Nativity in Mexico

Hey mom! Sorry I failed today on writing. As always, it was a pretty crazy day. The baptism went great! Thank you so much for sending me my skype info! I was just about to ask it from you:) I'm sorry this letter is so short. I just wanted to say thanks for yours and the update on how everyone is doing in Nebraskaville! I can't believe volleyball is killin it so much! I feel bad this is so short, but at the same time, I will get to skype you this week!!!! clankin yes!!! Is Jaren going to be there or will he just tune in?? Love you mom! Thanks for everything! Keep workin hard! I heard Utah won! That's what im talkin about!!!!!

Love
Elder Hackleman


On Sat, Dec 19, 2015 at 8:26 AM, Seth wrote:

Hey mom! Guess what! We are going to have a baptism today! I thought I would shoot this message off really quick with a couple of photos. 

All Roads Lead To The Temple

Elder Boyd K. Packer explained, “All roads lead to the temple, for it is there
that we are prepared in all things to enter the presence of the Lord ...

I Love to See The Temple, I Went There Today!

Hey mom! Guess what! We are going to have a baptism today! I thought I would shoot this message off really quick with a couple of photos. I got to go to the temple with my comp this week for a sealing of some past investigators! Greastest moment of my life! Here are some pictures outside of the temple we took while we were waiting. I had to take them with my comps camera because I still don't know what to do with mine. oh well!

On Fri, Dec 18, 2015 at 5:21 PM, Amy wrote:

Dear Elder,

Christmas is fast approaching. I can't wait to talk to you! Things are going great around here. Just our regular busy holiday stuff. I made 25 cheese cakes and puppy chow for gifts for your dad to give to all the people who work for him.

Grant is having a video party at our house tonight. This should be interesting ha ha. Nathan is of course working at BB&B.

So the national volleyball championship games are held here in Omaha. We tried to get OTC's tickets for the final four games yesterday but so did every other employee ha ha. It was a sold out crowd and the tickets were going for big bucks. Man Nebraskans love sports. Nebraska volleyball is starting to be kind of like their football program. They have had a ton of games in a row sold out for volleyball. It has the best fan base in the country. I recorded the game and just finished watching it. Nebraska won, so they will be playing for the national championship on Saturday. We tried once again to get the OTC tickets but they were grabbed quickly. The game is already sold out with the exception of a few VIP tickets still available but they are going for $200 bucks a piece. As I was watching the warm ups they were introducing the starting line-up and three of the starters are from Papio South. Of course there are the twins towers and they are called, but their setter is also from Papio. That's pretty amazing. We were playing against Kansas and they had a player on their team who is from Lincoln. Nebraska is certainly a power house when it come to volleyball.

I love sports so much. I can't believe you and Jaren are going to be playing on the same clancking football team. Nathan said during weights yesterday coach Olsen asked how you were doing on your mission and when you were getting home. Nathan loves to talk about you so that is good. Did I mention he gave a talk in church on Sunday. He talked about you in his talk and he said you were coming home in April. He slipped and said the wrong month under pressure. As soon as he got finished with his talk he realized what he had said. Everyone was coming up to us after church asking why you were coming home early. It was pretty funny and caused quite a stir. We quickly corrected his mistake ha ha.

I can't remember if I told you that BYU and Utah are playing each other on Saturday in the bowl game held in Las Vegas. This is going to be quite the rivalry. I hope Vegas is ready for some craziness. This will be coach Mendenhaul's last game at the Y. He transferred somewhere else, I can't remember where. They don't have a new coach to replace him. They tried to recruit the guy who coaches for the Navy team that was featured on Meet the Mormons but he turned it down.

Well, I better go start getting snacks ready for Grant's party tonight. We are still trying to figure out what Nathan's work schedule for next week is. He should find out at work today and I will write you in the morning to figure out the best time to skype:)

I sure love you!

