Tuesday, June 17, 2014

June 16, 2014 Letters

On Mon, Jun 16, 2014 at 8:49 AM, Amy wrote:

Elder Hackleman,

I guess you heard the bad news, The Heat choked. Labron played well and made a lot of points but the Heat got stomped by the Spurs. Game over.

In other news, Nichole Uhl is engaged. She looks very happy in her pictures so that is good.

Seth is working a lot lately. 6 days a week, every other day for Bed Bath and Beyond and at the Tim Law’s baseball fields. He is running the t-shirt press.

Becky took Nathan and Grant out to the fields and let them go down the slide with her kids. They sure had a lot of fun.

Nathan has another basketball camp to go to this week.

Nathan was asked to give his testimony during church yesterday about scout camp. He did a great job.

We had a pretty low key father's day. We put a roast in the crock pot, so after church we ate then watched a few movies. You are going to love this, we watched Saturday's Warrior. Ha Ha. I remember you singing, "There is a Distant Lamp, that Lights the Way for Me, I hope they hold it high so I can see," Good times.

Then in the evening Seth and I went out with the Sister missionaries for an appointment that we got stood up for. Oh well, we had a family that I had gone to with the sisters about a month ago that we could not get into the door. The wife had been taking the lessons about a year ago, but they weren't really very interested. They were just real nice. Anyway, we knocked their door and the husband answered a month back. He was so nice, we invited him to church and he kindly said he wasn't interested. The problem is, I could not get this family off of my mind, so I asked the sisters if we could try them again with Seth. The husband is Mexican and he is an interpreter. I also saw a Nebraska flag on their house and asked if he was a fan and he told me just of the football. I was quick to observe and knew that Seth was the key to getting in the door.

Yesterday, we went back and this time the wife answered and she was the only one home. She was kind, but not interested, so I played the Seth card. I explained that he was going on a mission in August to Mexico and would really love to get some tips on learning Spanish from her husband. Now we hit a cord. She invited us back when her husband was home. She agreed for her and her husband to take the missionary lessons and help Seth learn some of the language in Spanish.

I do love missionary work. It is in my blood. As a ward council we are reading a book called, "The Power of Everyday Missionaries." by Clayton M Christensen. It has the What and How of Sharing the gospel. It is so awesome. There are couple of points that stand out in the book that I would love to share with you. First of all, it talks about how the majority of people you meet do not know how to pray or read from the scriptures. As far as prayer goes, many churches have recited prayers so even if they are church going people, they do not know how to pray for themselves. Spending an entire lesson teaching the proper way to pray and receive answers is vital to missionary work. He suggests that you always assume a person does not know how to pray and automatically incorporate the how to pray as part of your missionary lesson. Secondly, even avid readers do know really know how to read the scriptures to get answers to questions and prayers. Reading scriptures is not like reading a novel so an alternate way to read scriptures would be a wise thing to teach as well.

It is suggested in the book that you start off a meeting with a question to the investigator to have them tell you what doctrinal questions they have in their life. After you have a question from the investigator, give them a homework assignment to find the answer. For instance if they wonder about baby's getting baptized, share with them the scriptures in Mosiah 18:1-16 and Moroni 8. Then write a 2 paragraph answer to each of these questions:

1. Why does it make God so angry when people baptize little children?

2. Why does God want us to be baptized in the first place?

3. What is the process by which we come to be forgiven of our sins?

To get the answers go through these steps:

1. Pray on your knees, aloud, telling God that you got this homework assignment. Ask him to help you understand the chapters as you read them.

2. Read the chapters

3. Write your answers in draft form to the 3 questions.

4. Kneel again in verbal prayer and explain to God the answers you have written, just as if you were talking to Him face to face.

5. Read the chapters again.

6. Revise your answers based upon your deeper understanding.

7. Kneel again and pray a 3rd time. This time you need to ask God if the things that you have written are true.

I am going to use this the next time I am in a teaching situation.

I sure love You!

Love Mom


On Mon, Jun 16, 2014 at 11:14 AM, Elder Hackleman wrote:

This is my cow. Her name is Tomasa. Ok she isn´t mine but we visit her often when we go to a sister´s house that we are teaching. She has some other farm friends that live there too. Those pigs that my companion and I are holding were born during our lesson!!!!!!! Haha so we had to go grab them and take a snap shot or two. Haha

Hey mom!!! I sure feel a bit of a different spirit in your letter and in dad´s could it be that you just had a huge financial strain lifted from your shoulders????!!!! WOOOO!!!! Hhaha that is so awesome. I am stoked that Nicole got engaged as well. Haha is it to the guy she´s been dating since forever? Help Nathan anyway you can mom, every chance you get, take him out to shoot hoops. Give him a few pointers but not too many. He knows alot and he knows what he is doing. He just needs the encouragement because something Seth and I have both gone through is at his age, we greatly undermined our potential in things. We lacked alot of self confidence, the faster nathan can find that, the faster he will grow to be a great young man. As you can see, I am not even talking about just basketball or even just sports. Nathan has more potential than probably any one of us to turn into someone really special. It can come through sports, by gaining self confidence and realizing how much worth he has to his family and the entire clanking world when he invents a time machine or something! He´s growing up fast and so is grant. Seth already got there. There is no right of mine to be able to call him a kid still. He is a man. I have thought so much about my brothers this week. All three of them. For being the oldest, I sure do feel like I have three examples bigger than me in those guys. We would be nowhere though if it weren´t for our mom and dad. It has made me realize that it just may be that we weren´t just randomly placed together in the same family. I often recall the words of an old friend of mine, he said it before he even came here to earth oddly enough. ¨What is that sound? Rising up from the world. It´s the sound, of a clock, ticking on.¨ Time is ticking and my brothers are growing up. Grant for sure could beat me up now if he wanted to. Luckily for me the kid has no evil bone in his body. =) I sure do love you mom. I hope you don´t forget either, even though it passed yesterday, what a perfect choice you made 25 years ago in being sealed to our dad. He´s done so much for our family and is one who is never heard complaining. When he had jobs he didn´t like, he still got up in the morning and went to work, many times fighting his lazy kids to get up and get ready for school haha but never complained. I can work here on my mission with alot of peace in my heart knowing that my mom is protected back home by a dad who loves her in a way that only a couple people could understand, Heavenly Father and our brother Jesus Christ. I sure love my family!

Oh yeah! And wanna know something crazy, that book that your reading in ward council, I have it =) You´ll never guess who bought it for me either........ Grandma Karen!!!!

Elder Hackleman

This is my cow. Her name is Tomasa. Ok she isn´t mine but we visit her often when we go to a sister´s house that we are teaching.



Those pigs were born during our lesson!!!!!!

I love Bacon!




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