BIG NEWS!!

Hey Everybody!

So I have waited to post anything until I knew for sure what I will be doing this fall...

It is both exciting, and scary to say that this fall I will be teaching in Mexico!!!! I have found a bilingual in Durango, Mexico. I have been offered a fifth grade teaching position. Besides being paid, they provide housing, medical insurance, and language classes!

I am super excited and can hardly believe the adventure I'm about to make. I am happy to have my parents support on this decision, as well. It all seems a bit surreal, and I think I might be crazy :-p

Here is a map of Mexico so you can see where it is I'm going!

If you click on the map you can see it bigger!

Here We Go Loop-D-Lou

I have nothing exactly important to post about....

Life has started to get back into some-sort of normal swing.

Started subbing for Conroe Independent School District.

It's been good.

Checking out some exciting possibilities for this fall, I'll let you know if anything solidifies.

And I have my car! :)

Chicken & Biscuits

Today I substituted in the public school today for the first time. Woo. It went well. I took a P.E. class. And it turned out better than I could have imagined because there was an aid there, who knew what was supposed to happen. I just had be the law and make sure they behaved. The only thing I didn't like about today was we had to make the kids run outside this morning, and it was SUPER cold. bleh.

I also went shopping today :)
I don't like shopping.
I can never find something I like.
It is always more than I want to spend.

Today, however, was different.
Found some good goooood deals. woo.
Now if shopping could always be like that, I would love to shop...jaja


Oh and I have a new-to-me car!! woo

Here's a picture!



What a nice car :-p

Now I just have to think of a name for him.

Blind Leading the Blind

A Blind Stick Up


This morning as I was reading in the book of Matthew one little part of a sentence stuck out to me and has made me laugh all day long.

It says, "As Jesus went out from there, two blind men followed him,".

I don't know about you, but to picture two blind guys FOLLOWING someone, is pretty darn funny. I don't know how they followed him, but apparently they eventually tracked him down, and were healed.

And that got me to thinking too. We are all spiritually blind, until, by the grace of God our eyes are opened. What a blessing it is to have sight!

God is so good.

:)

Flying through the days!

Its almost been two weeks since I have been home. And, boy, I have done alot! jaja

Two days after I was back I was working again in the day care at my church.

One week after I was back, I wrecked my car!! :(
The insurance company totaled it.
I got a nice sum for it, but now I have to find a nice new-to-me car....sigh....

Last week I also applied to substitute for Conroe Independent School District, next week I will begin doing that :) :)

And that is all for now. As soon as I can get the pics off my phone, I'll post some of my crashed car :'(

It's over, It's over, It's all over now.....

Well DTS is completely over, and I am home now..... so sad....

I really need to catch you, who read this, up to date with the end of my out-reach phase!!

Well, like I think I said in a previous post, Dina and I didn't have enough money to go to Argentina with our whole team. They made a special out-reach for us around Monterrey. For the first 12 days we were in a small mountain village called Mimbres. They had electricity there, and running water, kinda....

I guess I should start at the beginning of this second part...But I'm gonna make it short sweet and to the point...cuz sooo much has happend since I need to post mooorrreeee!!



So our two weeks in Mimbres....To start of the trip there we packed a Ford Explorer with SIX people and the luggage and supplies for TWO WEEKS....and I had to sit in the back....It wasn't fun sitting back there, up in the mountains, things sliding all over me!!! I think I was car sick for the whole two weeks we were there...or at least when ever we drove...I didn't have to always sit back there, but the roads were sooo horrible!!
While we were there it was super cold. SUPER. Keep in mind that they don't have nicely insulated houses. Even when I was inside, I was cold. Unless I was by the fire, especially at night, I was freeezing. There towards the end of our time there, it was getting warmer...at least during the days!! jajaja!


