Above:The Baha'i House of Worship of Asia. Below:Life and times of your fellow World Citizen, Kolya

My passport had been at the visa office (to get my work visa valid until August 2008) since right before the National Day vacation and was supposed to be ready on the 9th-- but wasn't.  It wasn't ready yesterday, either, but i was promised it would definitely be ready/get picked up today and the foreign affairs lady told me she should be back by 16:00, at which time she would call me.  At the height of my frustration--of course i shouldn't have let myself get at all stressed since a part of me knew i would get it back in time since Nancy and i had said the Remover of Difficulties (and other) prayers for it-- and that prayer has always removed my difficulties!-- i finally did get my passport back!  At about 18:30... and i'd been waiting since 16:00, so i was beginning to wonder if i'd need to skip my morning classes to go there myself, and even sent an email to the foreign affairs officer to that effect.  As a last ditch effort i went to their office from where i was able to have someone there call her cell phone and only then found out that she had been able to pick it up and would be back soon!  So she gave me the passport and i gave her a postcard of Colorado i had written a thank you note on around noon in anticipation of getting it back today.  Andi (her English name) then offered to try to reserve one of the 2 school cars to take me to (and bring me back from--upon my return) the airport-- I gratefully accepted the offer. Then i had dinner with a student friend-- he doesn't have an English name yet-- can't remember if he wants one or not... He's very sad that i'll be gone for 3 weeks!  After dinner, I was going to help him find a good English book to help him improve his English at the Library but it was closed, we'll try again on Saturday at noon.  On getting home i sent an email to Andi thanking her some more and also giving her the exact time of my return with flight number.  After passing through the Foreigner Teacher's compound gate a gate guard hurried up with some mail :^)  One of them was a snail-mail from my mom, using the new address labels i sent out.  They work well and it doesn't seem like it was opened before it got to me.  It was a short letter and 2 photos of their 40th wedding anniversary :^)