July 20, 2009

Ryan's Letter:

Subject: True gold is not afraid of the refiners Fire.


Hey, I forgot one more thing I am grateful for! I am grateful for having SIX flat tires on my bike last week! I am not even joking. It all started after district meeting when I blew the first tire (my back one) on a curb. The next day I was on exchanges with Elder Garcia from my MTC group and got two thorns in my front tire. As we walked to a member's house to patch it, we were telling each other how grateful we were that only one of our tires was flat. Within five minutes, my back tire had deflated as well and we found another thorn in it. So at the member's house, we patched two holes in the front and one in the back. After lunch, one of the patches was leaking so I borrowed another Elder's bike for the rest of the day.
The next morning, we found out that I had somehow managed to put a flat on his bike as well. Three days later, I was on exchanges with Elder Manuma (also from my MTC district) and I got another flat on my bike. The last one was last tuesday at about eight thirty in the evening. We were about three miles from the apartment and I had used up all of my patches. Luckily I had a piece of sandpaper that I ripped up and glued to the tube. It worked surprisingly well for about a mile then we had to stop and pump it up again. But it got us home! In total my front tube had three patches and a piece of sandpaper glued to it. I decided it was time to buy a new tube. :)
Anyway, this was a great week as far as lessons. In total we tracted for about an hour. We were just too busy going from lesson to lesson all day. Aj, one of the teenagers we are teaching in the appartments has really begun to progress. He reads all of his assignments and has put Moroni's challenge to the test. He is such an intelligent kid, and I could see him really getting involved in the church.
I finally had the chance to speak in church! It was a really last minute talk though because I was just a replacement for one of the real speakers. I got to talk about the Book of Mormon! Probably the hardest part was that I had to keep it under five minutes. That's basically only enough time for a testimony, but it was still really fun.
Guess what Jennifer! Last night whilee we were riding around we ran into two sister missionaries form the Sacremento Mission. Don't worry dad, we weren't outside of our area. They are American Sign Language Missionaries so they cover three different missions by themselves. They were looking for new people to teach but we didn't know any deaf people. That would be awesoome if Jennifer went to an ASL mission!
I got of a picture of my family this week of Scott's wedding. All of my sisters looked so good. I loved the matching red. I'll bet you guys didn't even realize it, but our name is "allred" and you "all" had "red" on. Haha It looked Great!
Well I love you All. Choose the right and stuff.
Love Elder Ryan Allred