Here, our first night, Dina and I were breaking out all the blankets so that we could sleep warmly. During our time in Mimbres our main mode of ministry was just visiting people. And since I am not fluent in Spanish, I mostly sat there and tried to follow...but my mind could only take that for so long. We also preached in three of the local churches. Dina and I took turns preaching. To begin with she was way better than I, but with more experience I got better. Besides visiting and preaching, Dina and I got play with some of the kids the last couple of days! Those were the best times up in the mountains!!


After the mountains we headed to SALTILLO!!! wooo. We were there for two weeks also. The first week there, we worked with a Nazarene church. It was a different kind of experience working with the people there. I loved the pastor and his family...There was a lot of drama going on in the church though. Our biggest ministry here was cleaning. We cleaned the house we stayed in. We cleaned the pastor's house. We cleaned the church...ALL of the church. Just me, Dina, and Esther!! Clean clean clean.
Dina and I also took turns preaching in this church too. I think we both preached/taught two times each while at this church. We also tried to teach a drama to the youth, but they were really not into it which made teaching them extra difficult. But we managed.


After that week, we entered our final week of out-reach!! I couldn't have asked to be in a better church either. Even though we only had one week there, we had the pleasure of working with the youth everyday of the week. They were a great group of kids to work with. The first night there we meet with the youth group and started teaching them dramas and skits right away. The next day we started on the two day project of painting Tony's bed room. Tony is the son of the pastor of the church we were working with. Tony's best friend was there helping us paint to. Those guys were lots of fun to work with. In the picture to the left it is Tony, Nacho, Me, and Dina. :) We got a little crazy with the paint there at the end...we did an executive paint job though...complete with a nice light blue stripe around the top...The room was blue because that is Tony's FAVORITE color.


While there we did A LOT of different things. After spending two evenings teaching the youth dramas and skits, the third night we went to a little neighborhood where the church we were working with planted a new church. The kids were great! So into being leaders and ministering to the people! I also spent a lot of time driving the youth everywhere!! At least that's what if felt like...whenever we wanted to do a street service or program we all piled into that little red truck and went...sometimes the pastor didn't even come with us and I had to rely on the youth leader Luis, or Tony tell me where to go...IN SPANISH!! Lets just say I learned my left, right, straight real quick!!

All in all out-reach phase turned out to be pretty good. Tough in a lot of moments, but I wouldn't trade them for the world!


Last week of DTS was difficult and stressed. It was super cool and super weird to be back with everyone, minus the Graffs. We had a TON of free time and we spent most of it playing a card game called Phase 10! I was so blessed to know these guys!!! They have impacted my life and I will never be the same. I miss them sooooooo much! Especially my Dina! DTS was an incredible time growing. I have so many great experiences that I couldn't even begin to tell them all!! But if you want, just ask! :)

Nuestra Cruzad-eichon

Me and Dina...twin-kies...this picture was taken in Durango at Parque Guadiana.

Due to lack of fund-age, Dina and I are on our own special little "Out-reach" phase. Our team left us yesterday to go to Argentina to complete their "Out-reach" phase. We got to go to the airport to see Chloe, Amber, Katelyn, and Oby off...it wasn't too bad saying bye to them. It was when Isai came to say goodbye to us that the water works more or less started.....we were supposed to be traveling with Isai....later when we had a meeting with our team leader Esther ....there was a flood of water works.....we were pretty pathetic. To top it off we had to go downtown after our cry fest and try to talk to people one on one. Later that evening, we had free time. We decided to go to Starbucks, so we headed to the one in the mall.... it snowed!! Fake snow, but it was snowing in the mall! If you look really close you can see it in the picture!! The best part of the evening what when Pavel and Poncho started texting us, then called us. :) We also ran into a friend of Dina's that she had been wanting to see since before we got went to Durango...So the night turned out pretty good despite how pathetically miserable we were.

This morning we were totally blessed to get to go to church in Dina's home church. I feel totally at home with these people and it was nice to be in a familiar place...This morning they had an extra special service for the end of the year. It started off with about an hour of praise and worship, then an hour of preaching, then an hour of special presentations....by then I thought they were going point to the back and say "HEY YOU! In the back! Yeah, YOU. You look like you want to say something, how bout you come up here and sing or dance or clap or something...."

