Our Frankenstein bikes

Fell asleep on the job ;)

Dear All,

Its still hot. Actually I take that back. It wasn´t as hot this week as it has been, but it got super humid, and I can´t decide which is worse: having the sun constantly burn you, or sitting (not even doing anything) and feeling drops of sweat rolling down your back. And they say that July and August are like a combination of the two. WOO HOO.

But yeah this has been the hands down chillest most fun week of my mission. My companion is a stud. We are working our butts off and speaking lots of english. But the dude is just a champ. Favorite companionship by far. For example, Saturday is Fourth of July. We are both American citizens. We are gonna celebrate. So today we bought some New York Sirloin, shrimp, mashed potatoes, butter, garlic, everything you need to throw a real party. It´s gonna be chill.

But yeah we are killing it. We had more than a few investigators in church, to the point that one guy who is notorious for not getting along with missionaries came up to me and was like ¨Wow, looks like you guys actually work, huh?¨ So that felt kinda nice. We even called president to find out the record for baptisms in a transfer for a companionship. And yes, we are going to smash it. By alot. I´M SO PUMPED!

So yeah besides kicking butt in the work of the Lord, we´ve been kicking butt in the workout side too. My companion has a few of the P90X DVDs and so we´ve been giving those a spin. And this morning we started waking up at 5:30 to go work out in the gym of a guy in the ward. Plus with the whole riding bikes thing, it´s gonna be great.

Speaking of bikes I was reminded many times of why I didn´t want to buy them. My companion´s bike broke the first day. So we went to the dude who sold us the bikes and he gave us a replacement part. Good thing it was the gear star in back and you need a special tool to take that off. All we have is a $5 crescent wrench from walmart. So we went to the neighbors and borrowed some pliers, And with that we just made it worse. So we were looking for a solution, when we looked at the bike that someone had given us that didn´t work. But we saw the back wheel. It wasn´t quite the right size, but could it work? Of course it could. So we squished together the back part of the frame until the two little holes where the wheel goes were close enough together, and threw the bolt on there super quick. and its been working. It´s slightly crooked, but we haven´t died yet, so that´s nice.

So then the next day we were going around and I was like ¨dang I´m either getting tired or it´s getting hard to pedal¨ and sure enough my back tire was flat. When I looked at it, I realized that my whole tire had just shredded. Like a 4 inch gash. All the patches in the world weren´t gonna fix that. So we went back to the house, and I was looking at that broken back wheel from my comp´s bike like hey there. But here comes the best part. The original tires from his bike were like super thin street tires, and the one he put on as a replacement is super wide. And white walled. So it´s like a muscle car. And my tires were normal sized, but now that I changed the back one to the thin one, I´ve got a thick one in front, and a thin one in back. Which is pretty cool cause I´ve been practicing drifting. So we´ve got two frankenstein bikes, but hey they´re faster than walking. And at least my brakes work. 

But I forgot to take pictures. So next week you´ll see em in their glory.

I am so happy right now. This is the most fun I´ve had on my mission yet. It´s weird being able to ride down the street and have a random song come into my head, then I start to sing it, and then my compaion joins in and all of the sudden we have a pretty solid duet of Don´t Stop Believin or Cruise or some other song. And its the best when we both forget the words, so we just hum until the chorus and then we go for it with all we got.

I hope you guys are all good. Don´t worry about the politics, just keep doing what you know is right and you´re gonna be blessed. Remember that we believe in being subject to kings, rulers, and magistrates and obeying, honoring and sustaining the law. That doesn´t mean that we have to agree with their decisions, but we do know that government is a necessary part of life. Like I said, just keep doing what you know is right, reading the scriptures both personally and in your family, saying prayers the same way, having FHE, keeping the sabbath day 100% holy, and just doing your best to keep the commandments. 

Los quiero mucho,

Elder Rawlings

after a long hot day of missionary work