Love mom

My Favorite Hot Sauce

This is my favorite hot sauce in Mexico.
Can you see if they sell it in the states?
If they don't, I will need to stock up before I come back home.

Grantish! As we say here in Mexico, "Que padre that you got to speak at your buddies baptism!" Está bien genial! I am glad you liked that story! Just so you know Danny was our ward mission leader who returned home from his mission like 2 years ago. His little brother was the 16 year old who baptized him, but oh well! That part isn't important! Hey so I need you to do me a huge very important favor. If you like hot sauce I need you to look for one for me. If it doesn't exist in the US I will have to bring a couple bottles home with me. It is the food from the Celestial Kingdom, also. I have attached a picture of it. It is called VALENTINA. It is made in Guadalajara! See if they sell it in Walmart for me little buddy! You will like it a lot! It isn't too spicy but tastes yummy!!!! Please put those tiny fingers to good use while you still can, because one day you might be bigger and taller than me! (ha just kidding;)

On Sat, Dec 12, 2015 at 1:55 Grant wrote:

Hey bra how's life in the heaven of food? Your never going to believe it I'm in the hot sauce stage. So Karon's baptism was today and guess who baptized him... ok it wasn't me but I gave a talk that made bishop get a tear in his eye, not because of how good my talk was but because I told the story of you and the dad that didn't want to get baptized until you came around.

Sorry that's all I got today cause I need to help dad fix the oven cause I have small fingers and all:)

Love you bro,
I hope food heaven is going good for you
G-man Hack-Attack

Merry Christmas From Mexico!

Hey mom! So you are going to hate me, but my camera is dead and I cant find my charger! I haven't been able to take many pictures this week. That picture I sent was one I took off of my phone so it isn't great quality. We have been doing all of the Christmas conferences this week! It has been quite interesting! It still feels weird being ap I'm not going to lie.

So president's kids come in to the offices every Tuesday and Thursday so I can help them with English and so they can have piano lessons. We somehow got on the subject of food, (surprise surprise), and President Cordova started saying how weird it was that we eat hotcakes with bacon!

Hotcakes and Bacon
Food that comes Directly from The Celestial Kingdom
In My Humble Opinion

I was like what??? You don't like food that comes directly from the Celestial Kingdom? His kids said they had never tried the two together before so this Tuesday I thought I would make them a surprise! I went out and bought a little bacon, and before they came in on Tuesday, I made them hotcakes and bacon! haha. I even made the cool pancakes in letter form and I spelled out each one of their names. I then had to go to the church to help set up for the Christmas party so I put their plates in the fridge for when they got there. Well turns out, they didn't end up coming to the offices this ONE time so they never saw my surprise! I left it in the fridge for Thursday, but by then the pancakes were like cookies haha. When they saw it they were super bummed out they didn't get to eat it. I promised them I would make it again on Christmas. It was pretty funny:)

Speaking of Christmas, what are skyping plans??? I think my comp is going to skype on the 24th. would that be ok?? I am getting super excited to talk with you guys! Do you know if Jaren and Chelsey will be able to make it? Tell Nathan to keep working hard, but he better be there when I call!

That is too bad about Grandpa. I hope everything turns out ok for him...I feel so bad that my grandpa has cancer! I keep sending him very happy, (hopefully), uplifting messages. I told him today that I have been saying all along that the cure to cancer lies in Naked Mole Rats. I told him to tell his doctor to check into that haha.

The other thing is, I can't even tell you how disappointed I am that I was unable to accompany you to the blood drive. I suppose this is one of those all or nothing situations right? If I miss out once, you will never let me do it again right? (ok, I am wishfully thinking). I guess I have permanently lost that opportunity.... shuckey darn. I guess I will have to find another hobby! (Side note, see previous post about Elder Hackleman's greatest fears in life and then you will understand the sarcasm in this message).

The story with the car is totally awesome! It just goes to show that when you are on the Lord´s errand, He will always pull the strings to make things happen!

Thanks for the letter mommie! You don't even know how much I love you!

