come from other countries can get a mission owned bike instead of
buying one on their own. The mission owned bikes are kind of broken
down and needed replacing. Last week we got a call from a member in
Pleasant Hill, south and east of Oakland, who had a friend in Sonoma
whose brother had died two years ago. The brother was a "hoarder" and
had died and the brother was trying to get rid of all his stuff. He
had 29 bikes he wanted to give away. We jumped and said we'll take
them, sight unseen. So last Monday Elders Lyman and Mcintire took two
trailers and traveled 1 1/2 hours north to get the bikes. They
returned and we unloaded them into the garage. Most didn't have the
front wheel on and there were a lot of parts not matched up. There
was every kind and color.
As we did this a young man who just "happened" to be working at the
temple grounds for the summer and was staying nearby, came over to
have a look. He is a return missionary who served in this mission
some time ago. He has a summer job with the temple engineer, and he
knows bikes. He and Elder Lyman worked out a deal that he would get
one of the bikes in return for putting them together and testing them
out. He researched their values on the Internet and they are between
10 and 20 years old, but very high end racing bikes. He said the most
expensive one there would be about 3000.00 and the least one would
cost 1000.00. All in all we figured we had about 20,000.00 worth of
bikes given to us. He has worked on them all last week, took pictures
and then we are going to the local bike shops and trade them for bikes
more conducive to ones the missionaries can ride.
It is a miracle that the member called us. It is a miracle that the
brother was willing to just give them to us. It is a miracle that a
young man was nearby who knew bikes. And it is a miracle that Elder
Lyman can now work his magic and trade them. The picture is some of the bikes and a few of the admiring missionaries.
Small miracles happen all the time.
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