24 September 2001

Dear Family,

Hey! How's everything going? Well, I hope. Not too much has happened this week . . . we went another spell without water (along with practically the entire urbanizacion La Isabelica, which is huge). Last Tuesday we had interviews with the President, and going along with what President Boyd K. Packer said in a letter, he interviewed me and gave me another temple recommend! It felt good because I've been since Dec. 31, 2000 without a recommend. It felt good. And it's in spanish! Tuesday I also got a letter from you guys dated 30 August 2001. Just to let you know, I've got plenty of envelopes, just thought I'd switch it up a bit. So school started, huh? Started here, too. But you guys are lucky becuase here, everyone who goes to school has to wear a uniforms, and depending on what grade you're in depends on the color of the shirt you wear. Also, here people fail and are held back a year all the time. I must admit that this country isn't the most scholarly.

So Skyler's taking spanish and biology, huh? Spanish - easy :P, and biology got way easy once I started going my homework (which was usually way easy to do) and reading the chapters at home that we were studying in class. Skyler's a sophomore, but . . . Chelsea? Are you a senior already? Better not be.

I assume that now with the school in session that family prayer, FHE, and family scripture study will be easier to do, right?

Chelsea, cheerleading? Sky, wrestling? Man . . . I'll be home before this year's wrestling season ends (that's if they go past league).

About coming here - if you still think it would be prudent, what with the World Trade Center attack thing - the wife of Pres. Blacker would be the best source to go to about what to get and all that. I heard her talking about rent-a-car and hotels and all that, but I don't know.

Saturday night I was able to go over to Hermana Bocanegra's house and hear her tell a rad story about a catholic priest in San Francisco. She (Hermana Bocanegra) is from Caracas but is visiting family here in La Isabelica, and she was also the first woman baptized in Venezuela! She is a small lady in a wheelchair but has a huge faith and is way Christ-like. It's kind of ironic, too, her family here in Valencia is all hard-core Catholic.

Elder Castillo and I will have a baptism on Tuesday (finally!) of a little 8 year old girl. We're also teaching her father, but he doesn't want to get baptized - yet. The rest of the family are members.

The grandma of some investigadores and the cousin of another died this week. We're praying that they'll be humbled enough to want to continue and progress. When we found out that the grandma had died, the following morning we went to the funeral parlor to go visit them. They were way happy to see us there, and later that night my comp went over there and taught a short 4th charla, which talks about before birth, this life, and after death, spirit world, the glories, etc. He told me that night when we got back that he had never felt the Spirit before like he did there, and that they all (5 of them) felt it too. I came by the following night to see how it went (the mom, Elder Castillo told me, said that she thought that she needed to get baptized after learning all that and after feeling the Spirit) and when I passed by the mom told me that just before the visit of Elder Castillo, she felt feelings of confusion like she had never felt before in her life, but during and after the charla, she told me that she felt such a peace and that she knew that her mom was in the spirit world listening to missionaries just like us.

We've got changes coming up on the 18th of October - we expect Elder Castillo to leave, and maybe Elder Adair, and a Zone Conference the first Tuesday in October. We just got our copy of the mission photo, the one we took at conference with Elder Nelson.

About the levels of missionaries thing. It's a little like this: [draws a diagram]

D.L.'s in charge of missionaries, Zone Leaders in charge of D.L.s, APs in charge of ZLs and the APs tell Pres. about the zones and their dats, etc. Office Elder Positions: Secretary of President, Finances, Registers, and Materials. Most like it for a few months but at about 5 or 6 months they tire of it. They help the mission run. Lots of times office elders, after having been in the office, go out as Zone Leaders. Assistants are to be the "model" missionaries for all.

Well, gotta go. Love you all lots.

Nick.