In this pic some of the youth came up to sing a special....that's Azael on the drums...and Dina's dad grooving to the music in the back.This evening we were supposed to do a service at a different church, but that got canceled.



We did, however, have a bit of fun already....Esther got locked out of her room and we had to break in....Apparently Esther didn't know her door was locked when she exited. First we tried to climb over in the bathroom....exciting times.


Now Dina and I are being complete internet junkies. We had fun talking to Pavel on SKYPE while he looked through our pictures from Durango (online). We also called my grandpa and Dina talked to him in Spanish.

On January 2 we leave for Galeana. So for now we are enjoying our last few moments on the internet before we head to do massive amounts of teaching, preaching and freezing up in the mountains, where we won't have any internet for two weeks....I know what will we do?!? Actually its not so bad, not being connected. Lots of fun things happen, always. After we get back done from Galeana, I am not sure what we are doing, but we are going some where else for two weeks.

And thus has been the second part of our out-reach so far. You are thrilled, I know.

At Home In Durango

Its incredible how you can become so attached to a group of people in a very little amount of time. The past 12 days in Durango have been, not without its challenges, but a time I will forever and always remember and cherish.

When I first signed up for this five-month-YWAM-thing I knew I would not be spending the holidays at home. I did not, however, count on it being sooo HARD to be away from home during the Christmas season.


As soon as I got to Durango, I was immediately blessed to see the city extravagantly decorated for Christmas. There was a park downtown that was all decked out with Christmas lights. We had the pleasure of walking around there and enjoying the season, twice!

As Christmas was was quickly approaching, we were beginning to build long lasting friendships with some of the youth of the church. We began teaching them some of our dramas, and they helped us with our street programs.

On our third day there, instead of going out and doing a program, Isai took us (the YWAM team and some of the youth) up the side of a mountain to a church that overlooked the city. Up there we separated and individually began to ask God about the city: how we could pray for it, how we could bless the people...

As I found a place and began to look over the city I thought it was strange to see several groups of birds circling in different areas of the city. Thinking about it, I thought that these kinds of birds only fly like that when there is something dead they want to eat. Almost immediately I the story of Ezekiel speaking to the dry bones in the desert came to my mind. I got my Bible and searched for the story and found it in Ez. 37. Shortly there after we all came back together as group to share what God was speaking to us about the city.


At first I was hesitant to say anything, I didn't want to say there was a lot of death in the city because I saw some birds and thought of a scripture... However, when prompted, I did share and after I spoke, Isai confirmed what I had heard God telling me by saying that the city has the most suicides. We also heard about several fatal car accidents before and during our stay in Durango....

As Christmas was coming I was really not looking forward to it. It was REALLY hard to not be with my family for Christmas...BUT it turned out to be WAY better than I thought it would.

Christmas Eve we had the pleasure of joining Isai's family for dinner. Afterward we found an open restaurant downtown to get a coffee treat. I think we were there for at least an hour....it was midnight before we left! Everyone was very tired...you can imagine the silly things that were going on because of the late hour....

On Christmas day they told us we would be heading to the church to make our breakfast (like usual) and then we would clean the bathrooms....To say the least we weren't thrilled with this idea...it was CHRISTMAS!! When we were pulling away from the camp grounds, I made a flippant comment about going to an IHOP or Vips (which is very similar to IHOP). Of course, all the gringas liked that idea, the Mexicans...not so much. After some negotiating we were on our way to Vips for Christmas breakfast!! It was a nice treat, something out of the ordinary. After eating we stayed longer talking. We took turns going around the table and encouraging one another. It was a good time. By the time we left it was after 1pm!! We had to rush to Walmart to get somethings before heading over to Edgar's house (kid from the youth that invited us over for Christmas dinner). When we got there I was very excited and surprised to see our other friends Pavel, Poncho, and Aohli. Having them made a big difference! ~totally made the day~ After we ate we did our little gift exchange ( we did a secret santa).


