missionaryMAC

Woohoo I get to type in English! I was busy website-translating all morning ;) My parents, brother, and sister joined me in El Paso for Thanksgiving this year, but they actually arrived the Saturday BEFORE, so we had almost a whole week to help Chris get everything ready for the group from his home church to come and serve approx. 1400 Thanksgiving dinners and explore the sights before we barely had time to breathe for 3 days once they were actually here. I was going to lump everything into 1 entry, but there are sooooo many pictures and I didn't want it to go on forever, so I split it into 2. Look for the other one tomorrow probably. I think it's going to be easiest if I just tell you about what we did as I go... They got there 2 days after my birthday so we celebrated...AGAIN!...when they got there. This was my 4th birthday cake! I kept Ariel and Flounder ;) LOTS of Cardinals stuff...just wait until tomorrow's blog...there's more... Sunday we went to the new worship s...

Back to November until I get caught up... The Friday that Chris and I left St. Louis after the conference, I once again had the opportunity to lead chapel for the kids at my former gradeschool, St. Paul's Lutheran in Des Peres, MO...Chris helped. They have been incredibly supportive of my whole journey as a volunteer missionary. I also led chapel in January 2009 before I came down here, and the kids collected school supplies for the mission in lieu of traditional chapel offerings; this time around it was toys. Because we flew Southwest and got 2 free checked bags each, Chris and I were each able to take an extra suitcase of them back for Elvira to start getting ready for the Christmas distribution, which will take place on Saturday, December 19, 2009. Here are some pictures of the loot: I wanted our message to tie in the fact that they collected toys, Christmas, and Mexico, which I think I succeeded in doing. I hope it made sense...I'll let you decide but it did in my head. I s...

Well, not quite, but we did get a decent amount of white stuff for El Paso. Pretty much all the schools started late I think. This is what I woke up to this morning: Freddy was very intrigued by watching those white things falling from the sky. Sometimes it looked like he was ready to pounce on one. "God's voice thunders in marvelous ways; he does great things beyond our understanding. He says to the snow , 'Fall on the earth,' and to the rain shower, 'Be a mighty downpour.'" --Job 37:5-6 "Like the coolness of snow at harvest time is a trustworthy messenger to whose who send him; he refreshes the spirit of his masters." --Proverbs 25:13 "Come now, let us reason together," says the Lord. "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow ; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool." --Isaiah 1:18 "As the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return to it without watering the earth ...

(FYI it is snowing as I write this...it's a slushy mess right now but they're predicting 3-5 inches total overnight!!! Scenic Drive is closed and UTEP cancelled all its night classes!!!) There is already an entry titled that, or something very similar, from November 2008, but here is another one because for the 2nd consecutive year, Chris and I spent 3 days at Our Lady of the Snows in Belleville, IL, fellowshipping with and learning from people who do the same thing we do. Most of the curriculum was similar to last year, although I did see things a bit differently since I had almost a year of servant event coordinating under my belt instead of not actually having started my job yet. A lot of the workshops I feel like Chris and I could have led since the conference is predominately for organizations that only host a handful of events each year, and we hold like 40 something, but hearing other people's input, problem solving techniques, PR strategies, etc. is something that c...

Chris and I like to call Sparks "My Town," like the song by Montgomery Gentry since we have worked on so many houses there and befriended so many of the people. But I guess the original "My Town" would be Kirkwood (St. Louis), MO, where I grew up, although Chris liked to point it out everytime I didn't know where or what something was, which was a lot. That's why God invented Mapquest ;) I think I managed to be an OK tour guide though, especially since there a TON of free things to do there. Here is a sampling about our adventures: Our first full day in St. Louis started off with toasted ravioli on The Hill, St. Louis's Italian neighborhood. It hit me when I was captioning my pictures that this picture is of a Hill on the Hill! Later on we toured the Anheuser Busch brewery, then after dinner we went to Ted Drewes for the BEST frozen custard. AB had all their Christmas decorations up and it was so pretty! Me and my friend Erica, who drove up from Springfi...