beginning.

August 28, 2010 at 10:33 pm. (happy birthday dad!!)


Feliz Sabado! An early morning run followed by fresh squeezed mandarin juice was the greatest way to start my Sabbath. :) Then Steph and I had cereal and milk for breakfast- we are living the high life, cereal and milk is our treat on the weekends. Haha We buy little bags of cereal in Pucallpa on Friday and enjoy them on the weekends. It might sound silly, but it really is a delicacy here. Most days we have runny oatmeal or eggs or potatoes and I really miss my SmartStart cereal. Haha. Sometimes the little things make the biggest difference.

I played my ukulele for the kid’s Sabbath school class today- I need to practice the songs a bit more, but the kids seemed to enjoy it. They are marveled at how little my uke is. It was quite the ordeal. Then for church Steph, Bernadette, and I sang “All Who Are Thirsty” for special music. They do special music a bit differently here- it’s a volunteer thing. As in when it comes to that point in the service when it’s time for special music anyone can go up and sing something. So usually there are 4-5 people who sing a little diddy and you just listen and say “amen” loudly when they are done :) I like it.

I look forward to Sabbath for a lot of reasons- one is that I get to talk to my parents! I look forward to it every week. I used up all my minutes last week and I was crying the whole time, but this week was much improved. I only cried a little at the end AND I saved minutes for Wednesday! Haha :) It’s tough to be so far away and have so little communication with them so any time I get to talk with them is precious. I always feel better after I talk to them, parents have a way of always being encouraging and saying the right thing right when you need to hear it. LOVE YOU mom and dad!! :)

Oh, so I picked up this book- it’s called “Blue Like Jazz”-one of the best books I’ve ever read! I just started it this afternoon and I am already halfway thru it! The author has some really profound things to say about believing in God and just about Christianity in general. It really got me thinking. He just says some very thought provoking things and brings up things that I have not really thought about because I have grown up Adventist. I like that because it made me think about what I believe and why. In the book he was saying something along the lines of we can’t fix the world until we fix ourselves- to make a change we need to look in the mirror first and make the change there. Along with this, he also said things about how it is so natural for us to be self-absorbed..That is sometimes a hard thing to swallow… there is so much about myself that I would like to change and make better. Sometimes I don’t even realize how self-absorbed I am till I stop and think about it… To be honest, it is very disappointing. Even though I have a lot of things I would like to change, I don’t want it to be like I have a to-do list of things that I just want to check off. I want the changes to be something that lasts forever and something that comes naturally. I know that change is challenging, and I will certainly be praying a lot for strength and guidance… I think I picked up this book for a reason, I feel like this could be the beginning of something great.

Oh, one more thing- more SM’s came tonight!! Yay! Two guys from LaSierra- Chris and Caleb. Steph and I went over and welcomed them to our house and told them a little about how things work around here. They were very nice and conversation was easy breezy so that’s a good start! They came in dressed very nicely and with a lot of stuff (perhaps more the Steph and I), but I think they will soon figure out what it’s like here- they seem adventurous too so I can’t wait to see what this year brings as the rest of the SM’s get here!