12/15

Today, and I use the word "today" in a broad sense, I flew from Fischbach, Germany to Auburn, California. It took a total of 27 hours. Thus the broad sense of the word "today". First, a group of us were up by five and to the airport via Bode-provided caravan by six to catch the 7:10 plane from Frieds to Frankfurt. From Frankfurt, everybody split up and Erik and I had a few hours before we could get in line for our next flight, so I worked on my computer and he napped.

Erik wasn't feeling too great, just coughing the whole time and people would look over at us critically, haha it was funny, but I felt so awful for Erik. He was just miserable :(

In Frankfurt security, the lady was extremely thorough with the pat down and I felt rather violated. 

Once we made it through, we filled out cards for U.S. customs, at which point I realized that bringing an African Horned Cucumber secretly from Germany to the U.S. as a Christmas present for Joshua (the kid we dared to find and eat one in the States. He called like nine grocery stores and none of them carried it!) would probably be frowned upon. However, out of fear of missing the flight from Philly cause of customs, I didn't mark down my cucumber on the card.

The first flight was nine and a half hours long. It was so much fun to get back into America. All of a sudden, I saw people wearing sweat pants, it was hot in the airport, there were Spanish subtitles on all the signs, and I could understand people's conversations! Haha I accidentally eavesdropped on so many conversations 'cause for the last few months, I've gotten excited hearing anyone speak English in public at all :)

The whole time we stood in line for customs, I was thinking about what to do about the cucumber. I didn't wanna lie, but I also didn't wanna have to wait for them to analyze my cucumber! When I went through, the guy asked me if I had any food and I said no without even hearing the question cause I was so tired. I had to correct myself and he looked at me critically. I had decided to tell them about my cucumber on the basis that honesty is the best policy and probably other childhood mantras that will ring in my head forever. 

He looked at me even more disapprovingly, put a big red 'X' across my sheet and sent me on my way without another word. At the next gate, they told me to go somewhere different, and the guy at the  counter looked up German cucumbers and apparently there aren't any big vegetable diseases going around in Germany, cause he let me through just fine!

We only had about a 45 minute layover in Philly, but there was internet, so we enjoyed it! The plane ride from there to San Fran was another six hours and it was just so uncomfortable! I felt greasy and stinky and just all-around gross from being up and in public for so long. Erik's mom kindly picked us up from the airport and brought us back to Roseville, where we immediately grabbed some In-N-Out. 

I went to the bathroom to try and clean up at least a little bit and there were like ten girls in there in skimpy Christmas outfits.  Erik said in the guys' bathroom, some kid was getting made fun of by his friends for only being able to handle three shots.Culture shock anyone? :D

From there, we headed to my house. Got there about 12am I think. Aly was asleep and had been expecting me two days later, so when I went in her room and said hi, she did a little sleepy confused double-take before hopping out of bed and giving me a huge hug :) 

She came out and said hi to Erik and we had a champagne toast before Erik and Mrs. Delgado left.

It's so good to be home. Dad and Aly decorated everything with Christmas lights outside..I went into my room to find it clean like I left it and a Christmas night light on my desk all lit up..the house smells like Christmas tree and I can't wait to see more of the people I love!

1 John 4:18

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

12/14

This morning, Steph and I woke up at an ungodly hour and got all dressed up warm to pick her mom up from the airport. Have you ever realized you had to pee right after getting all dressed up? I do it all the time. I'm becoming extremely talented at holding it.Unfortunately, her mom missed her plane, but I always enjoy spending time with Steph, so it's all good.

We spent this last day here mainly in the room packing up, cleaning up. There was some crazy singing and goofing off and saying goodbyes in there, and we all really treasured and enjoyed our last day in the room together. It was sorta sad too though :/

For dinner, we had the agreed upon favorite meal of  Tzatziki Chicken and Cinnamon rolls for dessert.

It was a late night and I got about a half hour of sleep, but it was still totally worth it to write my illustrated goodbye note to the roomies and Steph, who was sleeping in my bed so I could say goodbye when I left at 5 am.


Colossians 2:6-7
So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, 7 rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.

12/13

Today Steph and I went to Kaufland again to pick up a few extra things to take home for family and friends. Then we met Erik for his birthday coffee at Hopker. Lia showed up a little bit later. She'd just gotten her nose pierced, and it's really cute :)

Steph and I shared cake, and I got a hot chocolate that was so thick it was almost gross, like spit, but completely not at the same time =)

When we got back to the school, I curled my hair and slipped into the dress that Jess loned me just in time for the Christmas banquet we had tonight. Afterwards, I worked more on packing up the room and wrapped some more Christmas presents, for Annelie, and Steph, James, and Mary.