Elder Hackleman

On Sat, Dec 12, 2015 at 9:06 AM, Amy wrote:

Dear Elder,

This morning is Grant's friend, Karon's baptism. Grant is giving a talk at it.

Grant got to speak at Karon's Baptism

We are so excited. Nathan has his Christmas choir concert tomorrow. Grandma and Grandpa Roger were thinking of coming for it. If they do they will drive this morning. I haven't heard for sure if they are coming or not. Grandpa had an appointment earlier in the week and it appears they have found some more cancer. He might have to do chemotherapy again. We don't know exactly when or the details yet. For Thanksgiving he was cooking up a storm making all his favorite foods and even had a couple of new items we tried out, like a sweet potato souffle that had bananas in it. I remember thinking, most men at his age would be curled up in a chair watching football, not in the kitchen cooking and cleaning.

Apparently the missionaries helped them decorate their Christmas tree. That was sure nice.

I am getting ready to head to the church because it is blood drive day. I know you are really sad you cannot go with me to donate blood ha ha. Nathan is working and your dad is working too. This is one of the days where your dad has to work at the warehouse, so sadly I will have to go by myself.

I have worked again on updating your blog this week. Man, I am amazed at all the good pictures you send. Some days we are getting 300 page views and likes and comments a day from random people I don't even know from all over the world. I just got caught up with all the wax museum images. Those have really gone viral ha ha. Keep up the good work!

I sure love you.

I wanted to share a little story with you. The other day I had a bunch ward visits I needed to do. The problem was, my check engine light came on in the van. I panicked because we just had it serviced so it wouldn't be because of a cheap thing, like spark plugs or something like that since they were all recently replaced. I was trying to decide whether I dared drive it in that condition. I checked everything and couldn't see why the engine light would be on. I went ahead and did my visits. Then, yesterday I was going to the temple. Once again, I hated to drive that far on a car that has the check engine light on, but decided to risk it one more time. To my utter amazement, after having the check engine light on all week, it magically didn't come on. I went to the temple and all my errands yesterday and it hasn't come back on at all. I really feel like it was a miracle for me.

I can't wait to hear from you!

Love,

Mom

A Letter From My Uncle

This is my Uncle Joel
He is so inspiring.
I wanted to share part of a letter he sent me.

Elder Hackleman,

Well it has been a really long time since I have written you a letter. To be honest, I am NOT writing a letter now. Instead, I am dictating while driving to Twin Falls. It is a little easier to talk rather than write, especially while driving.

This might be a rather lengthy email. I felt you may want to know what is going on in our lives.

Things around our house have been pretty hectic lately. Tyler received his Eagle Scout award on November 29th. It was really cool and I am so proud of him. He also received an Eagle palm and has enough merit badges for the other two already. Football is over and the boys are starting their winter sports. Which reminds me, we have a new addition to our family that I want to tell you about.

XXXX is a 17 year old boy that we have known for a couple of years. When I say we know him, I mean that he has participated in football and baseball with Tyler. He has really only lived in American Falls a couple of years though so I did not really know him other than a teammate of Tyler's.

Last spring, Tyler came home from a baseball tournament and said that the entire day he was with xxx he notice xxx did not have anything to eat. Everyone was told to pack snacks and a lunch. xxx had neither. At the end of the day, they were on their way home after a long day of baseball and stopped at a restaurant to get food. xxx stayed on the bus because he said he was not hungry. Tyler recognized that really what was going on is he did not have any food and did not have any money to buy food. This was unacceptable to me and certainly freaked Ann out. Her motherly instincts kicked into high gear because she could not imagine a child going without food an entire day while participating in sports.

From then on, Ann made sure that Tyler had plenty of food to share and plenty of money to help xxx make sure he had enough to eat. From then on, Tyler insisted on sharing his food and buying food for xxx on their trips. At first xxx tried to resist but Tyler made sure he felt comfortable with the idea. We had Tyler try to find out what was going on in xxx's personal life because we could not understand why his parents would not be feeding him.

