First official bike wreck

Hello everybody,

This week has been another slow week- we had quite a few cancellations and couldn't get pretty much anyone join us for general conference. I really enjoyed listening to the prophet and apostles- especially both of Uchtdorf's talks, Elder Holland's talk on Saturday afternoon, and Eyring in the priesthood session. I'm always surprised when Boyd K. Packer shows up for conference because after the last two broadcasts I thought he'd finally give up the ghost for sure. Still kicking though, so kudos to him! We watched a few sessions at the church, and I honestly enjoyed it a lot more than being on a couch in somebody's house. I actually got quite a bit out of the Saturday sessions we watched there, because it was the only thing I could focus on and it's a lot harder to doze off!

Glad to hear that you didn't have to spend a ton of money replacing the heater- that would've been awful. Today we went to a Halloween store with the assistants (Elder Visser and Elder Egan) and there's a ton of freaky stuff there! It was straight-up creepy but I had a lot of fun with that. It's gotten a bit warmer here the past week, the rain has cleared up the past few days and it's been getting into the 70's-80's. It's awful, I was super excited for the rainfall to come and then it went away and now we have to always be wearing either a suit or a jacket (only when we're out biking). It's made getting around extremely uncomfortable because of how hot it's been getting. I'm really excited for winter in some respects. The wet, cold aspect can be challenging for some but I think it isn't too bad. We get to listen to X-mas music though, which is going to be fantastic. I wanted to ask y'all if you'd be willing to send me Justin Bieber's, Reliant K's, and some other good x-mas albums. Those would be great! Honestly, I don't get much mail (digital or hand-written) these days. It's slowed down quite a bit from pretty much everybody, but it's all good. I still write my friends occasional emails and receive them from time-to-time.

Speaking of biking- I had my first official bike wreck this week! We were pulling out onto this busy road and I realized that I wasn't supposed to go straight, but turn right to get to our next appointment and so as I turned I hit my front brake way too hard and flew over my handlebars and my bike came tumbling on top of me. Luckily, I wasn't in the middle of the busy road and the only injuries were a blood stain in my jacket sleeve, a scraped-up elbow, and shattered pride. Elder Olsen said it was pretty crazy how I flew over, he thought I was going to be pretty messed up. It was pretty nutty, but at least I'm positive my brakes work well!

Sorry to hear that Ben's had a rough week of college classes. Got a low grade on a history paper for talking too much about history, that's pretty funny. At least he's not failing any of his classes, and I'm sure he'll do better on some of his later exams/tests. I know for sure that I'm going to need a math tutor when I get home, because I can't remember anything about math and the last like two math classes I took in high school I didn't retain/learn all too much. (Partially because of my not paying attention and screwing around in class...) I'm so happy that you checked out Elder Udy's blog- he actually talked with me about helping me with math when we get back from Portland because he's going back to USU and that's possibly where I'm going to go! It's too bad his area has slowed down as much as it has.. You think that having companionship in each ward is rough, well think again: there's going to be twenty wards in our mission alone with two sets of missionaries! There's a couple being established this transfer and it freaks me out. What the heck am I supposed to do 24/7 in a ward with four missionaries in it? Not to mention I'm going to get transferred in two weeks (thankfully), so now it's going to feel like a game of Russian roulette..!

I'm really hopeful for this upcoming transfer- it will be good for everybody. I'll get a much needed change of scenery and (hopefully) pace and Elder Olsen will get a trial by fire! It will be good for him, it will stretch him and get the ball rolling for the rest of his two years. It's been quite a learning experience, these past twelve weeks. Adjusting to missionary life can be struggle, but I know he's going to be an great missionary (even though it can be difficult sometimes).

Well, that's all I've got for this week- I love you guys and hope you have a great week.

Elder Samuel A. Burge