When I started this blog I anticipated writing a story each Sunday. I figure two years of writing in my journal every day would allow me to go for quite some time and that the following story would be my concluding one. As is turns out, I'm horrible at adding to this consistently. And at the rate I'm going, this story would never make it online. So, here it comes. Some of you have already heard about this, and to others it should be entirely new. Feel free to ask me to tell you the story in person cause I love to. One final note that I find interesting is that this happened two years to the day from my entering the MTC.
"... Today we went to visit a former investigator who lives at the edge of our area. We were asking him about his experience with missionaries in the past. As we were talking, his little kid was looking beyond us out the screen and said, "He's gettin' ya'll bike!" We turned around and this guy was getting on Elder Gillen's bike and starting to ride away. Elder Gillen yelled, "What are you doing with my bike?" and began running after him. I handed Eddie a card and told him we'd be back.
I helmetted up and the chase began. To save from any tension I'll write first that each time I had to cross traffic there were large gaps. Never during the ride was I in any danger of collision with an automobile. As I left there were immediate chants from the little kids, "Go get 'em!" As I approached my companion, I heard more sideliners, "Hey, is that your bike?!" I sprinted past Elder Gillen and got up to speed, with the thief still a ways ahead of me. He turned then turned again. Thanks to more bystanders I knew where he had turned because they pointed the turns out for me so I has able to once again find the stinker. I persisted while breaking two rather important mission rules (I was both out of my area and way out of sight and sound of my companion).
I continued on the chase gaining ground. When we got to the corner of Gratiot and State Fair I was close enough to shout at him, "What do you think you're doing? You're gonna give us our bike back!" [Not recorded in my journal, but I'll add that I remember sounding pretty grizzly here. I never yell, so it was intense for me to hear myself sounding like a bear] He kept going, while I kept gaining ground and was eventually right on his side. I told him to get of the bike, but he refused. I told him again to get off. I told him we'd report him to the police, then he threatened me saying he'd push me off my bike. I said, "You're stealing our bike, and threatening me now?" He told me to back off, bit I didn't.
That conversation went on for a bit, then his plan changed. He told me, "I'm not stealing it, I'm just borrowing it. I had a long walk home." So I said, "You're not borrowing it. You didn't ask if you could take it. Get off now!" Him: "When I get home." Me: "Oh, you probably don't want me to know where you live after stealing this bike." He went about two more streets, and got off the bike. He was about to leave and I stopped him.
"Hey!"
"Yeah?"
"Have you ever spoken to missionaries like us before?"
"No."
I handed him a Book of Mormon pass-along card. I told him our purpose is to share a message about Jesus Christ our Savior. I told him I was pretty upset with him, because he just slowed the Lord's work down. He left and I went to find my companion. Luckily he had the cell that day and I was close to a car stereo store so I was able to call him and 10 or so minutes later we met halfway. His helmet had been left at Eddie's house so we had a long walk back. The walk was great though because when the groups of people saw us coming back with two bikes they cheered! One man told me he knew I would get him because he could see the fury in my face as I chased him :)."
I love and miss Detroit because of the people like these. Obviously there were some on a negative end, like the dude who stole the bike and like Eddie who turned me down when I asked for a glass of water after a high speed bike chase. However, for the most part whether the people cared to listen to us or not, the majority respected what we were doing.
