Hispanics are Awesome (October 15, 2008)

Dear Family,

I love serving the hispanics here in New Jersey. There are really fun and really fun to be with. There are tons of them in New Brunswick, from every country imaginable. We were street contacting with a member and a less-active in Brunswick and we were talking about how there are no white people in that part of the town. My companion and I were sure that there must be some white people somewhere but the members didn't believe us. So we decided to try and find some gringo but 30 min went by before we so any white person at all, only hispanics and morenos(blacks). It is really great here, not a cooler place in the world.

So this past Friday one of our investigators got married(finally). This has been in the works for the past nine months and I am super stoked that I get to be here to see it happen. The wedding was in our church building and almost the entire branch showed up for it. He has been going to church for the past eight months so everyone is really excited that he is getting baptized. Anyways, so the wedding was supposed to start at 7:30 and then there was going to be a big party afterwards. I was really excited for the party because all of the members brought food form their own country and I was excited to eat and listen to all of the crazy hispanic music. But everyone was late and the wedding didn't happen until 9:15. So basically we got to see the wedding, took a couple pictures, grabbed a plate of food to go, and then rushed back to the apartment because we were way late getting home. It was a really cool wedding though and he is getting baptized on Sunday.

In other news, I am in Princeton today for Pday. We took the train down so that I could pick up a bike that I bought from an elder that is going home next transfer. It is a really good bike and I am stoked to finally have a bike that is mine and the gears don't slip every 5 minutes. The bike that I have been using was just left in Brunswick by another elder and it is a bike that you would buy at walmart for 100 dollars and it is to big for me. But now I have my own bike so I am stoked.

Also hispanic food is really amazing, especially Dominican beans. We ate at a Dominican's house and they gave us the best plate of rice, beans and chicken that I have ever eaten. I really love hispanic food and everything that I have eaten so far has been really good. We also had spicy mexican meatball soup with rice and tortillas called albondigas. It was really good but I destroyed one of my shirts because she made me laugh and I spilled on myself. We also had really good tostadas at a members house in Redbank. I was on an exchange for a day with one of my zone leaders and we went to correlacion and he fed us tostadas. I had three stacked high with beans and chicken and they were really good. Today we are going to Chuck's in Princeton to get cheese steaks(they are supposed to be amazing).

Other than that the work is great. I am learning tons and my spanish has improved lots. It really helps to be just hear it an the members are always a really big help with it. We go and help them with their english and they help us with our spanish. It is really great and spanish is awsome. I love to see the looks on the hisapnics' faces when you say hi to them and speak spanish. They are usually really suprised at first and then they asks you how you learned to speak and then it flows really easily into talking about why we are here and what we are doing. I am getting more comfortable with just being able to talk to people and I can pretty much understand everything that is going on even if I don't understand all of the words. I am still working on expressing myself and expanding my vocabulary but it is all coming along really well.

I love the gospel and the scriptures and I am so glad to be out here teaching the people in the best mission in the world.

Love,
Elder Haslam

P.S. Dad if I could get 100 dollars in my account I would really appreciate it, that is all I need and I should be set. And if you could send me a couple pairs of thermal garments I would appreciate it. Winter on a bike is supposed to be rough without them. (7 degrees last year)