Hola, Y'all! : Bikes are fun now!

Hello from Memphis everybody!
It was a pretty good bike week! We went over 100 miles, so our legs
are pretty beat. But other than that it was great!

Anyway, the week:

Monday we didn't have a whole lot planned. We went tie shopping at Burlington (which was a good idea, they had some nice cheap ties) and then had lunch at Steak N' Shake again! It was great to go back again, that is the best tradition we have. We have one waitress who serves us 90% of the time, she is super cool. She knows exactly what we'll order every time, it's funny. After that we went to the mall to window shop. We tested out the massage chairs in this one store. They were great. If you ever get $6000 I recommend them :P They also had a ton of clearance IPad cases, so we took advantage of that. Then we all went back to our areas, and Elder Moore and I went to go do some finding in a new area. It went really well, we met some cool people!
Tuesday was our designated "Go Ham Bike Day." First, we went to the Triangle to go see as many people as possible. You see, the Triangle is kinda far from our apartment, and over the years there hasn't been much success there. Yes, there are a ton of Hispanics, but very few of them want to listen and keep commitments and such. So, this week we decided to abandon it. We went to go see all the people we still taught there, mainly to tell them we probably wouldn't be coming back. If they still wanted us to, then we planned to send the East elders over there. We didn't get to talk to too many people, but we did see some. We had a really good lesson with F and his friend S. She had always been kind of hanging around the apartment, but never sat in on the lessons. But Tuesday she brought up going to church and why it was so important. And we were more than happy to explain it to her! After that, we biked up to the north, about 7 miles of hills, to the huge trailer park we had gone to last week. The people we had planned all fell through, so we looked around and found some more. Then we got ready to book it back down south to have dinner with the Hs, but before we could a pastor stopped us and explained to us for 15 minutes or so why we were wrong, and how we needed to REALLY be saved. It was... Interesting, to say the least :P It's stuff like that that really strengthens my testimony, though. Some of those people can be really persuasive and make you doubt everything out believe in. But every single time, they bring up something that I have a very strong testimony for, whether it be the Book of Mormon or the nature of God, and it instantly destroys any doubt I had. But anyway, that made us late. So, we covered 7 miles of night biking through a really pretty back country road and then down another 5 in less than an hour, which was pretty awesome, I have to say. We still got to dinner 30 minutes late, but they were running behind so it was ok in the end. We had a really good enchilada that the oldest daughter made. Then we biked home, for a grand total of almost 36 miles. Needless to say, we slept well.

Wednesday was a lot easier. To start we had zone meeting, which was really good! The mission is setting a goal of doing a 40 day "fast" for things we could change as far as mission standards go. It's kind of like Lent, but with more accountability :P Then we went to this Mexican restaurant called Gallo Giro, like the Spanish district always does. After a bit, we heard the zone leaders and APs were coming, so we asked to pull over another table. The lady who owns it likes us a lot, so she told us to move everything wherever we needed. Good thing, too. Within 5 minutes 27 elders had shown up, since none of them knew where to go eat. I attached a picture.

The Spanish sisters were the only sisters that came, and since they can't technically eat with us they had to sit alone at another table :/ It was good though, I had a steak and lengua burrito, and it was huge and delicious. Then we drove back, and went out to go find more people close to our house. We had about a 2 hour conversation with a guy named P outside his house, which was... interesting. He has some unique ways of thinking about things, let's put it that way. He was about the only one we had a full conversation with.

Thursday was also pretty short. We had planned to contact some referrals we had gotten in Bartlett. On the way, we stopped at a bike place to get some parts fixed on Moore's bike. It was busy (I know, a bike store is busy?) so it took a LOT longer than we thought. But we still made it, and contacted the people we needed to. Then we got picked up by President Perez to go to dinner. We went to this local place in Arlington called Off The Hoof Burgers. Honestly the best burger I have ever had. Probably the highest calorie one too. It was a 12 ounce patty bacon cheeseburger with a huge thing of fries. I think I replaced the weight I lost on Tuesday :P

Friday was our "day of reckoning" for the Triangle. We biked down there and went to tell off all the people who were not progressing. It didn't go quite as planned, mostly in good ways. We had quite a few of the people we were going to drop suddenly have desires to do stuff without us having to tell them! It was great! It did start raining at 5 though, and no one let us in until about 7:45. We stopped at F's for a bit to make sure he was coming to church, and then started the 10 mile bike ride in the cold rain down busy streets with dying bike lights. (Btw Mom, I may be getting more of those. This time some that actually work.) we made it most of the way, and a guy in a pickup truck pulled over and told us to get in. It turned out he had a friend who had served a mission, so he knew who we were. He also had done his second Iron Man competition two weeks ago, so he knew biking in the rain wasn't that fun. So, we got home covered in mud splatters, soaking wet, but we met a cool guy, so it was worth it. I think we will meet him again, though. I hope so anyway. I left my helmet in his truck :P

Saturday was more bike drama. We were going to bike the 13 miles to a trailer park, but Elder Moore's back tire was rubbing the brake really bad so he couldn't go fast. So, we took off his back brakes. Then the wheel started rubbing the frame. At that point we figured there was a problem, so we took it to he shop again, since he couldn't ride it like that. We inured they could just adjust the wheel, but when they looked at it the frame was actually bent. That was unfortunate. They straightened out the wheel to the point that he could ride, but that was all they could do. So we limped around the area around there to look for people, which was actually a great plan because we found a TON of people! Then, we rode down to the Triangle to go see J and his friend E. E is a less active member, but has been teaching J about the church. We had an awesome lesson about the Plan of Salvation. He had a lot of good questions, and while Elder Moore was talking with him Eric and I started talking. He is a really cool guy. His family was among the first converts in his part of Honduras, and we talked a lot about his life growing up and what he wants to change. All in all it was good. It was also long. We got finished about 8:45, and we were an hour away from home. Also, it was cold enough to see your breath (which is ridiculous, I was sweating like crazy on Tuesday) so we called the other elders and they saved us.

Sunday went alright. No one showed up that we invited, which was sad. We got a car back though! We spent the rest of the day with Elder Doty on exchanges. He is the Spanish zone leader, so he goes out with all of us. We went finding, and it went pretty good! We found some cool people. Then we had a good lesson with the Ps. They have been taught for years now, and we decided to settle some stuff. Hopefully they start reading and having some desires to learn!

That's about all! I hope you guys have a good week! I guess for some of you it's fall break, so enjoy it!
Love you guys!
-Elder Reay