My first official week of biking!

Hey,

Sorry to hear the air-conditioner went out. People here don't really use air-conditioning since it's pretty cool most of the year, but when it does get hot they just turn on a ton of fans (and it doesn't work that great). Things have started to cool down here once again, on Saturday it was just a down-pour all day and we had nothing planned so I spent all of it out in the rain riding around on my bike.

My first official week of biking! I finally was able to get into contact with this guy who lives in Hillsboro that owns a bike shop. He's a member, and loves hooking missionaries up, so I got a really good deal on a nice bike with the accessories! It's a hybrid bike, so it's got a lot of the performance of a road bike, but it's got the comfort of a mountain bike. I spent the first part of the week riding around on this heavy mountain bike and and as soon as I got my bike, immediately I could notice a difference!

Riding bike around everywhere though has been rough! Not to mention the area I'm in has a lot of hills- which are killer! I'm exhausted, but I actually do enjoy being on bike a lot. We have this green-way trail through our area and it's beautiful! Just super green and open, I love it. It's been awesome to be outside, and the exercise I've been getting is really good for me! It's slowly getting easier to get around, so after awhile I should be a well-tuned biking machine. (Hopefully.)
Well, I hope that the wedding was nice. I've been to a couple of wedding receptions since I've been out and I love them. We go, eat tons of free food, don't have to really do anything except make chit-chat with people in the ward. At this wedding reception last week there was a canvas that you could put your thumbprint on with ink and sign, so I did. They'll look back at that years from now and wonder who the heck Sam Burge, and they'll never figure it out.

This week was a lot slower than last week, not as much going on. We did get into teach this one guy who's been investigating for a little bit, and mid-lesson his oven broke out in flames! He walked over to get his daughter a glass of water and he just says, "OH SH---!". It was an electric oven so he just turned the breaker off to the kitchen, but needless to say it kind of cut our time short. I hope he doesn't believe in like, omens or anything like that... hahaha!

The Alberts, the family we're staying with, have another person staying with us now. This 20-something graduate from BYU who's doing an internship out here is staying in one of their spare rooms. It's so funny, I joke with them a lot about it because they're got a ton of people they don't really even know living with them all the time. There's some distant relation to Brother Alberts, but what's really funny is me and Elder Schmidt met him before Sister Alberts did! I really like living with the Alberts though, they're really cool. (Plus, I get free milk.)

Speaking of them though, they went out of town this past weekend, so they asked us to walk their labradoodle in the morning and at night. People think we're gay, two sharply-dressed young men walking a less-than-masculine dog around... It was pretty funny, but the dog threw up in the laundry room and we had to clean it up! It was terrible... Other than that, it was a pretty routine week.

Tell Silas he can use all of the art supplies I have to his heart's content. Even if he doesn't want to use the oil paints, he can use the easel to paint on. You feel really cool when you paint on an easel.

Well, good luck to Ben with his classes. You'll have to tell me how they go!

Love you all,

Elder Samuel Burge

P.S. - Sorry, but... I lost my camera cable so I'll have to buy an SD-card adapter from the store today. I'll send you pictures on Friday, definitely though! Especially of my bike- I love it. It has a bell on it.