Tyler in the Rockies: Lessons from the Bike Lane

This week was pretty great. We taught a lot of people and had a good time. Unfortunately,Elder Hughes is getting transferred and I am not happy about that.

This week since we had great weather we biked around a lot. I knew I wasn't in great shape by any means but within 5 minutes of riding I was DEAD. I just kept pushing and pushing. Going downhill was ok, but once we got flat or uphill I was really struggling. All my life I have had pretty large and powerful legs but my guess was that they had deteriorated in my 9 months as a missionary or SOMETHING! I couldn't imagine how I had gotten so out of shape in such a short time. I don't exercise to the degree I used to, but I still do what I can....maybe it was the altitude? Elder Hughes on the other hand was just cruising like he was on a cloud. Needless to say my self esteem was in the basement. By the end of the night I was really feeling the burn.

We were at John & Kristen Trujillo's house and after our lesson, John was nice enough to offer us a ride home instead of us riding back. (They live at the very bottom elevation wise of Pueblo). Elder Hughes looked at me and I looked at him and we were both thinking the same thing.....Wait what? Ok, no we weren't thinking the same thing. I was thinking YESSSS!!! He was thinking NO.

Anyway, I decided to be a man and ride the last 4 miles home uphill....woohoo!! The last little bit was the worst. Even when I was on flat ground it seemed like I was pushing uphill. By the time I got up the three flights of stairs and into my apartment, I sat down on the couch and thought my legs were going to fall off. My thighs felt like I had just squatted 400 pounds... All in all we had biked 15 miles.

The next morning we strapped up our bikes onto our truck and went to the church to help clean. My legs were on fire. Before we started riding again, Elder Hughes did a little tune up on my bike. He was trying to spin my tires when he just started busting out laughing. He called me over to show me something. My brakes had been on all day the day before. 😐

I RODE 15 MILES UPHILL WITH MY BRAKES ON!!!!!

It made me think - I wonder if in life sometimes we are "riding with our brakes on".

It might be time to do a spiritual tune up. Maybe we are holding onto a grudge and not forgiving someone and therefore it is holding us back. Maybe we can't let go of something we did in the past. Whatever it is that is weighing us down - letting go will do a lot of good.

The common saying in society goes something like: If you love something let it go and if it loves you it will come back and buy you dinner.. etc something like that.

But in my humble opinion something that rings more true to me - is "If you DON'T love something...DEFINITELY let it go - otherwise it's going to make life MUCH harder."

Message for the week: Don't ride through life with your brakes on!