Philippians 4:4-9
Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

12/12

Today we went to the Stuttgart Christmas market.

Because I couldn't find the plastic ziplock bags to put over my feet to keep them from turning into solid blocks of ice, I was, of course, late to make it outside.

Because of this, the last available seat on the bus was with Matt Tingly. I found this ironic, because the last time we took a bus trip, I sat next to him and really enjoyed talking to him, but I question whether he shared the sentiment =P

Still though, we had yet another series of fantastically engaging conversation topics. Tingly is just one of those people that, when you look at him, you know he's gonna have some interesting things to say. And he does. It wasn't a boring 2 hour bus ride to Stuttgart.

When we got there, I started off with Mary and Elizabeth Berkening, the girls from Washington. After 30 minutes or so, we found Steph, Jess and Autumn, and everybody went to get Starbucks. I sorta have an internal argument of logic buying coffee I'll be able to buy every day of my life after Germany, while I'm in Germany.. But I didn't make any arguments, and Starbucks is always enjoyable.

Since Mary and Elizabeth needed to find some presents for family, I went with Autumn, Jess, and Steph. By this time, we were hungry and bought some sausage sandwiches and fries. Then Jess found some of her friends and Steph, Autumn and I headed off for an adventure =)

As you walk through the market, there are wooden stands lining both sides of the street. On the rooves, they're all decorated with pine branches, Christmas trees, and little figurines, some of them mechanical.

I bought some candied almonds for myself and Autumn and Steph got these long gummy stick candy things, It was really cold outside. Our toes were all numb pretty quick, which was nice, but then we found a stand that sold puzzles (like wooden 3 dimentional puzzles, and that sort of thing) and Steph got talking to the guy working there about solving rubik's cubes and he challenged her to solve it. So there Autumn and I were for like 45 minutes doing our little holy goodness our toes are going to fall off it's so cold dances. During the course of that, by the way, I solved one of those puzzles out of boredom. I feel sort of awesome for doing that, not gonna lie, but that's mainly cause in my mind, I like to think it was the hardest puzzle at the booth. In reality, it's possible that it wasn't I guess...

After we were finished watching Steph almost solve the puzzle, we went to go find somewhere to defrost. First, we found a shoe store, but the ladies were suspicious cause we accidentally sat down in the men's section. So we had to be all sly about it and one of us was always up and looking at shoes. I always forget that pretty much everybody there speaks English and can understand me. So when I was looking for shoes and I joked about a pair of boots with little fuzzy balls hanging off of them, I wasn't expecting a grimace from the extremely somber-looking store owner.

We went into the mall across the street afterwards -it was really pretty and had interesting architecture- and Autumn and I went to the bathroom and I swear there must've been eighteen babies being held in the waiting area of that bathroom.

Then we found a little indoor farmer's market. There was a booth right inside with handmade Turkish Delights. I know they're Turkish delights because that's what the witch in the Chronicles of Narnia said they were called when she fed them to the scary-looking kid. Yes I remembered that and wanted to try it since the very first time I saw that movie. And I finally got to :D

So there we were three American girls sitting in front of a fountain eating Turkish delights. Lots of old German couples smiled at us like they thought we were cute. Maybe Stuttgart Germans are friendlier than the ones from Frieds? =P

As we were sitting there, we watched some people talk at a flower shop next to us. The sign had the print of a fern on it. All of a sudden, Steph looks over and says, "Hey that's creative! They used a mascara brush as the insignia on their sign!" When I told her it was a fern, Autumn asked what a fern was. This is a beautiful portrayal of our friendship.

After we ate our Turkish delights, we finished walking through the indoor farmer's market. We passed several meat stands, each of which had one gracefully positioned pig's leg in front of it. As we passed one and were analyzing it, the guy inside said in a heavy accent, "You like our giraffe leg?" We thought he was serious.

Also, I'm developing a strong interest in tropical fruits I've never heard of. I'm not sure why..

We went back outside to the Christmas market and I passed a stand with pretty wooden cupholders and hot pads and stuff and it reminded me of Aunt Donna and Uncle Ron, but was too expensive to buy as a present. Unfortunately, my hands were too afraid of the cold to take a picture of it.

Then I bought some gluwein. It's like spiced hot wine. It's the only drink we're allowed to have during school cause it's a classic German drink. Autumn doesn't like the taste and Steph has agreed not to drink til age 21, so I drank it while they enjoyed some hot apple cider.

