17 Sept. 2001

Dear Family,

Here I am in the house of a member of the church doing laundry because for the past 3 days, our apartment's been practically without water. The apartment people advise us that we'll have water for like an hour so everyone has to gather water in buckets. Annoying. One night we came back thinking that we were going to have water like normal but - there was none, and we did not want to sleep all gross like. They hadn't even told us that they were going to take away the water so we went to go talk to the guy who turns it on and off, and after like 10 minutes of bargaining, he said that he'd turn on the water for 10 minutes to give us time to bathe quickly. My comp said, "ok, then start the time when we get to our door" but he said "the time starts . . .now!" We all looked at each other, and then we took off sprinting towards the house. Needless to say we were all very grateful to that guy.

Last night I had a rad dream. I dreamed that I was on a vacation with you guys out in some little town where there were lots of small quickie marts, and for some reason we went to all of them looking for cool stuff to buy. In the last one, I saw HUGE bags of Funyuns like the size of a bag of dog food, like 3 feet long. And they only cost $5.88! I bought 2.

Last week I lost my bank card that they give us here in the mission so we went to the bank last Monday and got a new one, and I had to reactive it after Wednesday. Today I plan to do that, so I can shop.

Lately at nights I've been making myself papaya shakes. Mmmmmm, tasty.

Last Tuesday was the World Trade Center airplane attack. I first heard about it at like 11:30 a.m. when I was talking to a guy on a bus and he told me about it. I didn't think much about it - what the repercussions would be or anything but that entire day everyone was glued to the TV and no one wanted to learn about Jesus. :( At lunch I was able to see the building fall on TV. And that night at Correlation (same night here as mutual) the bishop, who's the young entrepreneur type who speaks english perfectly was explaining exactly what happened and what could be the results of the attack. It was then when Elder Adair and I, the two gringos in the ward, started to talk a lot about it and got silly scared. We got home that night and the Zone Leader's phone was broken, so we couldn't get ahold of him. But the next morning the AP's called us and told us that the 1st Presidency had sent them an email warning us to keep away from any US buildings and just to be safe. Everyone here's just devastated. I hope that it prepares more of this people to listen to the gospel. Have you heard anything about Rebeccah Salata, who is on her mission in NY?

Sorry if I'm spelling horribly or if my sentence structure is messed. It's not my fault!

I love the Book of Mormon! This week I've read a ton and I'm just still amazed how clearly it explains the plan of salvation (happiness), and the role of Jesus, everything! No wonder why this book is the keystone of our religion.

Tomorrow we have interview with the President. That should go well.

The work in this area is slow going. Right now we have planned a baptism for the 25th of Sept. It's the daughter of a part member family. Everyone's members but the Dad and the daughter. She's 8 or 9 and is happy to get baptized. The dad is 110% supportive of the church and the family but just doesn't want to ask God to see if he should get baptized. He also just started working as a taxi driver so that will keep him out of the house :( but luckily I bought the Book of Mormon on cassette for another investigator (another story) so I'm going to let him have it so he can listen to it in his car while he works. I've felt a lot that if he reads the Book of Mormon, he'll feel the need to repent and be baptized, and then to go to the temple and be sealed.

Well, I think I'm out of things to say.

Chao! Nick