by the powerful testimony of Joseph's first vision. And DOZENS of people have been converted or born into the Gospel as a result. So basically, we never know if we're teaching some slomp stamper who will go inactive, or a future general authority!

I will send hom some pictures probably next week, since we cant acccess our flash drives or SD cards on here (we are toddlers i guess). Meh. Well, off to write the individuals!!

Elder Haskin

Introduction to the MTC

Hey family!

Those of you who guessed that I havea time limit were right. It's a programthat basically is gmail.exe, in a missionary disguise. Witha big countdown in the corner. I'm at 19:30 after reading all the letters, so I'll see how much I can write, plus the keyboard sucks.

My entire district is going to Carlsbad, as well as a few other missionaries I see around. I've been waking up at 6:20 so that I can get one of the warm showers, and usually dont fall asleep till around 11-11:30, so I've been pretty tired. Our district is so crazy. Everybody in it is awesome. We already have tons of inside jokes, including many involving Stephen Hawking, whom we talk like frequently. I also drew some pictures of him. You'll see the pictures at some point.It's nice to hear about everything that has been going on back home--sounds like a lot. I haven't been super concerned with the outside world, but occasionally I do wonder.

I have gone to the TRC (teaching resource center) a few times now. I have two progressing investigators (paid actors), one actually is an old couple, the Petersons, who likes to fish on Sunday, but believes in the Mormon church, just not attendance. The other is an old guy named Arnold who likes to hike and wood carve. We talked about some spoons he was carving for awhile and found out his wife had died from cancer a month ago, that his Grandson died in a car crash, and his daughter, the mother, died three months later, and he has an eagle scout with terminal lymphoma. So basically, lots of death. We've talked to him about the plan of salvation, particularly about what happens after death, using verses from the bible (I'd tell you them all, but I left my notes in my room). I'm also teaching my teachers, Brother Thacker and Brother Peterson, which is intersting.

I have practiced tons of teaching situations and planned at least a dozen lessons in the past six days. I've also marked around 100 verses, and memorized many more. We've had some pretty profound spiritual experiences while teaching or reading the scriptures together. We started out today by going to the temple at 7:20am, and going through a session. That was so great, it was awesome to be with all my district buddies through that! THen we ate at the cafeteria; I had an omelet, bacon and hot chocolate. So it's been a good morning. Me, Elder George, Clark and Armstrong (New Zealand) all sat outside and ate bag lunches while writing letters. I haven't gotten like any mail. It's pretty sad by comparison.

I've also been goiung to choir, and think I'm getting better at singing. I sang at the quorum of the seventy devo last night "let zion in her beauty rise" on tenor. I think im moving to bass though, cause I had to strain a bit. Also, some of us are singing a long to I need the Every Hour w/Elder Armsterong on Piano for a special musical number. Man im running out of time! Making a lot of typos.

Anyone who wants to forward their stuff to the family go ahead, im moving to individual letters. Peace till next Wednesday!

Elder Haskin

First Letter of the Mission

Here is Ben's first letter to the family, from the Missionary Training Center (MTC) in Provo Utah. Future letters will most likely come in email form.

Note that Ben's Preparation Day (i.e., the day where he doesn't have to do regular missionary work and gets to write letters, do his laundry, etc.) is Wednesday. This day will likely change when he arrives in Carlsbad in a few weeks.

Click each image to enlarge it in a new window.

Going to the MTC

Here are some pictures of Elder Haskin before he entered the Missionary Training Center (MTC) in Provo, Utah on May 25, 2010. This basically marks the official start of his mission.

Click here to view photos of Elder Haskin right before the MTC