Dear Family and Friends,
Here we sit writing this email more than twenty feet from our kitchen table (in a whole different room, attachment
#2). We couldn't get that far from it last week without going outside. I can't believe how different you feel when light shines through a window in the morning. I had forgotten what that is like. We love our new home. Okay, it's a little old, but we love being here. We have hardwood floors throughout except the kitchen and bathroom. They are well aged and seem to have a lot of gum on them (chewing not pine). Single pane windows nailed or painted shut (but we don't care because it's still very hot outside). We have central air and heat. Sister Owens has only seen two tiny spiders since we got here (you know, the ones you squish with your thumb). I am sorry to report, however, that we saw our first cock roach on our second day in the apartment. We never saw a single one in the garage. Sister Owens still won't walk barefoot in the house. The best thing is that the bathroom is down the hall instead of next to the kitchen table. Suffice it to say we are very happy here.
The week didn't start off so well. We drove 110 miles to our appointment at Costco to buy new tires and when we arrived they informed us they didn't have our tires in stock. We were going to go on Saturday but the sale didn't start until Sunday. We asked how they could be out of stock when the sale just started the day before. They told us they changed the date and started the sale on Wednesday the week before. So they ordered the tires online for us and said they would have them the next day. We had Zone Conferenced on Thursday so we set an appointment for that afternoon to have them installed. Aside from the extra trip it worked out pretty well. The tires were eighty-five dollars cheaper than they quoted the first time. Another tender mercy.
We had an awesome zone conference this week. We love our mission president and his wife. They are so good at building up the missionaries and inspiring them (and us). Everyone was so excited for us that we were getting a new apartment. The president always starts the conference by having missionaries share mission miracles. I thought about telling them how we came to rent our apartment but didn't say anything. Then the president told everyone that the Owens had a miracle. It really was a miracle. We still had no prospects when they submitted our 30-day notice. The housing coordinator had exhausted all of his resources and hadn't come up with anything. We ended up renting a unit that we had previously told the rental agency we really weren't interested in(sight unseen). But he felt we really would be quite happy with it and convinced us to look at it. We both felt right about it when we first walked in.
They told us when we looked at the unit that they would have it all cleaned up when we were ready to move in. I guess we are still having a hard time understanding what people mean by what they say. The place was filthy. Luckily, two senior couples came from the mission office and the sister missionaries and a sister from the branch was here to help us clean the apartment before we moved in. We did have one minor wrinkle. They promised they would have a washer and dryer installed and they did not. We didn't finish the laundry at the garage until about ten thirty the night we moved. Hopefully they will get them installed by this weekend.
We spent Saturday getting moved in after spending Friday cleaning. We still have a whole room that we haven't put anything in except empty suitcases and boxes (attachment #3). The only thing so far that has proved to be a challenge is that we keep losing track of each other. That never happened when we only had one big room for a house.
Attachment #1 is our spacious living room.
We hope y'all are excited for conference next month. We certainly are. Sister Owens informed me that the rumors are flying in Relief Society. We know it will be a great conference.
Keep the commandments and read your Book of Mormon
We love y'all,
Elder and Sister Owens
PS. Brother Kirk passed the sacrament today after being ordained last week. They had their interviews after church for their recommends to go to the temple to do baptisms for the dead. We will probably be going with them in a couple weeks. The gospel is pretty exciting.
No comments:
Post a Comment