Then all of us were off to downtown Plaza de Armas. We had to do about an hour or so of ministry. When we got there practically everyone had to go to the bathroom...so while we waited Pavel (and I think Poncho maybe) treated us with an ice cream cone from McDonalds. Then we split into groups of three and headed out to mingle and talk with the people.

At first it was a bit odd. We weren't sure where to start. We wandered around for a bit. Then I suggested we ask how their (whoever we approached) Christmas was, since it was Christmas DAY. From there we could ask them what the true meaning of Christmas was to them..

My group talked to probably five or six different people. There was one lady, though, that impacted me the most. She opened up and shared with us that a year ago to the day her husband committed suicide, leaving her and their two young daughters behind. Its one thing to know something about the city, to pray for it, but to put a face to it, to know it first hand is something totally different. My heart breaks for Durango.....


After we were done talking to people were just there in the Plaza standing around laughing and dancing to the Christmas music. We were given three hours of free time because it was our 2nd to last night in Durango. We decided to walk to a coffee shop...it was closed, so we decided to walk to an ice cream shop........it too was closed, so we walked....we found a tienda that was open AND had a bathroom so we stopped there for a bit....from there walked to the park were all the lights were-- just outside of it. After hanging around there for awhile...having fun in the fountain and with the water from the fountain....

Chloe was the only one who wanted to brave not only the yucky water, but also the freezing cold by getting in the fountain....I am not sure what she was thinking... Later Amber got Pavel and Poncho really wet by pretending she wanted to show them something in the fountain and then splashing them with the water... here we can see Pavel's Fanta bottle BEFORE he emptied the rest of it to put water in it to get Amber back...


When we were tired of all that fun we decided to walk all the way back to the Plaza de Armas. There we determined that we were hungry, but the gringas didn't have much, if any money on them. Pavel, Poncho, and Edgar decided to buy us all hamburgers. First, however, we had to get Pavel's car out of the parking garage...we then put 9 not so small people into Pavel's not so big car...Poncho rode in the trunk!! It's an experience I won't forget...especially since someone in the back decided to release some gas... It was definitely a Christmas I will always remember!!

We have great friends in Durango...I say I have family there!! I know God is got something incredibly awesome started there, I can't wait to go back!


Here they are...our family in Durango!

This is Pavel, mi hermanito. We broke his car when we were all in it....he's an awesome kid that God's got HUGE plans for. I am totally blessed to call him friend, and brother.




Here are Edgar and Poncho. These two guys were always making us laugh!! They were a riot! These guys, and Pavel are such extraordinary gentlemen!


Here is Mariana and Aohli (I think that's how you spell their names). There girls were sweet. It was hard to say goodbye to them!

Durango

Hey! So we are in the first week of our Outreach phase! And what a crazy journey it was to get here!! I wasnt sure I would make it. The last week in Monterrey was a bit on the stressful side. Money for my out reach just wasnt coming in. I thought I was going to have to go home. And I wasnt the only one lacking the green...a couple other people on my team too! At the end of the week the staff and students took up an offering. With that I am able to come to Durango with my team for twelve days, after that Chloe, Katelyn, Amber, Oby, and Isai will be going to Argentina and Dina and I will be staying in Monterrey. I would really like to go to Argentina with my team, but we lack 2,000. So, unless something happens, this is how it will go.

SOoOOoo, entonces, We have been working hard here in Durango. Already it has been quite the missionary experience :p Complete with FRIGID showers and getting locked out of our dorms...Its been good. We have been blessing the church here by cleaning some rooms, and ministering to the youth and young adults. It was amuzing to me to see that the young adults here do pretty much the same back home. :)

I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas!!

Loves
Heather :)

Real quick...

