Week 101: Ceres

Dear Family and Friends,

This week was good.  We've been working hard and have been continuing to teach our investigators to prepare them for baptism.  Ceres is a city.  It's basically connected to Modesto, and our area starts just south of a river that runs on the south end of Modesto.  So our area consists of part Modesto and part Ceres, and then we cover a little out into the boonies just like almost every other area does.  We cover the whole area on bikes, which isn't too hard but if we want to get anywhere quick or to different people in quick succession we either have to plan really well or have a member be out with us.  Which is good and happens a lot since we have member team-ups for almost every night of the week.  We should be having a baptism this weekend and another next weekend too so that's exciting.  

Oh I forgot to mention one of the dumb things that happened this week.  So my bike has it's little foibles and problems that come and you can generally get used to if you don't have time to get things checked out, but on Tuesday we had Zone Conference in Modesto and I took my bike to one of the members up there who does a lot of work on the missionaries bikes here.  I had him check some stuff, tighten part of the crank mechanism, move the pads for my brakes around, and then check out why my chain jumps on the gear whenever I put too much pressure on.  Well the chain does this thing called "stretching" where the bearings just erode away after time and so I went and bought a new chain.  We were hoping it hadn't screwed up the cassette on the rear wheel and called it good.  But the next day when I started riding the jumping was worse than before.  So we took it up to Modesto again and I had to get a new cassette and we tinkered around with the positioning of the derailers so that the gears change smoothly.  I watched close enough to see how it's all done so I can do it myself when needed, but it just sucks that 38 dollars later with only 3-4 weeks left I had to do that.  It runs really smooth now though.

I'm still trying to figure out selling my bike.  The other Elder here is going to buy a new bike so I might just try to use a member and have them put it on ebay and send me the money when someone picks it up or something.  We'll see.  Other than that all is well.  I'll let you know if I need anything for some final stuff.

Love,

Elder Weber