it's...yellow.

Oh boy. It's hot. We have a little temperature thing on our balcony that gives us the temperature and the humidity, and last I looked it was 92 degrees and 32%. Apparently this is nothing compared to the real middle of the summer when humidity more than doubles but I can whine if I want to. It's nice to get a tan at least, and we're real glad we're not on a bike. I think I'd lose 30 pounds if I had to bike in this heat. So I'd basically be dead.

The heat has another great side effect too: pollen. They call it the "yellow film" here (not a particularly creative name but for Virginia it'll do fine). It's pretty nasty and it had a heck of an effect on Elder Petersen the first day or two. We went to Wal-Mart to get allergy medicine and the shelves were practically being clawed at by people. It's bad. I've had some mucus in the back of my throat the last few days which isn't too bad but they say you won't get hit by allergies until your second spring. Giddy-up.

This last week was fine and interesting. We spent conference weekend in the Colonial Heights elders' apartment since the church building is close to it and we have to watch every session at a church building. It was the probably the first time I really payed attention to every speaker which was good. We really had too much fun with 4 of us in one apartment though. Me and Elder Petersen had to shower at the church since they only have 1 shower but it was fun nonetheless. Lots of giggling. We're a giggly bunch. We also had a lot of food for every meal over the weekend since members were offering us something left and right. We ate good. Real good. My adjectives are dying.

Oh, I spent another day in Chesterfield as the man in charge. This time it was most of the day. We only had 1 lesson so we did a lot of knocking on doors that didn't answer. Because I'm so smart we knocked on 4 "wrong" doors that we expected to be someone else. None of them were terribly interested. The driving was fun too. Let's just say doing u-turns in Virginia isn't as easy as it looks. Overall though I got a lot better at actually speaking and carrying conversations which I'm only sorta-kinda doing now. It was a good, solid day, but I don't envy Elder Petersen.

I'm getting a haircut today. I never look forward to haircuts but my hair is getting very lady-like. I have to wear my hat in the morning to make it not big and bushy. We'll see what happens. We're getting it from a member for free so I can't complain too much.

I'm sad I missed the earthquake. I didn't get to feel too many of those. I've heard though that this one means the San Andreas fault will get pretty active soon since this one wasn't on it and it was pretty big. So have fun with that. Don't leave Casen downstairs.

We've come up with a new hobby. We're trying to get it so we can flip the phone open to each other with one hand when it rings. It'll be cool when we master it.

I think that's it for this week. I thought I had a lot more to say but I guess I don't. I'm trying to make sure these don't shrink too dramatically in size.

-Elder Ryan Michael Parker


Pictures:

1. Yeah, we're breathing that.

2. It is now spring.

3. Us in the car. Again.