Tyler discovered that xxx did not have parents.

xxx's sister did her best to take care of her brother but she is only about 22 years old. We were out of town one time when Tyler received a call from xxx indicating he had been left in American Falls without anywhere to stay the night and it was raining. We finally found someone to take him in for the night but we were ready to make the 2 hour drive back to AF to get him.

At that point, we offered to have him come and stay with us. He declined at first because I think he did not want to put us out and he really didn't know us. The truth is, we didn't know him either. However, Ann and I had a strong feeling it was the right thing to do and we kept insisting.

I consulted with xxx's sister and she knew that it was absolutely necessary that xxx leave her home. He moved in on August 3rd and brought all of his belongings with him which he carried in his arms in a big pile. I then started the legal process to make sure that we could officially have him in our home and make decisions for him. Ann and I went through the difficult process of becoming licensed foster parents just so we could make it possible for him to live with us.

xxx was not a member of the church. We explained that as part of our family, he would be expected to go to church each Sunday with us but he did not have to accept any of the teachings. He agreed and explained that he did not intend to ever become a Mormon and wanted us to respect his religious beliefs. We agreed.

Amazing things happened and there a lot of funny stories that go along with them, but I will leave some stuff out to try to make this as brief as possible. A missionary serving in our area is a Tongan football star from Utah. He and his companion stopped by our house and got to know me and my boys, including xxx. He formed an instant relationship. As I mentioned, xxx plays football and loves the game. He was just starting his senior year when he met Elder Lui a huge guy who knew everything about football.

After a couple of visits to our home as well as a luau at Jared's house, xxx accepted an invitation to be taught by the missionaries even though he still insisted he wasn't joining the church.

Xxx had a few spiritual experiences which bore witness of the truth of the gospel to him. One of those incidents saved his life because we had talked anout spiritual promptings and listening to them. For example, he listened to the spirit when driving a dirt bike motorcycle onto a roadway during a homecoming date. He felt prompted to look a second time and saw a truck coming that he did not see before. He ditched the bike before getting hit by the truck. He was scraped up in the process but avoided certain death. He was able to recognize the source of those promptings and was able to feel the same thing when reading the Book of Mormon and praying about the church. These feelings helped him know God existed and the gospel was true. I am confident there were angels protecting him that day.

Tyler baptized xxx on November 7th, what would have been Grandpa Howard's 71st birthday and just two days before Elder Lui returned home to Utah from his mission. Yesterday, xxx received the Aaronic priesthood and was ordained to the office of a priest. We are very proud of him.

xxx has become part of our family. He considers Tyler and Beau his brothers and Oakley his sister. He calls me, dad and Ann, mom. He considers himself more of a Beck than anything else. He really fits right in.

xxx and Beau are both on the varsity wrestling team. That is quite an honor since our team is pretty good and Beau is a Freshman. We are really excited to see them wrestle this year and hope for great things. xxx is ranked 2nd in the state.

Tyler considered not playing basketball this year so he could focus on weight lifting. At the last minute, he decided to go ahead and play basketball again. He plays some of the time on junior varsity and some of the time on the varsity.

Oakley is taking ballet, gymnastics, and she is learning to play the violin. She is also keeping us very busy.

Since you went on a mission my partner and I purchased a new building. We renovated the inside as well as a significant landscaping makeover. We just had our open house this past week.

As you can see, we are very busy and are having a wonderful time. We think about you often and talk about your success as a missionary. We pray for you and hope that all is well. Keep up the good work and know there are others like xxx out there who need to be loved and taught the gospel. There are certain missionaries set apart to connect with those who are ready for the gospel.

We love you and hope you will stay safe.

Uncle Joel

Only 2 Things Really Scare Me...

I can go up against a 350 pound lineman in a football game and that doesn't scare me, but the two things that really put fear in my heart are:

Shots and Spiders!

I know, it's a true phobia!