I want to bring home some German things to try for my family for Christmas, so I bought some more of the candied almonds that were all over the place at the market and I found a good looking plate of cookies to bring home.

I sat by Tingly again on the way home and the bus driver played the most awful music. It was one of those rides where I got just completely lost in my thoughts and it left me quiet and contemplative. The bus was too hot and we were tired and wet and cold and it just wasn't a whole lot of fun getting back to school, but we made it!

When we got back, my roommates and I worked on packing up the room in preparation for leaving so soon. I'm excited and hopeful as I prepare to go home.


Revelation 21:5
He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!”

12/11

There's a group of girls going to Vienna over Christmas break (which is in four days I'm soooooooooooooooooooo excited!!!), so they asked me if I'd make a little info sheet for them. I did. And it was a beautiful thing. I probably could've sold it. But I didn't. I just gave it to them. Cause I'm nice.

Tonight we had a sharing service. It makes me feel lame writing that. I feel like we should name it something awesome so it doesn't sound like a therapy technique for some sort of intervention group.. But we haven't. And it's really early in the morning right now, so I'm not going to think of anything right now.. so I guess the name shall stick!

The sharing part itself was sorta dumb cause no one really got up to speak. Usually lots of people do, but I think it was cause everybody's tired from getting ready to head off so soon and all.

After the mic was opened up for sharing, Steve Volle closed with a talk on how big things start small. He said just like the Savior of the World started as a little baby, things that will become huge changes in our lives later, might be starting out small right now. I really enjoyed it. Steve is a talented speaker, I like to listen to him.

After the service, we had our room Christmas party!! Amy had gotten some candy and snacks from Kaufland  and we all grabbed our blankets and sat on the floor near the Christmas tree and ate candy and gave each other our letters we wrote for one another and everything:)

Autumn writes in a little journal every night, and Amy does once in awhile. They both read their first impressions of roommates from their journal entries in the first couple weeks. It was hilarious. I'm so grateful that the situation worked out as well as it did.


Jeremiah 31:3
The LORD appeared to us in the past, saying: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.

12/10

Today my dear best friend requested my help in figuring out which Eurail pass she and her mother would need to travel Europe over Christmas break, which is in five days. I thought this was rather humorous, and informed her of the steps necessary to take in booking European trains during the holiday season, but I did help her find a few passes that might work. Somehow I have a feeling the two of them will do just fine despite what my miniscule European travel experience tells me is logic. I'm looking forward to hearing all about their trip:)

In the afternoon, I played another game of chess. I figure it's kinda a win-win cause it challenges my brain and boosts my opponent's confidence.. Maybe if I lose this badly for long enough, they'll start feeling bad for me and let me win once in awhile!

Right after chess, I rushed upstairs to prepare myself for this glorious K-group picture:

Then I rushed back upstairs and got re-dressed-up because tonight was our K-group Christmas dinner! We all went to the same pizza place that we took Annelie to on her birthday..it was excellent once again and we quite enjoyed ourselves.

Psalm 68:19

Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens.

12/9

I am fairly confident that either today did not actually exist as a day, or that I was abducted and tests were performed after which all memory was erased.

Therefore, since I have nothing else interesting to discuss with you today, I have a couple things to note regarding hygiene:

 First, dorm room showers. Dorm room showers produce wet floors. There is absolutely no getting around that. So my challenge since day one has been to figure out how to put my pajama pants on without getting them completely soaked. The attempts have been pitiful at best. I have yet to find a solution to my problem, but I foresee myself inventing some sort of massively popular item that will completely eradicate the problem within the next decade.

Second, (and this has been a problem in my life for many years) when, in the past, I would wash my face in the sink, one of two things would happen:

1) I do not roll my sleeves up enough and therefore, water rolls down my arms into my sleeves, creating puddles where my elbows bend inside my shirt.

2) I do roll my sleeves up enough and the water flows nicely down my arms, off of my elbows, and onto my pant legs.

However, I am happy to report to you that when you stand taller and bend down farther, the angle of your arms creates such conditions as make it impossible for the water to run to your elbows. I am slightly ashamed that I just figured this out, but hey - I figure I'd better share my triumphs right along with my failures.

Here are some pictures I don't have a place for:

Floating church steeple. Mainly taken because I wasn't really looking forward to running and therefore, everything suddenly became fascinating to me.

The cuties. (Steph and Annelie)

Michael.

Amy my outstanding and artistic roommate.

Matt. (AKA Mattie-Ice)

Corinna (German girl who cleaned showers with me. She has the prettiest eyes I've ever seen.)

Simon. He grew up in the jungle.

