Happy and Sad

Dear Family,

So this past week has been a really good week. It has been kinda rainy on and off and we have had some crazy thunderstorms but everything is going well and we are still moving along. This past Thursday we got soaked to the bone because we were not expecting it to rain so all we were wearing was sweaters. By the time we started riding home I was shivering all over. fortunately neither Elder Rhoton or I got sick so that is something to be grateful for. We have been more careful going outside though.

So two major things that happened this past week. First one happened on sunday. There is this little kid in our branch named Cristofer, and he comes to church with a family in our branch. His family are not members but he always spends time at this members house and she asked us to go over and teach him a little bit. So we have been over there and we have taught him about prayer and we read from the book of Mormon stories book with him. It is a nice book that really makes the scriptures better for children and it has cool pictures so he likes it. Anyways last Saturday we asked him to pray and ask whether the book was true or not. And he did. It was really funny because we were sitting in sacrament meeting with him and he turned to me and said very loudly 'the book is true.' At first I didn't know what he was talking about but the he said 'I prayed in my bathtub last night and God told me that the book is true.' I could not stop smiling and I almost laughed. He prayed and got an answer. How simple is that. The faith of a child is a great thing.

Secondly, we had an exchange with our zone leaders this past Monday. I went to Pleasantville (near Atlantic City) with Elder Ritchie and it was really fun. It was way nice to be able to spend sometime with him and work with him again. He is signing up for classes at BYU for Fall semester. It will be weird when he goes home. He is finishing up his mission and I feel like I am just getting started and figuring things out. He is definitely one of my best friends out here. He only has two transfers left which really fly by on the mission and what is even crazier is that when he goes home I will hit my year mark. It all goes by so fast. Too fast sometimes but I guess that is just the way life is. It just keeps speeding up.

Mom and Tal thanks for the emails. And I would really love it if Tal went to BYU. I think that we would have a ton of fun. That is one thing that I do miss being out here is doing stuff with Tal. We did everything together and it would be way fun to do more stuff, like hike and bike in the mountains, go snowboarding and skiing, and all kinds of other good stuff. OH, and Tal likes the older women I see. I am sure that she is a great girl though. You were never one to put up with any stuff that you didn't like and not say anything about it. And mom, I know that there is some girl out there someone, I have just decided that I am not going to worry about it anymore. Perhaps one day a beautiful woman will fall from heaven, that loves to cook(hispanic food) and dance, but until then I will ignore them. Which is what I am supposed to do which makes it easy.

And kinda of a sad note. I wrote a letter to Dad last week about this girl in our branch that is having some major problems. We saw her last night because her mom asked us to come over. It was really sad. This girl here is really destroying herself and she is now getting medical help and everything but she is still dating this guy that is sucking the life out of her. She seems to have just given up hope. She knows that she should get rid of him but she is so afraid of the consequences that she will not do it. She said that she is finally starting to feel back to normal with the medical help she is getting and that she will go right back to were she was if she dumps. So she says that it is better if she just goes on pretending than if she breaks up with him. It was really a sad conversation. So we told her to do three things: first was morning and nightly prays, second was to actually study the scriptures daily, and the third was that she needs to keep a journal. But with the journal she is not allowed to be negative. She has to write three blessing that she received that day from the Lord. I really hop that that helps her. Other than that we cannot really do anything else. We are not supposed to be counselors so now we will just have to trust in the Lord. I am sure that she we break up with this guy eventually I am just afraid that she is going to screw up really badly before she does.
I read the story of Enoch when he asked the Lord why he was crying. That is how I feel about this whole thing and the worst part of it all is that I cannot do anything else.

But life goes on through sorry and pain to higher points of joy and happiness. We just need to learn how to avoid the sorrow as much as possible because it will come anyway. We do not need to go looking for it.

I really love being a missionary. It puts a smile on my face everyday when I can tell people about the restored gospel of Jesucristo. Thank you all for everything that you do and I hope that everything is going well. Tell Sam that I am thinking about him.

Love,
Elder Haslam