I uploaded more pics from this last week. They don't have captions yet, and I am planning on doing another fabulous (or not so fabulous) blog with pics, but right now there is no time.

Things are all up in the air here. Funds haven't come in for my outreach phase so we are discussing different options I have. Reality checks bite the big one.

Anywho...more info to come as I have it!

Absolutely.....

I just wanted to post quick about today!

In class this week we have been talking about our world view. Today we were talking about secularism and pantheism. We had a really good discussion about absolutes--whether or not there are any absolutes... It got almost to the point of an argument over if gravity was an absolute or not. All of our debating just proved the point our teacher was trying to make. Even though all of us in the class room are mostly from the US, and all of us are Christians, we still have a different view on things. We also discussed how we can reach people with different world views than our own. It was super padre! (cool)

This evening we also had a worship workshop (say that five times fast) after dinner. It was also a good time. We had an EXCELLENT teacher come. Last week we learned what the Hebrew words for worship were and what they meant AND worked on a song we can use on our out-reach. We were supposed to practice the same and get some more teaching, but Jonathan (our teacher) really felt it was important to drive home the point that unless we had the presence of God reflected in our lives all our songs, dramas, dances, teachings were worthless. It was sooo good. We spent a little time just being. It was something that I desperately needed today. :)

And that was today.

eStoy muy feliz

This week we got a Christmas tree! A real one. It has made all the difference for being away from home during this, my favorite season.






Here is our naked tree. Emma was soooo excited. She was saying alllll day "Today Christmas is coming!!!"











Chloe and Carey lighting up the place...they put both colored and white lights on. I was skeptical at first, but it turned out ok.













Me and Emma...there wasn't enough of that nasty gold garland stuff so we decided to wear it :)















Ooo! AHhhh!! The finished product!! See the red ribbons around the tree...I did that part.










Dina and Esther. Dina was our DJ. She kept the Christmas music going...most of the time.



My time here so far has been so blessed. God has really blessed me. Even though I am far away from family and friends, I am blessed with new family-like-friends. I hope you all have very merry Christmas.





and remember...........
...its ok to be crazy sometimes.

Christmas Tree Excitedness

We are getting a real tree today!! WOOO. I am soo excited. I didn't think we would have a tree here, but we do! YAY! Maybe Christmas won't be bad being so far away from home.

Squished mice and dance parties.....

I have only two random things to blog about today.

This week we have had the unique experience of seeing a mouse run along the wall in our our class every day. Today was no different. Usually Dina and some others will try to go into the closet where it dashed to try to find the little guy. TODAY, however, the mouse ran along the opposite wall. When Dina went to move the guitar case to see if she could find it.....she accidentally squished him. It was so sad. Carlos picked him up by the tail, his little eye was bulging....it was sad, but so funny. I just reminded Dina of the incident, and she laughed and said "I just remember the sound...KRUNCH...." ha ha ha

For small groups today the girls got to watch a movie on the big screen. It was sooo nice and relaxing to watch a movie. Afterwards we had a dance party. Just us girls :). It was fun.

Thats all for now. Classes this week have been good. We have been talking about Relationships! Wooo.

So much to say, so little time

WOW. Ok. So its been way too long since I've updated anything here. I have been running from the moment I got back to Monterrey. Seriously. I got back and everything at the Quinta was in complete disarray. Everyone was in the midst of packing EVERYTHING too either take with us on our mini outreach to Tepic or to take back to the Base. I was given literally twenty minutes to re-pack everything! It was madness. The next day we were supposed to leave at 3:30am but somewhere along the way the time was pushed to 4:30am, however, that wasn't communicated to anyone. Almost everyone woke up an hour earlier (except the ones who decided to leave an hour later...)

