'Mountain' Biking in Florida

Hello again from hot and humid Florida. It seems to be that time of year again. When it gets even hotter and more humid. The past few months have been fairly nice, for Florida that is. I could've used a few feet of snow. But what can you do? I'm not really enjoying the humidity, but I know that I only have one more summer here. So I think I'll survive. At least try to. :)

Every Thursday we have exchanges with the Elders and High Priests. Elder Pattie and the Elders president, Brother Coates, went to visit a recent convert of the Spanish Branch that will be moving over to the ward and his wife. The wife is not a member and we plan on teaching her. Elder Pattie said that it went really well. Bro. Coates can speak very good spanish so he spoke a lot. They both speak english but the husband is still learning it. But they went over the Plan of Salvation with them and Pattie said that the spirit was there very strongly and she was crying.

I went with the High Priest Group leader, Bro. Thompson. We went to a less-actives house. He lives out in the middle of nowhere. As we were driving, we are passing all these old rundown homes that are not very nice, then we see his mailbox... He has an elctronic gate with a calling system and a large brick wall surrounding his house and tons of property. We call in and the hired help/ maid answered and said, "Mr. Gaskill is not in right now. He should be home around 9." His hosue was about 100 yards back from the road and it was huge! It looked like one of those plantation homes. Giant! We were pretty dissappointed that we didn't get to go inside. But Elder Pattie and I plan on going back sometime. The Bishop said that he is a really nice guy.

We then went to visit another less-active that was on the way back to the chruch. They live on a ranch and are very much ranchers. Accent and everything. So I got along with them quite well. They were a really nice family. They told us pretty much their whole life story, (we get that a lot as missionaries.) But it was a really good visit.

Today, being P-Day, we decided to have some fun. We went to the Alafia State Park Bike Trails. We have been there a few time and it is always a ton of fun. There is this one trail that we really like called Rollercoaster. We usually hit it at least twice each time we go. In about the middle of the trail there is a nice jump that we always hit and go back around and hit again and again and again. It is a lot of fun.

This is a video of me doing the jump. This time I started from on top of a hill and had a lot more speed then usuall. So it was exciting. You'll notice that I hit the jump just fine and land it nicely too. Then the fun part happens. Apparently my front brakes work a lot better then I gave them credit for. They thought they should teach me a lesson for doubting them. It was fun.

This is part of the bike trails with commentary by Elder Pattie. I found it quite interesting. But it is a lot of fun.

This is me with a trutle that we found on the trails on our way out. Sorry that it's sideways, but I didn't have enough time to rotate it. So have fun looking funny while turning your heads. :P

And that is all that I've got for this week. I would love to hear how everybody out there is doing. Keep me updated.