Erik's doppelganger. A past student.

Autumn's 'I Dream of Jeannie' Shoes

Laundry with the roommate.

Sound out the top word. German is a fantastic language.

German spiders.

My Bible Study place down in the basement.

Psalm 25:5

Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long.

12/8

Today Steph, Autumn and I made a video for Aly as if she spend the day with us! "She" woke up in my bed, ate brunch with us, took the bus to Frieds, went Christmas shopping and walked through the Christmas market with us.

Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce to you.. Brunch:

Yeah...that kiwi doesn't really make up for the carbs and fat that completely fill that plate. It tries, you know what I'm saying? But it's sorta fighting a losing battle..

Romans 8:38-39
38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

12/7

Today I finished writing the letters I started yesterday and since all three of my roommates just happened to be in the room all day, we had sort of a chill room hangout time. I love my roommates. I really do, I'm so blessed to be in this room with them.

A week or so ago, Brynn found a fake little Christmas tree for 5 Euros at a market she went to. We decorated it with ornaments from the dollar section in Kaufland and put a paper star on the top and now we've got the most festive room in the whole place! Every time you walk in, someone's got Christmas music on:)

Today since we were all there, we set up Amy's camera and took a classic family Christmas picture sitting around our Christmas tree. When she posts it on Facebook, I'll put it on here.

After dinner, we all went to the lecture hall for rehearsal for tomorrow's community Christmas service. It's kind of like The Crossing, only for Christmas.

After this, Steph and I had another of our awesome talks. I love that girl. I know I've said that before, but I really do, she's pretty darn awesome. Since we've been here, there's been several times when I've gotten frustrated by her for no apparent reason. That happened tonight and instead of just being grumpy and going to bed after reading the advent devotional that Smith sent us, I told her I wanted to talk about it.

How incredible of a friendship do you have with someone when you can explore with them why they get on your nerves sometimes, identify how those things reflect issues in your own life, agree to help each other work through those types of things, apologize, and end the night scaring one another joking about how the coat rack at the end of the hall looks like a serial killer, all without a single hint of awkwardness the whole time? Pretty incredible.

Steph and I have been friends since Sophomore year. She befriended a socially awkward girl whose legalistic faith was the center of her life. I befriended a fun, popular girl whose priorities were not the same as mine. After three years of close friendship, I enjoy shopping, have friends, put on makeup, am joyful and can joke, and have learned what it means to live by the rhythms of grace:) Together, we have shaped one another, balanced each other, helped, encouraged, challenged, complained, grown alongside each other. And we're both still growing with each other's help.

David and Jonathan's relationship in the Bible always made me sort of uncomfortable. In fact, when you Google "David and Jonathan", the third thing that comes up is "David and Jonathan homosexual lovers?" Haha..oh world, why not spend time fixing the problems you've already got rather than making up new ones for yourself? 1 Samuel 18:1 says that after David finished talking to Saul, directly after having killed Goliath (actually, while still holding his severed head..sort of epic..), "Jonathan became one in spirit with David, and he loved him as himself."

That sort of friendship love has always made me sort of uncomfortable. Steph will tease me and try to hold my hand cause she knows it weirds me out =P But I'm learning how valuable this friendship and friendships like it are. Haha I'm getting all soft and emotional at Bible school! It's good though. I thank God for blessing me with this friendship.


Proverbs 17:17
A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for a time of adversity.



Proverbs 27:6
Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses.


Proverbs 27:9
Perfume and incense bring joy to the heart, and the pleasantness of a friend springs from their heartfelt advice.

12/6

Well today was one of those all the girls are emotional wrecks at one time days that I've spoken of in days gone by.. Now I know that sounds scary, but I would describe it more as sort of painfully but humorously ironic. In an eccentric way, it improves camaraderie.. ok enough about hormonal girls. Needless to say, our room was entertaining today.

I spent the first half of the day writing letters to various people, including all three of my roommates, Granny, Aunt Dyan and Uncle Bill, Elle and Dan Derr, Mary who I took to coffee, James who I wash dishes with, and my secret sister who I am not allowed to name under ANY circumstances NO MATTER how secure they may be =P

The snow that fell today was weird. I don't say this out of my own experience because I don't have enough experience with snow to really comment accurately. I say this out of James' experience. James says that the snow is rubbery today, like packing peanuts. (by the way, why peanuts? seriously, of all the things you could call those..peanuts??!! I think I'm gonna call them popcorn from now on. It just makes the most sense.)

