“Are the Elders there? Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!”

Quote of the week explanation

We were out tracting this week and we ran into a young married couple who had it in their hearts to let us into their home. At first we talked with the husband for a few minutes at the door, and then he let us in so we could meet his wife (and their baby) and share a message with them. When we walked in the man (Joe, being his name) went over to the kitchen table and said something to someone who he was in a video chat with, to which the guy yelled "Are the Elders there?!!" and then started cracking up before Joe turned it off. In the mean time, we had a good conversation with them, and at the end Joe told us that he had just been playing Dungeons and Dragons with a bunch of "Mormon friends" over video chat. It was pretty amusing the reaction that the guy on the other end had when we walked in. We got a return appointment out of the contact, though; so that was good.

‘Allo

After so many miraculous weeks in a row, this one was a bit slower. The main event was what you just read, and the rest of our week involved about a billion and six appointments falling through. We've learned the value of having backup plans this week, for sure.

We did have one experience, though-not really on the powerful gospel event side of things-that you may find amusing. It was Thursday evening when it happened. Elder June and I had gone a-tracting, and we were making along our merry way without much thought of potential fiends lurking in the area. We had gotten through with our finding, and we had a few contacts with various people scheduled for afterwards, so we hopped over to our bikes, unlocked them and started riding. After several moments, I deduced that there was something very wrong with my front tire, so I stopped. Elder June stopped beside me, and said "Is there something wrong with your bike, too?”

We dismounted and examined our bikes, only to find that my front tire and his back tire were both completely flat, with a nice clean gash running through each. Some fine, upstanding citizen who obviously had nothing but charity in their heart found the goodness in them to slash our tires, it would seem. Well, at that point we had about an hour left before we were supposed to be home, and, unable to ride, about an hours walk to get there, so we had to cancel the rest of our plans for the night.

The next day we had some other Elders take us to a bike shop in Antioch to get the tires replaced. While we were waiting we did a bit of weekly planning at a nearby chapel, and when they had finished we went home, thinking that our bike troubles were finished. We were wrong.

That evening, we were tracting again. After our session was over, I jokingly said "OK, let’s check our tires to make sure nobody slashed them!" So we check the first. Good, full of air and ready to go. The second, good. The third, good. The fourth... Uh oh. Somethings not right here. Sure enough, the back tire on Elder June's bike, the one that we had just gotten fixed earlier that day was flat. He said that just before we had stopped riding he had heard some sort of *pop*, but had assumed that nothing really had happened. Well, turns out he had punctured his tube, and, once again, we were on foot for the night.

The next day, we located the puncture and patched it up, thinking all would be right in the world. And it was... For a few hours. We were riding around, all jolly-like, and then... *pop*. Again. Not sure if it was another puncture or if the patch just didn't take or what, but whatever the case that was the third time in as many days that we were walking our bikes back. We hope today to be able to fix the thing for good; yesterday we didn't have much time so we were restricted to walking/getting rides from people. Good times indeed.

And in terms of all that is noteworthy and that you'd actually care to read, I stop at that. We had some very...fun times with bikes, and the rest of the time was appointments falling through and finding. Sometimes that's the way of things, I suppose.

Anyhoo, have a good day.

-Ben

P.S. I am rather hungry right now 

P.P.S. Garlic sticks with cheese

P.P.P.S. Apologies for the random P.S.'s, I literally couldn't think of anything clever this time around.