I spent the last two weeks in Tepic and the surrounding areas. Our first few days in Tepic we spent at a church called La Fuente. There we joined the discipleship school they have in their church for adults. We talked about leadership. During those first three days we either had classes alll day long, or we had some sort of ministry thing to do, like an open-air service in the streets in a neighborhood. On Thursday of the first week we loaded up our vans together with the students from the school and the youth from La Fuente. We all headed down to Bucerias. There we got to stay in a beautiful mansion-like-house on the beach. It had its own pool and gate right to the ocean. It was soooo beautiful!!! Friday of that week we had an alll day ministry at a school. We did two programs because there were two sets of kids (a morning session and an afternoon session). Made me think of the kind of school day I dreaded as a teacher because you get absolutely nothing done in the classroom....however it was an excellent ministry time. While most of the group was taking care of the program at the school a few of us went down to an orphanage (basically a house with seven kids in it) to paint some walls and re-organize the kitchen foods. The next day we headed back to Tepic, our dts left a little earlier than the rest because we had a youth service to do at a different church called Vida.

Last week we spent working with the Vida church. We did a service Sunday night for a church plant of Vida. It was fun because I got to help with the kids....I had to bribe Isai to help me, but it was fun. Monday of last week was our day off, or free day. We all went to the other side to the Pacific Ocean (In Bucerias we were on the gulf side). It was about an hour drive away. On Tuesday we helped clean around the church, AND some of our dramas and dances were recorded for the television program the church puts out. On Wednesday of last week we headed to the mountains to work with the Huichol ( pronounced WeChole) Indians. The drive up there was quite an experience. We had to stop like every fifteen minutes it seemed for something or the other. I honestly didn't think we were going to make it.

It was cool that we were up there in the mountains with the indians for Thanksgiving. I think it was very much like what the first Thanksgiving was like. We were sharing our food and they were sharing their beans and tortillas (which were the best ever!)

We got back to Tepic Friday afternoon and rested because the next day we traveled fifteen hours back to Monterrey.

That, in a nutshell, was the past two weeks.

Making the best of it

My time in Kansas City has been going pretty well, considering why I have to be here. I arrived late on Friday night. My first two nights I stayed at my grandma's house in Independence with my parents. Now I am staying with my Uncle George and Aunt Liz and Christopher and Melaine! My brother Mathew and his family are also staying here too. It's been good cousin/niece-nephew hang time.

Saturday evening we all: My parents, me, my brother Nathan, brother Mathew and his wife Katherine, thier two kids Hailey and Noah, Uncle George, Aunt Liz, Chris, Melanie, and Granny, went to visit Uncle Mario and Aunt Desire and thier family at thier house. Both my Uncle Mario and Aunt Desire said they weren't sure they wanted all over for company, but once we were there and we were all talking and even laughing and eatin lots of food they said it was good for them. They were even able to eat a little and keep it down when they hadn't been able to since they lost their son. It was good family time. We all hadn't been together in one spot like that in over eight years.

Yesterday My family and my Uncle George's family and Josh and a friend of Chris' all got together to watch the Chiefs play. The game looked promising for a moment, but then in true Cheifs form they lost the game to the Packers. At least Favre now has beaten all the teams...or some random record like that was set.

Last night I enjoyed being away from the "quiet time...lights out" rule. At 10pm my sister-in-law Katherine and I went out for a drive. I drove! woo. And I managed to not even get us lost, which is pretty amazing since we didn't back track and I've only driven around this area for a couple days in August. We stayed out for about two hours. When I got back I watched Mission Impossible with my cousin Chris and my brother Nathan. After that Chris and I cheered Melaine on while she finished her lesson plans....she didn't get done with them til almost 6am. good times.

Today, after getting up around noon, Melaine and I really wanted to go downtown to Crown Center ( really cool shopping mall ). However, Chris didn't want to take us and Mathew and Katherine were already gone down there. SO I totally hi-jacked Chris' mustang and drove us down there myself! WOo. Now, remember I don't live in Kansas City anymore, and I don't really know my way around, but we found our way down there and back! It was such a awesome thing to be able to drive down there not really sure where we were going and to make it all the way too. Just the two of us.

