Jordan's January 25, 2010 letter

Dear Family,

Thanks very much for the great letters I got from you all about Grandma´s funeral and everything else that´s taken place. I am feeling much better and much more comforted now than I was a week ago, that´s for sure. Thank you for thinking about me and praying for me - I know your prayers have been heard, because I´m feeling a lot better, the work is good, I´m healthy, and we had a wonderful baptism of Damian Ezekiel Lisarde this Saturday. Yay! I´ll be sure to tell you about it!
I guess I´ll start out with the baptism. It took place on this last Saturday, the 23rd of January. I was the one who baptized him, and it went really great! I got changed into my all-white outfit after having picked Damian up in a Taxi, and I played the piano for the service, and after the talks and all that Damian and I headed out before everyone so that I could show him to the font. He was really excited to be baptized but a little nervous, but he was ready for everything. The water was freezing - it was really cold, but after standing in it for a while it seemed alright. The baptism was perfect; he was happy (it took place at about 7:00pm here, so like 3:00 back there) and was confirmed on Sunday. Yay! I am very happy for him, and I know that he and his grandma are very happy about this decision he took. They are wonderful people. His 9yr. old sister was there too, and she was really happy to see her brother be baptized and was emotional. They live in a different area, but we hope that through Damian´s example that she will make that choice too!
The rest of the work is good right now too - nothing really out-of-the-ordinary or anything. Elder Reyes likes to mess with the dogs but more especially with the cats here (he doesn´t like cats), and it´s pretty funny. He is a rocking Elder and I´m sure glad to be with him here in Libertdad!
Mom! You are the best Mom in the world! I was reading over the recipe book that you gave me with all the very yummy choices of things that I can make here in the mission to eat. Thank you so much for that recipe book! I´m going to try the potatoes idea and the french toast stuff sometime this week - they sound yummy and the fact that they can last a long time rocks as well. I was wondering (if it´s not possible don´t worry about it) - there aren´t many measuring items here, and if there are everything is different because it´s in liters and other weird measurements. Do you think you could send some measuring items with my package too? Like tablespoons, teaspoons, cups, stuff like that. If not, that´s alright - I´ll just have to guess! Let me know if it´s possible :).
Oh and maybe if you have one more angel-food cake mix that you could send...that´d be yummy too. If not that´s all right. There´s a lot of stuff like that that´s not made/sold here, so that´s why I ask!
I bought a towel today, so now I have two regular towels. I like my microfibers because they´re small (they´re good for divisions, when I go to another area to work and I need to bring a towel), but they´re not the most comfortable thing to use to dry off with. So now I have two good towels that I can use throughout my mission, one green the other blue, just like the ones I have at home. Yay!
Thanks for all the info on Carson - I feel bad for the guy. It´s definitely hard to be alone and not have a lot of free time, so I´ll be writing him a nice Carson letter. Tell him thanks for writing a few comments to me and that I loved his mini letter!
Besides all this, everything else is going great. We´re trying to find more people to prepare for baptism - we passed by Hugo and Beba yesterday morning, and it is obvious that they have finally returned from their vacations back to their house. Yay! I just hope they haven´t changed their mind about the church or anything, so we´ll be passing in the week to see if we can talk with them and get them coming to church again. If they are the same as how they left, they are two more golden investigators. I hope that´s the case! Especially with the loss of my beloved Grandma, I see now more than ever how important this Gospel of Jesus Christ really is. Everyone needs to be baptized unto repentance and take the necessary steps to be able to return back to Heavenly Father. I know it´s possible if we just put our faith in Jesus Christ and do everything that He and our Father ask of us, and I know that we´ll receive more happiness from this than any other thing. The gospel surely is beautiful!
The Land-Lady cleaned up our apartment for us a little bit - I kind of felt bad, because the bathroom and some other parts were pretty messy. I talked with my companion about it and asked him if he could help me more, because it´s hard to take care of the apartment just by myself (which is how it was the whole time with Elder Sureda). Elder Reyes rocks, but yeah we need to do a better job cleaning. That´s going to be a new goal of mine - always have a clean apartment so I don´t have to have Patricia come and clean it for us. It was so sweet though! She came and did it just to be nice, so we´re going to make her something yummy to tell her thanks. She is awesome! And I want to hold up Dad´s good name when it comes to keeping things clean :) my Dad is a very clean dad! It´s too bad I don´t have your steam cleaner here on the mission Dad- that´d rock!
Other than that, all is well! I hope you´re all doing fantastic - I´m working hard, praying and pleading all the time that you all receive the blessings that Heavenly Father has prepared for all of you. You are all the most important people and things in my life, and I want you to all be as happy as possible. For that, I´m always going to work hard so that you can all be blessed :) and I am going to work hard and dedicate my mission to my Grandma Nuttall, so she can know of my love for her by how I work in the mission. I love you all so much! You are the best family ever, and man it´ll be great to give you all big hugs once more! Have a great week and we´ll talk to you soon!
Love,
Elder Nuttall