Sorry Sorry Sorry Aug 4, 2009

So last week there was a major computer failure! We are only supposed to use this email system, but last week the email systems all went down. I had just spent 40 minutes typing to you all last week and then when I went to send it kept saying server not found. Me and my companion were pretty agitated. This seems to happen a lot. We found out later that President Hoer gave people permission to use another email system like yahoo or gmail, but by the time we found out our day was already over and we couldn't go back to email. Sorry Sorry Sorry!

I will try and sum up last week and this week. I think I told you already our investigator Andy got baptized. He is doing really good! On Sunday he even went up during Sacrament meeting and shared his testimony and conversion with the entire congregation! He is a really awesome kid!

Well last week we had an interesting visit to the hospital hahahaha... I figure by now all you readers are on the edge of your seats. It wasn't that intense. My foot has been bothering me for the past 8 months because of this stupid ingrown toenail. Usually I can just dig the little stinker out my self, but about 2 weeks ago that little nail decided it wanted to become a submarine and dive to the bottom. Sure enough it took a 90 degree turn right into my foot. I did pretty good and i had dug it out all the way, but then the nail broke off and I knew i was in trouble. About 3 days later I could hardly walk so I called up Sister Hoer to ask her if I could go to the hospital to get it cut out. She gave me the go ahead and so we went.

I felt like I was walking to my death bed hahaha... I think Amy had an ingrown toenail once. And I remember her saying how much it hurt and then I remember one time her little gauze thing that was on it fell off and I saw her foot and it terrified me. So needless to say I was very reluctant to go. (Sorry Amy if it wasn't you, but I do remember very distinctly when I was really young somebody had an ingrown toenail and it sounded scary.

Don't worry the hospital we went to was one of the nicest hospitals I have ever been to. They sent me to the Dermatologist. The doctor was really good. She looked at it and said okay we can do this. And I was like no we can't, not with out serious anesthetic. I tried to get her to give me laughing gas, but she just laughed at me and grabbed pliers. She was really nice and once she realized how deep it was she agreed that we needed to do use a little local anesthetic. I was so glad! I had heard of other missionaries where the doctor calls the nurse in and a couple of the nurses quickly grab the missionary and hold him down while the doctor rips out the nail. Luckily, the doctor just shot some stuff in my foot which did actually hurt a little, but after that i didn't feel a thing. They went in and hacked away like Indiana Jones in the Amazon. It was pretty crazy watching this lady chop up my foot. I am sure you are all noxious by now so I will spare you the details, but it has been a week and it is basically healed up. The day after I could hardly walk, but after that it was fine. I am all better now though!

It was kind of a fun experience because I learned a bunch of new medical terms like Local anesthitic and laughing gas. When I asked the doctor if I she could give me laughing gas, she looked at me and laughed and said no no no no. I was sad, i thought that if i said it in chinese she might be nice.

Earthquake! The other night me and my companion were sleeping and at about 3 in the morning everything started shaking. I woke up and i looked over and saw my companion sitting up in his bad. He sounded scared, he has only been here for about 4 months so the Earthquakes are a little new to him. I think the funniest earthquake i have seen on my mission was during our personal study in the morning. When i was in the big city, with Elder Johnson, I was sitting there reading the New Testament and i had my feet on the legs of the chair I was sitting on. Then all of the sudden I felt my chair shaking and I thought it was my companion messing with me. So I was like "Hey Elder, knock it off, quite kicking my chair." Then I flipped around and realized that it was an earthquake. It was pretty funny, i felt stupid.

Oh Ya!!! So you know how i was jocking about delivering mineral water to the World Games?!?! Well Guess what?! It wasn't mineral water, it was fruit tea! Hahaha... isnt that hilarious, I had a feeling it was going to be something heavy and boring so I guessed a beverage. Sure enough, we showed up and they had us load an armored car full of Fruit Tea. It was fun though to be able to talk with some Americans and chat about what they thought of Taiwan. They spoke a little chinese, later on I found out that they were both Majoring in Chinese and Asian Studies. One of them was this really funny African American Lady from Kansas. She was super nice and just thought we were awesome. I convinced her to go on a mission for her church when she gets back. Seriously, i am not kidding, either that or the Peace Corp she said. Anyways, we rode in the Armored car to go drop off the tea at this venue. After that we hung out at the venue and talked with the people that came into the American Booth. It was pretty cool, every country had their own little booth. Not to be arrogant, but the American Booth was by far the coolest. Everyone that came in got free Oreos and Ocean Spray Fruit Tea. Then they had an astronaut come and talk to commenmorate the 40th anniversary of us landing on the moon. To bad it was all in English, most of the people there couldn't speak English. I almost volunteered to translate for them, but i stopped myself when the astronaut starting saying "Lunar Module, Moon Roover, liquid oxygen rocket propellant, gravitational orbit reentry " hahaha... yeah sorry NASA. I haven't learned what those words even mean in English yet. It was fun though.

We went to the Vaticaan Booth. That was actually pretty cool, but all the volunteers got really nervous when we walked in and they started to try and speak English with us but I had no idea what they were saying, which made me nervous, so finally we just asked them to speak in Chinese and once they realized we spoke chinese they all calmed down and everything went back to normal. They took us around and showed us all about Mass. It was a little awkward, but neat at the same time. I still don't really get the whole deal about praying to the all the different Saints though.

After that we went and looked at the Israel Tent. That was pretty cool too, we had a Christian Chinese Israeli guide us through the tent. So we learned about Judaism and Catholsism.

Well I hope i remembered everything from last week. My companion and i are doing really good. I might have time to send some pictures next week. We are going to go play ping pong in a second. Alright well i love yall.

Elder Craig Anderson