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