Fra un ora e 10 minuti starò dormendo!: October 12, 2005

Dear Friends & Family,
I'm sitting here in the Internet Point. It's 20.47 at night and I'm exhausted - this morning the internet was down and we were speaking with a contact for all the time we could have done anything else. Needless to say, I didn't get any letters written today. Sorry. But, I did get a package sent off to Home. You should get it. I hope. It didn't fit in any of the mailboxes, and I didn't want to go to the Post Office, so we finally found one close to a member family that didn't have the little door that partially blocks the box - without the hinges and door in the way, and with a bit of force, it went in and thudded against the bottom.
I have a beautiful MTC backpack sitting by the computer screen - it seems that mail is always sent just in time to receive it for Zone Conference. It wasn't there when I arrived, but the Office Elders went to get the mail and came back with a package for me. How nice of them. Thanks. It works amazingly well, is durable, you can run with it, it holds a lot, I used it for scambi on Monday and it actually held comfortably all my clothes and etc... Wow!
We had a bit of an adventure last night. We arrived home and went to bed at 10:30 (we changed schedules to 10:30 instead of 11:00), and shortly before I put a load of clothes in the washer. We were awoken by pounding on the door - my companion got up and I heard him step into deep water on the floor. He opened the door and firemen were there - were they going to evacuate us? But the hallway was dry... They came in, opened the kitchen door, and found our washer, door open, spitting water out onto the floor. Naturally, we turned it off, and thus began a long series of events and miracles. They took all of our info and then left. They were actually nice. They left and warned us that if water got in the elevator it could short the power to the whole palazzo - my companion got to work on the hallways. We had more than an inch of water everywhere, and higher in places where the floor was lower. The biggest problem is that there is a one-inch lip on the floor going outside to our balcony - the one inch of water held in by a wall... Water had gone outside our door, in the hallway, down the stairs, in the next hallway, and filled the bottom floor hallway out until the front door. I grabbed a broom, said a quick prayer to help my hands (you know I blister easily), and then began sweeping the water out of the rooms. Because of the lip, I had to try to create a wave of water that rebounded off the lip, then I would hit it hard and spray it out the door. It's 1 o'clock in the morning, and we have water literally gushing off our blacony. The next morning there was still water covering about 900 square feet in the parking lot below us. That's a lot of water. I changed from room to room, changing the settings on our air conditioning to try to dehumidify the rooms (yeah, right!). My companion got most of the water outside with the mop (buckets and buckets and buckets), and then we worked together to splash the water out. After a while (hour? two hours?), we had splashed out all we could, and I grabbed a towel and went outside in the hall to see damage. There was still a lot of water on the ground - buckets and buckets. The apartment directly across from ours - 3 feet away - had a doormat somehow placed exactly to protect the apartment from the wall of water that must have attacked it. Good doormat. I picked it up and literally buckets of water started cascading from it. I think the Lord helped the doormat to fulfill its sacred calling. Directly behind it was hardwood floor - a rarity in Italy, and expensive, and instantly ruined with standing water. Miracle. I moved with the towel to wipe up all the water, finding that always the water had stopped before entering the doors of the apartments. Miracles. It also chose the route to drop down the edge of the stairs instead of down the walls... where it would have ruined the chalk-paint. Miracles. I finally cleaned our whole apartment building (nice of me. They should thank me), and then went back upstairs and went over the apartment with the towel, setting up our 3 fans (miracles) and the air conditioner on dehumidify. We had almost nothing on the ground (miracle), except a journal of Anz. Logan and some pictures. We hung them up to dry and our suitcases were dry as well (buh? miracle.). We finally went to sleep after everything was dry or drying. Tired. We woke up a few hours later and echo! today! We today made brownies to apologize for the noise the firemen made - all of our neighbors were really forgiving, and there is no one who lives under us during the Winter. (We can do jump rope inside!) When they finally return, any water in their apartment will have dried. No problems. Miracles.
We are having a baptism Sunday. In the sea. Right after Church around 12:30. I am tired.
We have interviews on Friday. This week was really eventful, but it's 21.12 now and I'm running out of time. I still need to look up bus maps... I'm a fan of Italian food. Anything with olive oil will make me happy. You can take bread, cut up tomatoes and put it on, put on some mozzarella, and then olive oil and salt and basil and oregano, and I'm in Heaven. I'm in paradise right now. If I ever leave Ladispoli I think I will cry just because I miss the name. And the rivers. And the sea. And the flowers (yes, our rose is still blooming at Church, and it will bloom under my hand until I leave, whether it be in February or forever).
I love you all! Little ones - make sure you do your jobs for me!
Anziano David Peterson