Man, I love cheese.

So our family group (Bible study for international students) is going well, but not as well as I would prefer. We've talked about who God is, His characteristics, what Jesus did and who He is, and everyone seems to have a good grasp of it. They're understanding and forming their own (sometimes very difficult) questions to better understand what's going on. But there's a huge gap between making the jump from head knowledge to heart knowledge. I almost wonder if this feels more like a class where you're learning new philosophy, and not about the God who can change your life.

A huge thing I've picked up in Theology of the Gospel is that the depravity and sinfullness of man MUST be explained! The international students see no need to be saved if they don't realize that they need to be saved from something. We posed the question, "Do you think man is overall good, or do you think all men are evil?" Only one out of 10 internationals said man is evil. They have no concept that they've sinned against God and need to be saved.

In two weeks, I'll be doing the lesson, and I think I want to take this on. It's something I've been convicted about through the past few weeks, and I feel like it really needs to be said. So PLEASE, be praying for me. I'm way intimidated (I don't feel that I'm eloquent or have the gift of evangelism, but then again, neither did Paul) and I want to share this critical part of the Gospel in love. By the by, I'm glad I have 2 weeks to do this. :)

In other news, I'm finally being faced with the big decisions that I knew would inevitably come. Do I leave Ames for what appears to be the perfect job? Or do I hold out in hope that God will provide me a job here? The biggest concern I have is my spiritual life. I feel like I still have far to grow with my walk with God and I KNOW Cornerstone will continue to push me and challenge me. I don't have that assurance in Denison. I also don't have the strong spiritual support of a group of women who know me and where I struggle and know how to encourage me.

So tough.

Any advice on either matter would be much appreciated. Honestly.

tmi?

Yesterday as I was cramming Kleenexes in my nose to keep from blowing every 5 minutes, I thought to myself about how attractive colds are. And how good of an excuse it is to do something dumb and maybe (hopefully) gain sympathy instead of ridicule.

Today, Mr. Cold took it to a whole new level. While we're not full blown I'm-taking-over-your-face yet (and I'm going to try to keep it that way), we're starting the aches, joint pain, and chills. I don't remember colds being so hard on your body! Anyway, I'm staying home tonight to try to give my body a rest since I was up and out all day. Hopefully we still have some DayQuil in the cabinet...

In other news, I love love love my dad. I met up with him in Ankeny to watch Lauren's volleyball game and it was so good to hang out with him. He took me out for dinner and grocery shopping and we had a lot of good talks. I'll definitely miss him a ton when I eventually move away. ~sigh~ If only I could take all the things I love with me when I leave... It would make everything so much easier!

Update:
The pathetic frozen popsicle has returned; I've resorted to wearing my big sweatshirt and thick socks, sitting on the kitchen floor next to the oven while my frozen pizza cooks while keeping my warm laptop in my lap.

Winter is SO going to kick my butt this year.

Still freezing. So cold. What happened to sweatshirt weather? We went from warm t-shirt days to needing the big winter coat. I miss the comfy sweatshirt days. :(

I took my guitar in to Reimans to get the neck on my guitar straightened (it was really bowed and it made playing very hard). A few minutes later, the guy came out and said it was much better. And then:
Him: "There's a little problem with your strings though; [plays a few chords, and one of the strings buzzes really bad] one of your strings is broken."
Me: "Yeah, I need knew strings. I plan on getting them soon"
Him: "And, um.... do you even HAVE a tuner?"
Me: [embarrassed] "Well, yes, but...."
Him: "Cause it's REALLY out of tune. One string was an entire step off, a few were sharp, a few were flat..."
Me: "Yeah, I'm learning a song where I have to drop the A to a G."
Him: "No, it's just out of tune. Badly."

Yeah, so I'm the guitar chick who clearly doesn't actually play her guitar. Fantastic.
On the flip side, I was referred to this guy on youtube who will walk you through a song and teach the strumming patterns and everything; he's kind of amazing. I learned "Flood" by Jars of Clay in half an hour. I feel way cool now. :)

I'm loving the missions internship! I've got the Perspectives website up and ready (just need to make a few changes) and I'm really excited to get registration started. With that said, go recruit family and friends! Send them to www.perspectives.org/ames!! The class is totally worth the cost! (Or, for those of you not in ames, you can search for a class nearest you - Pella, Des Moines, and Danville all have one. There are more too!)

Battery dying. Bye

swf with cold hands, warm heart seeking...

I have a new mission. Or rather, an old mission, but for new reason.

I need to find a man. With a solidly warm core body temperature.

Yes, yes, there are other reasons I desire a husband. But right now, warmth is pretty darn high on my list. It's a sad thing when you can't get your core body temperature to warm up FOUR HOURS after you were outside for 10 minutes. In 44 degree weather.

I'm pathetic.

But I'll leave that out of my "w seeking m" wanted ad. No one wants a frozen pathetic popsicle for a wife. :)

It's funny how you have no problem with a certain thing that you're doing until someone mentions that maybe you should, in fact, be keeping the fourth commandment, even now. And you shrug it off like it's no big thing, but then God lays out the truth and you're convicted. In a very hard way.

The past two weeks have been terrible. I haven't been utilizing my time as I should, and as a result, have been staying up until 2 or 4 am studying. Part of it was that I had a bajillion exams (at least one a day, sometimes two) and couldn't keep up with just those, but I probably could have been better prepared if I had been keeping up with the readings and other various things beforehand. Hindsight's 20/20 though, and last Monday, I woke up and was ready for the week to be over. I had no time to rest at all and my body was revolting hard core. Conviction, like always, wore me down, and I've decided to start keeping a Sabbath.

Keeping a sabbath seems kind of 'old testiment'ish and very unpractical for today's busy world. But I was reading through the first few chapters of Genesis, about God creating the world, and even He, on the 7th day, took a sabbath and rested. I'm pretty sure He would have been fine to have kept on going, without taking a day of rest - He is, after all, God, right? But I think He was setting an example for us. Our bodies can only take so much work before they collapse. They need time to rest and get their strength back for another week.

I've been wondering what exactly a Sabbath would look like for me since my schedule is absolutely insane and I barely have time for anything. But upon closer inspection, if I actually utilize my time like I should (taking advantage of 2 hour lunches to get some reading done instead of watching tv or being on facebook), I should, in theory, get stuff done. I still don't feel like I have a lot of time (too many commitments), so I'm adjusting my schedule accordingly (no more Salt Company :( ); I really want to use my time wisely. That way, when my Sabbath does come, I can just rest.

So sabbath for me = no homework and no housework. I would love to use this time to visit with friends and hang out. I'm a social person and being by myself makes me very short-tempered and grouchy and being with people is rejuvenating for me.

That being said, this weekend was my chance to recuperate from the hellish 2 weeks I went through. And today was awesome.

I slept in until 11, woke up when my roommate got home, and we decided to clean the apartment. Very thoroughly. Amazingly enough, we finished in just over an hour. Yess!! It looks soooo good now! The power of a clean apartment should never be underestimated! There was more that I would have liked to get accomplished today (progress on a paper due friday), but Rome wasn't built in a day, was it? Growth takes time.

I busted out the guitar again too. I've got a terrible system where I take a week and build up my callouses by playing hard, and then I leave my guitar to gather dust while my callouses wear off. It's a painful process. This cycle, I'm trying hard to learn to 'pluck' the strings for this one particular song - I've never been able to get my fingers coordinated enough for it. But I made good progress tonight! Maybe I'll post it when I get it mastered? (Look for it in a year or so)