Steph and I went to Bahnhof again today to Skype Joshua. It was fun to see him again and have just a fun chat with him. I found out today that he and Steph have been having a little competition type thing-each has to complete a pre-decided task by the end of the week. So this week I got to participate and we challenged Joshua to find and eat an African Horned Cucumber like the one I ate awhile back:

We shall see how he fares.

Proverbs 30:8

Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread.

12/5

I had coffee with Mary today again at Schwartz. Each time I talk to her, I feel like she gets a little bit more comfortable telling me things that she needs to get off her chest, and the more I talk to new people like this that I don't know very well, the more comfortable I am keeping a conversation going. This is something Steph is very good at and ideally, she could just gift me a little bit of her talent for Christmas and I won't have to worry about it. But on the off chance that that might not quite work out, I'm practicing =)

Our speaker this week is Richard Dahlstrom. He's from Seattle and is a lot of fun to listen to speak. I'd say he's probably the most liberal of the speakers we've had so far, which I actually enjoy hearing about even though I disagree with him on some things. Right after coffee with Mary, we just moved our stuff over to the big table in Schwartz and joined his little group coffee question time there. More students showed up to his scheduled coffee than ever have for anybody else's, it was pretty impressive!

For some reason, maybe because he tends to think very philosophically and deeply, I was silent throughout their conversation and am still feeling a little overwhelmed with all the new information to process. It's so nice to be able to place my hope and faith in God to lead me to a better place as he has so often since I've been here.


Proverbs 18:4
The words of the mouth are deep waters, but the fountain of wisdom is a rushing stream.

12/4

Judith is from Seattle I'm pretty sure. She's hilarious, with a beautiful sense of sarcasm that I might be slightly in love with. She also struggles with some anger toward God. Her dad died two years ago, when she was 18. She was very close with him. He went in for a routine surgery and never woke up. It's difficult even to imagine the pain and transition that she's had to go through as a result.

I went to get coffee with her today, just because sort of her sense of humor and the way she carries herself reminds me a lot of myself and I wanted to get to know her better. We talked about her family, and things we miss back home and told a few stories and guess what? We are very much alike, just like I thought! I'm actually really excited to get to know her better over the next few months.

After coffee, I had agreed to play a game of chess with a boy named Josh Rans. Josh is small and seems a little awkward at first, but he's actually a genuinely funny, humble, good guy. I got to know him a little bit at English came and I really like him. Unfortunately, Josh is not very good at chess. He wants to learn, but of course playing with the genius chess kids at Bode isn't much help to him, so he wanted to practice with me, haha! Poor us, we started the game quietly, just the two of us, and ended up with four guys crowded around us giving advice and chuckling at our move choices..not a great learning environment, but it was fun:)

Psalm 51:17
My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.

12/3

Today I took another walk with Miranda. It snowed a lot last night, and it's been snowing all day today, so here's what the lakeside looked like:

We had a really good talk..one of the things God has been teaching me lately is to sort of just relax and let Him organize the things in my life. I think too much of this attitude could be dangerous for me only insomuch as it could make me apathetic, but for now, I've seen Him just place people and situations in my life that might be awkward or inconvenient or even undesirable to me, but the fruits of those things are proving more valuable than I could've ever expected. I'm learning a more and more pure definition of faith.

Tonight after dinner, we went caroling. I put on my 18 sweaters, 3 pairs of pants, two pairs of socks, hat, jacket, and soccer cleats because I'm from California and they're the most waterproof shoes I own. It was stinking cold outside. It snowed the whole time. Luckily, my feet were numb within the first half hour, so the only really uncomfortable part was defrosting them when we got back.

It was slightly disheartening trying to sing to people tonight..I guess a lot of people assume we're asking for a handout and don't answer their doors. But the ones who did listen were very excited to hear us sing and seemed very friendly:)

Ironically, the soccer cleats that I've run in for countless hours during my Junior and Senior years in high school, when combined with the extreme cold, produced a painful knot and/or muscle pull in my left leg just under my knee within just one hour of caroling. It's sort of funny, cause I can walk on it like there's absolutely nothing wrong, so I'll forget about it hurting! But then when I try and conquer the stairs, I sort of crumple in agony and then pathetically drag myself up or down using the hand rail =P


Isaiah 64:3
For when you did awesome things that we did not expect, you came down, and the mountains trembled before you.

12/1-12/2

This weekend was a lazy indoor one for me. Because it's been snowing outside (which is just beautiful by the way) I've been catching up online, hanging out with friends and just taking it easy. It's been refreshingly relaxing, but it's a little alarming how quickly the time can fly by. I want to make sure I'm making the most of every moment I'm here.

