Heat wave and no escape...

Email sent Tuesday 31 May 2011

What a week. This week has been a whirlwind of rushing here and there and driving here and there and craziness. Let me explain.

This week is the last week of the month and we are severly low on miles on our car and so we are biking every day. I got some sun, but not bad, but the bad thing is that it is just SO hot. But it's fun.

On Tuesday when we came home for our quick lunch break to our house we noticed it was a little warm inside. We thought nothing really of it, just turned the ac up a little more. Later that night we returned home for the night. The moment we opened the door into the house we knew somehting was wrong. It was SO hot inside. It was muggy and gross. We went and looked at the thermostat, and guess what it was... about 87 degrees. At 9 at night. So much for coming home to cool off. We tried what we could to make the AC go on with no success. It was already late so there was nothing we could do about it. So we just slept with the windows opena nd stuff. And in the morning it had cooled down because of hte breeze of the night and it was only about 80 degrees. So we had our studies and whatnot and continued through a crazy rushed day. We didn't ahve time to do much about the problem because of lots of other crazy important pressing issues, we kinda forgot about it. But anyway, we started asking around to members to see if anyone knows how to fix central air and basically no one does because we are in Raymondville. most people have those little window ac's. And Raymondville is small, so there was nothing. So we returned home to a house even hotter than before. It was about 90 degrees and we slept there that night too. It was so hot and sticky and muggy. I don't know how people live in that all the time. It was just not the funnest thing. So we really started to make some calls on Thursday morning----happy one year mark to me---to try to get someone to fix it and figure out what our landlord was going to do about it.

Anyway we had this guy, one of our neighbors friends, come over and he "fixed it" it worked for about 15 minutes but after he left it stopped again. And his "fix" cost me $45. UGH. So we have made a lot of phone calls and then the office had this real company come and look at it and they say that we need a whole new unit because it is old (1986) and that will cost about 9000 dollars. WOW. Ya. lots. And basically the owner of the house says that the church has to pay and the church says "NO WAY." and So the senior missionary in the office has told us that we have to look for a new place to live.

So that night when we finally returned and found it hot again we called up a member and asked her if we could stay the night with her. So Thursday night we stayed with Sister Calvo. She was so nice to let us stay...and keep staying. We ahve been at her house every night since. I feel bad just staying and making ourselves at home, but we can't stop being missionaries just because our AC is broken and our house stinks and is 90 degrees. We just laugh at the funny situation. So Sister Ruano and I are looking for a new place to live and driving to and from Sister Calvo's house which is in a little town about 5 miles south of raymondville. So president had to give us emergency miles on our car to get us too and from her house cuz it's far. And our house is not very pleasant to be inside at the moment. Sister Calvo is so nice though. She makes us breakfast. This morning she taught us how to make flour tortillas. She makes us dinner too. And the beds are comfortable. And she has AC. And it is all just very nice. But it is hard being so far away from our area.

Also this week we had a miracle....one of the boys we have been teaching we found out that he could get baptized this past Sunday. And everything was good to go, and we even took pictures in white and everything...and then, his mom didn't show up, and they had to cancel the baptism because we still needed her signature. And she didn't feel like coming and so he couldn't get baptized. It's this whole crazy situation with a long story but the moral of it is, get the signature way in advance, but that was impossible for us to have done, so we did everythign we could, but hopefully it will happen this week.

We found this awesome guy this week. His name is A.... He knows so much truth and he came to church on Sunday and really like it. We are really excited for him.

Ok so Tomorrow starts Hurricane season. I did not realize how close we actually are to the coast until last week when I grabbed a map on our way out of the library. We are close. And we live in a flood zone. So ya. Welcome to teh valley. So for the supplies I need, yes mom, we have blue water jug things. but what I need is just the food stuff, and water filtration stuff and bottles. But I know they sell it all here. if you could just put money on my card i can get it next week. what I do need from you though is more garments. :) I need like four more of the dri-lux bottoms and maybe 2 more of the tops you got before. Then I can put a pair in my 72 hour kit and I can have more for changing on those hot days. Honestly we feel like showering when we come home for our lunch break becasue it is so hot. But the rest of the stuff I can probably get here unless there's something else you want me to have.

Sorry, I have to go, but I love you all. Congrats brandy on Graduating!!! Dad I might go fishing next pday, have fun in oregon ! And mom, thanks for always emailing. send me pictures and I want you to be in them this time. :)

Love,

Sister Petersen