ELDER MATTHEW LEBARON...Broken bikes, transfers, and no phone

Well hello there,

This week has been kind of a weird one. Where to start, where to
start... Well transfers were today and E. Low got shipped off to
hacienda heights turnbull canyon to be a zone leader. I'm feeling a
little jaded because he gets a car, but at the same time I feel a
sense of relief knowing that I can take naps now. It's a little
intimidating to lead out the area, there is so much to remember and so
many people to coordinate with. My new comp is E. Katanuma, he is from
Japan and came out with me from the MTC, he served for two months in
Japan so he's been out in the states for 3. He speaks English pretty
well, but sometimes it's a little hard to understand what he's saying.
I don't know if you have heard of the titanic, that may or may not be
what happens to the Glendora 3rd area.

I messed up my bike again, what a surprise, I actually derailed the
derailer, I actually kicked it right off of my bike and broke the
hanger that connects it to the bike frame, awesome. I don't have my
bike, Brenna , until Thursday, which has resulted in me riding a loner
bike from the member we live with. I have named this bike quite
fondly, the bike of suck. First off it's a mountain bike, and there is
definitely a reason to ride a road bike instead of a mountain bike on
the streets all day, it weighs about twice as much, and has half the
gears. Not to mention that the bike is way too small for me, E. Low
was riding an extra small bike and I was riding a XL, just to put it
in perspective for you, that is the same size of the loner bike that I
have been riding. Luckily for me the bike has an adjustable seat. The
seat lies easily above the handle bars, and so it puts your body in
what I like to call the scoliosis position. The handle bars to the
bike are made out of a crappy plastic rubber like material, that likes
to melt at any temperature above 75 degrees. After the second day of
riding the bike of suck, I got some tape so that my hands weren't
sticky tar black when shaking people's hands. The scoliosis position
is also awesome because you are practically doing front flips all the
time when riding down hill. The seat likes to fall down on a constant
basis, so I go into midget mode and have to ride with my knees in my
face. What a lovely bike, Thursday definitely can't come any faster,
but I guess in the process of kicking the derailer off I gave myself a
good kick in the pants too.

It rained today which was awesome, it felt like little cool drops of
encouragement. It definitely was no rain storm, but when you haven't
seen rain in awhile it was a sight for sore eyes. Today has been a
little stressful with transfers, we don't have a lot of space in our
little room so it made it hard to move things around, but we managed
to get all of E. Lows stuff out and get E. Katanuma in. In the process
of all this craziness E. Low took the phone to his new area and we
have been floundering a little bit to get in contact with members and
our investigators, what a day... elder Low sucks, I was actually a
little sad to see him leave, he is a super awesome missionary, and we
defiantly had a good time serving together. I'm super nervous because
I know that my comp will be looking to me a lot to help him with
learning English, and also knowing how to answer everyone's questions,
I can't imagine being in a different country with companions that
don't speak your language. I've got a lot to improve on but I'm super
excited to work with him. It look so like I will be learning Spanish
while we do language study together, there are a lot of people that
only speak Spanish around here, so it's probably for the best.

During this past week and E. Low knocked on the door to one of our
investigators, he is a young man that is probably in 9th grade. We
could see him on the couch through one of the panels of glass on his
front door, as soon as he heard us knock, we watched him swing his
head around, and as soon as he realized it was us he performed
something that looked like a sideways corkscrew flip in the air, and
landed flat on the ground, making his body as spread out and flat as
possible, he was convinced that we couldn't see him, we waited a few
moments, but there he laid, like a dead fish. Realizing he had no
intention to open the door for us I put my face close to the window,
waved to him, and told him we were coming by tomorrow. I'm sorry, but
you can't run from us Ivan, no matter how many mid air corkscrew dead
fish plops you do.

The work has been progressing, and we are working to get more people
in our teaching pool, because it's at just about zero, right now.
That means that there is only room for progression. I love this
mission even though it can be super stressful, I'm excited to see more
growth in myself, there is always so much to learn and to get better
at. Thank you to everyone that has been writing me, it makes a world
of difference to have your support. Keep on keeping on.

Elder LeBaron