Hey y'all! These last few weeks have been straight up craziness. We're doing a ton of different things because there are some big events coming up soon and we have to be completely ready for all of them before we leave for camp tomorrow. Oh yeah, we've been prepping for the camp that we run during the summer. It's only a week long but things are different and get crazy when you're the ones planning every detail. Anyways, I just wanted to post a quick update. I will have other posts ready and being posted throughout the week while I am away from internet.

To start with, is anyone else still amazed that it is already over halfway through July!? Where has the summer gone? I'm pretty sure it just started a month ago. Seriously though, it's been a great summer and I am so excited about what the next month has in store. I just got my new frames last week. Finally! I had been waiting for them to come in because about three weeks ago they got broken when I picked up one of the kids from church. So I had been walking around for about three weeks with duct tape holding them together. Real classy, right? But it worked. Now I have new frames and the best part is that they were free because they were still under warranty.

So nice not having duct tape on my glasses

I also recently made one big 'frivolous' purchase before making some big adult purchases. I've been wanting to learn acoustic guitar for a while but always ran into the issue of not having a guitar readily available to practice on. Well, I fixed that situation a couple weeks ago during a sale at a local music store. The sale at King Music was great and the guys took care of me. I bought myself a Fender CD 60 Acoustic with a hard case for just over $200. A great deal all around in my book. I've been working on some chords but will really hit some good practicing after getting back from camp and things slow down.

My new baby

 I love spur of the moment decisions on one hand but on another I still wonder if I made the right decision. I guess I will find out after doing some more practicing and seeing if I am really any good! Anyways, that's about all I have for now. While I have some down time I am going to get things ready for next week. I hope you all have a great week!

God Bless!

Number 1 & Number 2

Hey y'all!!

Sorry about being MIA the past week, week and a half or so.

I have been busy with the start of my Mission Internship with my church.

I have thought several times about writing a post but usually by the time I do I am too tired to do so.

So this post is going to be an overview of the past week.

Some of you may know that I am doing a Missions Internship with my church.

Well, the last weekend of May was the beginning of that.

I spent last week doing some prep work for the rest of the summer before the rest of the team arrived.

Andy also started the same time as me.

Everyone else arrived in town last Thursday.

We went to Aurelio's as a team with Pastor Chad & his family, as well as our Connection Pastor Kyle & his family.

We went over the basic rules & guidelines for the summer, as well as basic position expectations.

It was a fun night to get to know each other and hangout.

Friday we all left and went to Summer Missions Orientation in Steator.

We spent Friday evening hanging out with the other summer missionaries & getting to know each other.

On Saturday we had training, which consisted of several sessions of people talking about different aspects of being a missionary, leadership qualities, and discipleship practices.

It was a long day and we got restless by the end of the day, but we got to know a lot of really awesome fellow college students who are serving as summer missionaries across the state.

This is a group picture of all of the IBSA Summer Missionaries.

The seven of us our sort of spread out throughout the picture.

We got to talk with a lot of our fellow missionaries & I have to say that the above group is full of some amazing college students who really have a heart to serve God through missions.

I am blessed to have had the opportunity to spend a couple days with them!!

One of the highlights of the weekend was the spur of the moment jam session in the cabin lobby.

We had a couple guitars and a cajon.

One of the guys even had a small amp with him!
We played some random songs but the majority of what was played & sung was worship music or contemporary Christian songs.

We added our own twist to a few and they turned out pretty cool.

The jam session lasted a couple hours and it was definitely an awesome evening!!

To say the least, a lot of these college students are crazy talented!

Upon getting back the seven of us here have been busy getting into the swing of things.

We have done a lot of office work, which includes scheduling summer events, planning all of the details, and contacting the right people for everything.

I am working with Students (6-12th grade) along with Malik.

So we have been working on planning events for them and connecting with all of them.

We have really knocked out quite a lot the last couple days and I am excited for everything that we are working on!

I wish I didn't have to leave this coming weekend, but I know that Malik is going to do a great job of making sure that things get done and done well for our first big event of the summer!!

Overall it has been an awesome week with the team!

We have had lots of time to get to know each other and most of the time it seems as though we've been friends for much longer than this short week.

It is such an awesome thing to see how we are all working together and how God is already working through all of us both as a team and on an individual basis.

I have no doubt that this is going to be an awesome summer & that God is going to do some awesome things!!

I am getting more and more excited the farther we get into the summer!!

While I would love to keep writing about the amazing team that I am blessed to be a part of, I have to be up early in the morning, so I am going to end this post here.

I will try to post at least once a week with updates on what happens and hopefully some pictures!

But for now, Goodnight!!