Here are a couple pictures of the very first snow:

Michael, our Israeli student, was so excited to be experiencing snow for the first time in his life! He has a girlfriend who's from Germany and renowned at school for being absolutely gorgeous, and he did  this for her first thing upon going out to play in the snow. Amy, Autumn and I were all three at the window watching the cuteness =P

(It says Merry Christmas! We're kinda excited about the holiday season already:)

Psalm 36:5

Your love oh Lord, reaches to the heavens; your faithfulness stretches to the skies.

11/30

Today is the last day of November, also known as No-Shave November. That means the last day of men's competitive and often humorous beard-growing. In order to honor this great occasion, all of the girls at Bode woke up early in order to cover their faces in Vaseline and stick coffee grounds on there in the shapes of beards, which we all wore non-challantly to breakfast, like this:

During break today, I worked on my second Bible essay, then Annelie, Steph and I headed to Frieds for Annelie's Christmas present.

When we told her it was a surprise, she was slightly argumentative, but finding out we were taking her to Sushi more than made up for it. We ate way too much once again..tried several rolls of questionable composition, one of which Steph later identified as spider...and really enjoyed our time together. This is the last time we'll get to eat together for awhile since Annelie's leaving soon for ten days for another one of her German service year training sessions.

When we got back, Steph and I were feeling slightly lazy and a little homesick. We stayed up watching some of the home videos I have on my laptop. As I go to bed, I'm a little sad tonight for no particular reason. But I'm also feeling blessed remembering all the incredible people and situations I've been surrounded with for my whole life.

Titus 3:4-7
4 But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, 5 he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, 6 whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.

11/29

I worked on my project all day today, then for dinner, the whole crew from English Camp went out to eat pizza at La Taverna. Seriously the best pizza I've ever eaten. I don't know what they do to it, but it's incredible. Steph and I split two different kinds.

I sat next to Caleb, the guy from Rocklin, and it was really good to talk with him a little bit and get to hear a small part of his story. He's a good guy and I'm excited to get to know him better.

Our speaker right now is a man who was born in a Muslim house. His family is very high up in terrorist groups, hosted members of Al Qaeda, including Osama bin Ladin. When he was about twenty, he became a Christian through various miraculous events in his life. When he told his family, they kicked him out. Luckily, some Christians found him and took him in. The next morning, he read his own obituary in the paper. His parents held a funeral for him and there is a gravestone with his name on it in their family plot.

He has some incredible stories, and some really good insight into Islam as a religion. I feel so blessed to be exposed to these types of people and hear their testimonies. It seems a lot of times that the bad covers up the good, God is doing powerful things for good in this world.

Titus 2:11
For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people.

11/28

There's a couple here for about a week who are waiting for their visas to come so they can go to England. They're from Mongolia, him originally, she's from Sweden, but went there as a missionary. They have a really neat story of God's active work in their lives and ministry with the Mongolian people. He's headed to England in order to learn English better and become more integrated with other churches for help and support. They have their little four month old baby with them, and he sorta gets passed around and held by lots of students every day.

Today, that little one inspired me to decide that in the future, Old Testament Bible reading would probably be easier to do while holding a baby.
holding a baby while reading the Bible.

I showed Autumn and Annelie some videos Aly had made for me before I left of her dancing sillily and they thought it was hilarious.
I read the Bible quite a bit, we had pizza for lunch, which is a treat cause it's hard to make.

For dinner, we had hot salty water with some potato skins and celery sprinkled in. I think cause the pizza took so much time. But still. It was sort of funny=)

Philippians 4:11
I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.

11/27

Today I read and ran.

Steph's got a lot she's been needing to talk to her family about lately, so we went to Bahnhof again tonight, this time on bikes, but there wasn't internet :/ It's decorated so pretty though! They sprayed the windows with that frosty stuff around the edges of each pane and stenciled snowflakes and holly and snowmen on them.. On each table is a silver candle holder, a sprig of pine tied with red ribbon and a cinnamon candle. It's very warm and Christmassy feeling. I'm gathering ideas for my home someday:)

We rode our bikes back through a light rain, Steph several yards in front of me, and I made a joke as we passed the creepy doll. 50 feet down the road some guy was smoking out on his front porch and I guess he made some sort of noise cause I heard Steph scream and the entire bike swerved. It's a good thing she kept her balance though, cause if she hadn't have, there's no way she would've been able to mistake the normal part of the curb for the part that dips down to allow bikes up onto it, and therefore there's no way that her bike would've stopped short and sent her flying like a rag doll over her handle bars and into the mud beside the path.

