Holy Biking Batman!

Pic from Elder Webster

Hello everyone! This week has been an exhausting one, that's for sure. Mostly because of all the biking I've been doing. On average we bike around 25 miles per day, but depending where we go it could easily top 30. Naples as a city is already spread out, so you can imagine what it's like trying to get to Haitian spots. Our main spot is about an hour and a half away if we don't stop. If I'm not mistaken it's the largest bike area in the mission. Great for my first time biking in over a year! Needless to say I'm still pretty slow and I've had to dramatically change my lifestyle, but hey if that's what it takes. Hopefully that all doesn't sound complainy hahaha! 

This week we had our first interviews with president Garns. It was mostly just for him to get to know us better. We struck it off pretty well once he found out I'm from Simi. Most of the time was spent talking about the great stake presidents we have. Didn't get to ask any questions really but that's ok, I'll just ask them in my email today.

Our zone also had 4 baptisms this week, and Elder Dick got to interview all of them! One was from our district and the others were for the ZLs, so it was a busy night for him. 

As far as people we're teaching, we're still trying to work with Janette even though she didn't come to church, and she still has some concerns we're working to overcome, so we'll see how that goes. Also just last night we found another person named Iglesia (yes, she is Haitian). She's the sister of another person that Elder Dick found on exchange and taught the restoration to. Apparently she was pretty cool, and her sister is pretty cool too! We're excited to work with them, even though they live in that hour and a half away place haha.

Other than that, not too much else happened. After sacrament yesterday one of the Haitian members came us to us and said "can you teach the class, my dad isn't here." Of course we were like "...Sure!" So Elder Dick and I taught a lesson about Gifts of the Spirit. A lesson that can definitely go awry with Haitians hahaha. It went well though, everyone stayed pretty much on topic which was great. We also had a visitor in the class. We tried to see her yesterday evening but didn't end up having enough time to get there. Bummer.

Oh and I almost forgot, as we were biking home last night Elder Dick got a flat tire just shortly after we started! So we patched it up and the ZLs came and drove us back home. I was very grateful that I got to take the 20 minute drive instead of the hour and a half bike ride late at night. 

Another biking related incident I almost forgot about: The other day we were biking home at night (fortunately we were closer to home) and we went through a golf course to take a short cut. Elder Dick was in front and I was doing my best to keep up (golf courses actually have HILLS, what are those? haha) but somehow I biked past him at the spot where we were supposed to get off. 

I ended up following the trail, hoping that Elder Dick was somewhere ahead. I get to a fork in the path and I look at my GPS (which was pretty useless since golf courses aren't really mapped) and pick a path to go. Shortly thereafter the path stopped. I turned around and went the other way, and got to another fork. I picked a way and the path stopped again. I went the other way and made it out at the top of the course. 

I bike across a parking lot to get to the road, look at my GPS to plan my route home and just as I put it away and am about to start, the ZLs pull up in their mini van and honk and flash their lights at me. Perfect timing. Elder Dick had called President as soon as he knew I was lost, and the ZLs were driving around to find me. So everything worked out, and I made sure Elder Dick didn't beat himself up too bad about it either haha. I believe there are many lessons that can be learned from this story, I'd love to hear of the ones you find! Thank you all for your prayers and support!

Lanmou,

Eldè Stevenson