Who's Scruffy Looking?

Family,

Well another week gone by. It was a good week. Sounds as if things back home are going good enough. That is to bad that so much snow keeps coming this late in the year haha,it is just hot here....always. 

For starters I guess I will tell you all about my bike and its pedal problem. Well when I first got here I was given this really terrible bike that was completely missing a pedal. There was no bike shop on the island and so we couldn't find a replacement. In the end I used a metal bolt and duct tape to make a pedal that worked alright. The problem with it was was that it was sticky and that it didn't rotate with my foot but rather stayed stationary with the crank shaft. so I was always having to lift up my right foot to keep things rolling smoothly. This was annoying, but I got used to it. Earlier this week I was just riding home one night (wednesday night) and out of no where my pedal just fell off. well I was stuck riding home with only one pedal (near impossible). I spent all night pondering about this situation and how I could resolve it in the morning with a better fix. Well in the morning I went outside and began examined my bike and I decided that I would remove the left pedal and put it where the right pedal was supposed to go. I figured whatever I did to fix it I would rather fix the left side which doesn't have gears in the way than the right side. In the house we had an extra pedal that we hadn't been able to get to work because it had been all stripped. Well I decided to try it in the left side (something that we hadn't tried before) and turns out the left side had a lot larger tolerance and so it just screwed in and worked. now I finally have two working pedals. 

Well after all the rain from last week we had a lot of standing water which resulted in a lot of mosquitos. It has been ridiculous how many mosquitos have been invading everywhere. you can barely step outside without having 6 or 7 mosquitos on your arms. I went outside one day to pump up my bike tires and about the time I had hooked up the pump I just abandoned it all and returned inside because of how many mosquitos had attacked.

We had 2 more baptisms this week. so that was good. One of them was a lady who has been a member for 12 years or so but her records couldn't be found so finally Elder Coleman just said to rebaptize her. The other was this lady we have been teaching for a little while. So that was all good. we probably have one more this week.

Elder Brough is getting transfered to spanish town in Jamaica. I don't know who my new companion is. Sometime later today I will find out. We aren't even sure when Elder Brough is flying out, we just know he is sometime this week. 

Hmmm... my brain just shut off and I forgot what I was going to say next. Ughh..... So Pres. Hendricks is officially here, but I have yet to hear anything from him haha. He is in Jamaica and hopefully doing well, other than that I don't know anything about him. 

Lessons with Reuben have been going well. He understands so well. I just wish we could over come his concern with his family. He would be an excellent member. He loves to read and to learn and that is the best type of recent convert, they are the ones that become leaders somewhere down the road. There are to many recent converts that don't read enough. They read a verse or two a day and don't take time to understand those verses and so they never fully grasp the gospel. 

Congratulations laura on graduating. Hopefully the bean museum was fun. I always did enjoy walking through that building. my favorite part has always been the basement where it is like they just got lazy and got tired of setting up the animals so all they have are all these bottled amphibians and birds just lying there. Maybe they were intentionally set up that way, to look like they were dead...seeing as how they are dead. Keep sending me the blog mom, I appreciate it.

wow, I don't have much more to say, fairly boring and typical week. I am excited to meet my new companion, who ever it is. I have probably met him before seeing as how this mission is very small. This week was good, I am doing excellent, healthy and good to go. This next week should be good. keep up the good work, enjoy summer vacation. I will send pictures next week. I love you all and look forward to next weeks emails! 

love

Elder Talbert