I felt so awful, but when I'd made sure she was ok, laughter was sort of compulsory. I stifled it as best I could, helped her stand up. She had mud across her face and had torn the sleeve of her coat, poor thing :( There were leaves stuck in her coat buttons and hair and I picked them out as we walked home.

It really was hilarious, but I'm glad she's ok. Here's a picture of her when we got back to my room:

I sorta love her:)

Psalm 100:4
Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name.

11/26

Today was Annelie's day off and she, Steph and I went up to Marj's apartment again to have a nice relaxing day. Steph and I have a lot of Bible reading to catch up on, and I caught up on a large chunk of it this afternoon there as the other three caught up on sleep:)

While we were there, I noticed another difference between North American and German homes. In Germany, all the houses have fake shutters that don't actually close on all the windows. But they also have rolled up metal shutters that they can close from the inside with a little rope when it gets stormy. They're really loud when you close them.

Steph needed to skype her brother, so we went to Bahnhof after lectures. We headed back to Bode at about 10:15. And so the story begins...

It was a full moon. Patchy clouds drifted eerily across the sky. I seriously spell across wrong every time I type it out. EVERY TIME! I spelled it with two 'c's, fixed it, then started writing that next sentence and spelled it wrong again! You know what else gets me? Judgment. I like to slip an 'e' after that 'g'... Steph and I walked arm in arm down the center of the silent street, houses dark and quiet on both sides. The two bars on that street are mellow, no peals of laughter in the distance. Somehow in my mind, I would like to say there were peals of laughter in the distance cause that just sounds right, but there weren't..just wanna make that clear.

As we walked, each street lamp caught and stretched our shadows. I commented on how it reminded me of the movie Nightmare on Elm Street where the burn wound victim with metal claws comes into people's dreams and kills them..looking back, there was no justification for why that street would've reminded me of that movie, but at the time it added the needed kick of adrenaline to an otherwise uneventful night.

We neared the end of the street and something moved in the shadows beneath the tin roof of the fire station and/or oddly placed airplane hangar on our right. We both screamed and grabbed each other. Out walks a German cop. He crosses the street behind us to where two other cops are standing and they talk in hushed tones, which we strain to hear despite the fact that we know they're speaking in German and there is therefore no way that we can understand a single syllable of what they're saying.

Turning the corner, we jumped to the side of the eight inch wide sidewalk (which I assure you is a feat in itself) out of the way of two more cops striding stoically (extra points for alliteration) down the street. I'm sure German cops are good people for the most part, but they're German men in uniform, so my brain just automatically draws the parallel to the more publicised German men in uniform from various World War II movies and makes them that much more scary.

Steph and I laugh a little. I probly cracked some sort of stupid joke to lighten the mood, which
Steph probly laughed at cause she's just awesome like that. Everything is fine. The excitement's over for the night. We pass a naked baby fountain. I attempt to start a conversation about the mental process that must've taken place in order to establish chubby, exposed marble infants as a popular mode of decorative water distribution. Steph checks her phone and lets me talk. All is as it should be.

Ahead on our left is the apothecary. I call it an apothecary only because apothecary is almost the same word as what they use on the German sign over this medicine store and I don't know what the correct modern English replacement for the word might be.

I like this apothecary because it's got a huge window in the front and when you look in, you see shelves and shelves of those bulky brown glass old-fashioned medicine bottles. It sparks my curiosity a little. Every time I walk past there I imagine the old man who owns it-white frizzy beard and hair like Einstein... skinny... spry. I'm not completely sure what spry means, but I think it fits here pretty well. ...animated and a little off. Probably, one eye twitches. He smokes a pipe and likes to make up things about what kinds of things used to be in those old medicine bottles just to see his audience's reaction.

So here I am creepily daydreaming about a lonely old man as I walk along, the traces of adrenaline sluggishly draining from my veins and I look over and see this:

That, reader, is not just a doll. That is a wooden doll with empty black eyes that pierce your soul. That doll is holding some sort of weapon which I was unable to identify because when I get freaked out, my eyes water for no particular reason. I think that might prove unfortunate for me if I'm faced with any real danger at some point in the future, but that is a topic for another conversation.

The adrenaline in my veins woke up again!

I want you to know that I got within ten feet of that window to take those pictures. I risked a lot. And I was pathetically jumping around from creeped-out-ness the whole time, which makes the quality of those images doubly impressive.

