The Bicycle Blues

Elder Partridge and Elder Anders with their bikes

There's an old Lynn Bryson missionary song from the 1970s that has a line which goes, "[I'm] Saving the people from sin on my Schwinn... Ride On, Schwinn!"

It's tough being a missionary on a bicycle.  These guys, my nephew, Elder Anders, and his companion missionary, Elder Partridge, have been having lots of bike-related woes this past week.

He writes:

We had a pretty interesting week. I had a couple of problems with my bicycle. We were a couple of miles away from home when I had some major problems with my bike chain. Meaning the chain pretty much broke in half. We were pedaling, and it felt like my chain had just slipped. But then suddenly it was really easy to pedal. I looked down thinking maybe my chain had fallen off the gear, only to discover my chain was gone completely! I went back and found it on the ground, with one of the links being completely snapped.

So the next day we went to the bike shop, to get a new chain. They put it on in like 5 minutes, but it ended up costing over $30. There were some other things wrong with my bike, too, but I decided to go ahead and fix them myself, since I figured I could probably figure it out, and not have to pay a ton of money. 

So, last night, my companion got a flat tire, so we went back to the apartment to fix it, and at the same time I decided to fix the problems with my bike. I'll attach a picture of us working at it. As you can see, we didn't really know what the heck we were doing. But it was free, and hopefully my bike will work again tonight. :) 

Poor kids!

At least Texas is not quite like Australia, where I've heard people in cars actually aim for the missionary lads on their bicycles!  (One I knew ended up in the hospital, seriously hurt, because of it.)

The Elders anxiously engaged in a good cause -
because the worth of souls is great.

I can't think of a better cause to pedal for, however, than the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Just want to put in a word for these good kids.  When you see the guys in the white shirts with the nametags on bicycles in your neighborhood - please be nice to them!

This has been a public service announcement on behalf of moms and aunties everywhere.
Thank you.