April 16, 2012 That apartment sounds SO sick!!!!!!! I am SO excited to ride that elevator up and down 33 floors like all night long. You guys have to make friends with the doorman. And everybody on your floor so you can give the missionaries easy references to contact. NYC... No one here appreciates that! I tell people my family is moving from our nice comfortable suburbia into the biggest city in the the country, literally in the heart. It blows my mind but everyone here just says, "oh... la manzana grande ¿eh?" Ah..... Yes, the big apple. You have to send me a picture of the house that you leave so that I have something to show people. Like as you are pulling away, or maybe a picture of you guys in front of the house. And of the pond! And then send me a video or pictures or something of the new pad. Well I think I got your package today because I went to buy groceries and my card got rejected like 6 times. The mission just takes money automatically from the church account when packages come so.. We will see! Anyway... I have a miracle to tell you guys about. Ramón has been super sick with something but they have no idea what it is and it is just super painful and they have ruled out all kinds of cancers, and viruses, and other bugs, but they just cant decide what it is. So the other day, we went with my district leader to see another investigator, but we ran into Ramón outside of his house. I talked to him for a little bit and then asked him if we knew what a health blessing was. He said no, so we explained it and then told him that we could give him one. He asked for it and so we gave it to him. Well Elder Hunter did the annointing and then I did the sealing. He started to shrink under my hands as we gave him the blessing and I had no idea what was happening but we finished it. When it was done we saw that he was curled over in pain and with a very distorted face on. Gasping for air he said that it never had hurt this bad. I thought I had killed him and this was him dying (but really...), so we talked a little bit more and then said a prayer and left. We went to visit him later that week and he looked totally different. He looked about 10 years younger and just had a brightness that I had never seen in him before. He said that after we left the other night, he was in extreme pain for a little while longer and then felt wonderful. He then went to his exploratory surgery the next day and he said they didn´t find anything wrong and since then had just felt wonderful, better than ever. As far as I know, he had been healed. The same power that the Apostles and even Jesus Christ used in the ancient world is today on the earth. I know it. Elder Dowdle is good. He is from Oregon and technically half Canadian because his mom is from there. Lots of Canadians here. His spanish has improved a lot and he gave a good talk on Sunday (after Jonathan Rastelli, who just got back from his mission to Venezuela.... very surreal listening to a returned missionary. I don´t want to come home) and the whole congregation was helping him with some words by either nodding or shaking the head and kind of mouthing them out... He would look to me with a very confused face if he got stuck and I somehow communicated through brainwaves the right word or conjugation because he got it everytime. It was a group effort and a couple of people came up to him after the meeting in tears saying how great that meeting was. It really was the most Christ-centered meeting I think I had been in ever. The RM talked about the atonement of Christ, and then my companion talked pretty much about the same thing and how to endure to the end, and then the Bishop got up and talked about Christ and his pure love for us all. Very good. Would have been a great Easter meeting but last week we had a testimony meeting (which I guess was totally wrong because everyone else had a special Easter Sunday). Anyhooooo this has been a pretty chill week. Training is so tiring. I just have not been so tired in my life I think. It is really rewarding and we get an extra hour to study in the morning and so its been pretty sweet. I have just swallowed Preach My Gospel and the Book of Mormon. The new program (I was in the second generation of missionarie to go through it) for training missionaries is WAY sweet and helps us focus more on our objective and kinda helps us to cut down other goals that don´t really have to do with the objective. So it is very good. I love it. Dylan is getting baptized? Sweet! I cant believe that Dawson´s baptism was almost two years ago.... well like 1.5 years ago. That seems like yesterday. Who keeps pressing fast forward??? I am good and healthy and happy. I love you guys and hope you have a great week.