Tonight another cousin, Carla, kidnapped me and took me out to eat at Joes Crab Shack. I had the blackend Mahi sandwhich. IT was really tasty! I had a good time just relaxing with her. Before I left to eat with her, I enjoyed playing a hand of Spaids with Mathew, Katherine and Josh (close friend our family...he's my little brown brother).


And now Hailey is wanting on my lap....
:)

Sad News

On Thursday of last week my mom called to tell me that one of my cousins had been tragically killed in a car accident. I flew to Kansas City on Friday. We are waiting for arrangements to be made for the funeral. Please keep me and my family in your prayers.

Pictures.

Ok. I have just fixed my online pictures. I added new ones and organized the old ones. From now on the newest added pics will be the first album you see. So you should go check them out! Just click on My Pics link to the right!

We had a "costume party" last night. It really wasn't a party...it was more like "Ok! Everyone dress up! Ok! Cool. Tell us who you are! Ok. Thats all, thanks for coming!" It was really lame. I am glad I didn't spend too much time or effort on my costume....ha ha. I spent no time on it. They told us to dress up as a favorite actor in a favorite movie or something movie related....I went as a movie extra. They are in every movie and no one ever hardly notices them! But anyway...check out the pics, see the gang of crazies I get to live 24/7 with.


Oh, there's also a couple of pictures from last week in there too. We had a water baptism in our pool. Pretty cool.

:)

A light bulb moment

This morning as I was sitting in class, thinking how this guy seems to talk in circles. At least, he repeats himself alot (Or maybe its just that I hear it twice as much with a translator :-P.) And then I was thinking about how everything we have been taught in this DTS so far is stuff I know, or am familiar with. And up to this moment its been kinda frustrating. However, this morning as I was fighting to stay focused I was thinking how I really want to watch one of my alll time favorite movies Anne Of Green Gables. Then I thought, listening to these things I know already is like watching a well known movie. Or watching a favorite movie. In a movie you have seen a lot, there are parts you enjoy much, and parts you can skip. How often do watch the same movie countless times? Why should I become impatient with teachings I have heard before? They are good. They are truth. And like a good movie there are parts that are better than others.
So, I dont know if you followed that train of thought, but it really helped me see things in a different, better light :)

A morning out....

This week in class we have been learning about Intercession and Spiritual Warfare. Its been pretty interesting. As a part of the class, our teacher wanted us to go out to the local mall to witness to people. So after about an hour or so of class, we all piled into the Express and headed to the mall.

It was cool that we went to the mall that we did, because its and area we know well by now. We shop there alot. So its like practicle application to what we are learning...we didnt have to go very far just down the street.

Ok, so when we got to the mall, my group, we were all like....ok...what do we do...we didnt just want to walk up to someone and like freak them out. So after walking we sat down on a bench and prayed. After we prayed, I felt like we should help someone, maybe load stuff in their car or something (HEB is connected to this mall). We all decided to go outside. We started walking through the parking lot away from the mall down the street to this other Soriana shopping store. On the way there we saw this guy watering some plants and I was like ...What about him...but everyone else was like...eh he is busy, maybe on the way back. We kept going, crossed the street by way of an bridge for pedestrians. On the other side we kinda milled around and really didnt find anyone to help or talk to. We decided to head back towards the mall since it was almost time for all of us to meet up again. When we got back to the guy I originally said we should talk to, it looked like he was taking a break so we approached him and started talking to him. We found out that his wife was pretty sick and he was worried about his son in VeraCruz. Through our conversation with him we were able just share truth with him and pray for him, and Levi went and bought him a Bible. He came to a more clearer understanding of who Jesus was and accepted him into his heart! It was a really cool time! Right before we left he said that we were light....he was blind and now he could see. And that is really signifcant because before we left for the mall Clemente, our teacher for the week, was talking about how the enemy blinds people to the truth....and then to have that guy say that, who doesnt know the scripture...wow...que padre!

And that was my morning! God is sooo coool.