Dear Mom,

Life is going good here. We had our leadership council with all the zone leaders and stuff. That was fun. we will be starting the zone conferences for December here pretty soon. We are already working on that training meeting. President gives everyone a flu shot thing during Christmas time. I am pretty sure I will be giving them to everyone:) Maybe I will be able to sneak out of them since I will be administering them!!! Hurray!!! haha. Life is good though. It gets stressful at times, but the good news is, TONIGHT I HAVE A BAPTISM! I am so excited:) It's a family of four:) Next week I will send you the pictures!:)

I hope everything is going good in Nebraskaville! What are politics lookin like? And what is Nathan up to these days? 

Love you mommy!
Can't wait to skype!!!
Nos vemos
Elder Hackleman


On Sat, Dec 5, 2015 at 8:58 AM, Amy wrote:

Dear Elder,

How has your week been going. I got behind on your blog so this week I worked diligently to get caught up. I am only one month behind now instead of three ha ha, but here is the thing, I have been getting private messages from folks who are following your blog. It's fun to hear from them.

We had a good week this week. We had our ward Christmas party yesterday. We had a real good turn out and a wonderful time.

We got a little snow this week but it warmed up some so most of it is gone now.

Grant wanted me to take a picture of him eating a burger so he could be just like you.

I can't wait to hear from you.

Love,
Mom

Mission Office

We came back to the offices and found a little drawing on the white board.
Our mission president's daughter had drawn a picture of everybody who worked in the offices.
Look at what she wrote for mine!

A Story about a Missionary

Let me tell you a little story. It's about a boy who one day was found studying the scriptures and Preach My Gospel......

When he soon realized that there was trouble about......

He realized one thing...

He had to take action!!!!!.....

BUT WAIT.....!!!!

He almost forgot his name-tag.... phew!
That was a close one!

I'm Batman!

You don't wanna mess with this!

YO SOY BATMAN!
Wax Museum - Mexico

Nimbus 2000

I thought the nimbus 2000 got destroyed in the whomping willow!
Lies!!! All lies!!

Dumbledore!

Dumbledore in disguised as Gandolf?
I think not!

Superman!

Superman accepted a baptismal date for next week.
He said he will invite some friends.
Fun Times at the Wax Museum-Mexico

Missionary Meets Elton John

Elton John wanted to take a selfie.
I CANT SAY NO TO ELTON JOHN!
Wax Museum-Mexico

Fidel Castro - Wax Museum, Mexico

Fidel Castro did not appreciate it when I tried to teach him 

THE WORD OF WISDOM

Missionary Poses with The Beatles

The Beatles said they want their dinosaurs back!

Wax Museum-Mexico

Missionary Picture with Obama

I asked Obama to come and give me a recap of recent happenings in America!
Wax museum-Mexico

Elvis is Alive and Well, Living it up in Mexico!

He is living underground eating peanut butter sandwiches....

At least he appears to be at the wax museum.

Just a friendly game of Domino's in Mexico!

These guys thought they could trick me in a game of dominoes,
just because I am a gringo!

I got this!

O.K. it's at a wax museum

Do you want to Rumble?

I had a lot of fun posing at the wax museum in Mexico.

The maze of mirrors-Mexico!

We had to do a little posing:)

Missionary with Mexican President

At the wax museum!

Circus anyone?

Cool little circus selfie!!!

Crazy Missionary Photos - Touring a museum in Mexico

Do you notice anything out of place?

Missionary on a bed of nails, Museum-Mexico

I laid on a bed of nails. I'm kind of a pro!

Tallest Man - Wax Museum, Mexico

This guy thought he was bigger than me, well maybe he is,
but I'm still tougher:)

Good Luck Bench

Today for p-day we went to a wax museum and a Ripley's Believe it or Not museum. I found this bench made out of horseshoes. I thought it would give me good luck if i sat on it. (Notice how awkward my knees are, they weren't made to bend that way. but I was trying anyways:)