As I'm taking pictures, Steph's telling me we've gotta hurry. Lock-up's in seven minutes. Let's go. I knew she was right, so I'm hurrying, multiple "Oh my gosh"'s  and "What??!!"'s coming from my mouth cause despite my blanched fear, I was still trying to figure out some logical reason for someone to place that cold, lifeless puppet in their window.

Just as I'm taking my last, closest, and most brave picture, I hear "Shhh!"

My first impulse is frustration at Steph. In my mind I'm thinking, "If I want to take a stinking picture of a stinking creepy doll, just let me do it. Don't shush me! Since when did you get so..." I turn around and Steph is frozen. I'm not sure if the crippling shiver that ran down my spine was because it was frigid outside, or because terror took on a physical embodiment and gave me crebbles. (Crebbles is a made up word that a girl named Cara brought to Bible school from way up north in Canadia. It means a gentle back rub. Not like a massage. Like how I slipped that little nugget of knowledge in there? Also, while I'm at it, "Boatloafing" is having deep, emotional conversations. I don't think there's a reason behind either of those word choices.)

I started to ask Steph, "did you..." she shook her head. We heard it again "SHHH!" And I'm talking that was a powerful shush! It must've come from accross the street, but it sounded like it was next to us! I have no idea who shushed us..could've been some old lady across the street-just spelled across wrong again-could've been the angry spirit of the little boy who that spry little apothecary had turned into his window puppet...who really knows. One way or another though, it didn't take a significant amount of time for Steph and I to put some impressive distance between us and that window.

We make it to the graveyard on our right. When you're comforted by a graveyard, you know there's something wrong. The little candles on the graves seemed almost inviting.. it really is a pretty little graveyard though. Anyways, so we're walking, sort of giggling still, but not yet making conversation. Across the street we hear a loud noise and both jump and scream. The motion-sensor light in the parking lot over there turns on and two men dressed in dark clothes are dragging a huge bag from a truck toward a dumpster. I kid you not. The sound we heard was the bag and whatever its contents might've been (I'll let you make your own speculations) hitting the gravel ground from the bed of the truck.

If you weren't understanding of our girlish fright before, please do be now. We ran-walked down the street and around the corner. The clouds parted and the moon cast a beam of light on the sign for the graveyard. Like we needed the added affect.

As we turned onto our street, a black cat scampered into the bushes in front of us. Warmth started to return to our bones as we neared Bode. Our heartbeats calmed a little. We stepped onto the brick parking area of the school. Somehow, and I'm honestly not sure why, everything felt all warm and happy and safe as soon as we got there. It might've been because we knew the door was within competitive running distance from most any danger, but now I'm just speculating..

Steph and I start to laugh a little bit and breath normal again. We both can't believe that all that just happened to happen on one night. And as girls, of course, we feed off each other so it just made it that much worse.. We're almost to the door and all of a sudden there's a sudden noise to our left. I thought they were shooting at us. Who "they" were didn't occur to me. Suffice it to say, we both jumped and screamed and ended up grabbing each other for dear life before realizing that it was just Marj's metal shutters closing for the night.

I feel like I just walked through Fishbach's own little haunted house :D

Romans 12:10
Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves.

11/25

Today was a good day. Steph and I-who are both on that weird emotional laugh-cry-sleep-complain pendulum that you'd only understand truly if you've been a teenage girl at some point in your life-went into Frieds to catch up online. For me, with this blog and for her, with family.

We went to Gessler's for most of the day, then went to the sushi restaurant next door cause we knew we needed to try it out if we were gonna take Annelie there for her Christmas present. All you can eat sushi for ten Euros isn't bad at all...and we were so stuffed by the end, it was ridiculous, but so good! No disappointments there, and no food poisoning thus far, so we're content=)

After dinner, I wanted to skype my dad cause today is his birthday and Steph had a skype date with her cousin to keep. It was about 6:30pm. In general, you wouldn't think it would be too much of an issue to find wifi in a tourist town with about eighteen internet cafes in it right? Wrong. Because everything is closed by 6pm.

So here's Steph and I walking the deserted streets of Friedrichshafen. There was a pretty moon out and the area we were in has cobblestone streets, street lamps, we walked down along the waterfront and it was the cutest, quaintest little walk, I loved it! Like walking down mainstreet in Disneyland on a quiet day, after the kidlets have gone.

There were little red glass skylights for the underground parking intermixed in the cobblestone, and we were in just loopy enough of a mood to hop from one to another and make a romantic-looking couple hurry past us awkwardly =D

We finally found internet outside a little chocolate shop with tables out front and even an outlet! On ground level all around us were shops and cafes, and above them, apartments of different colors with shutters and flower-pots. Just very European. If there'd have been snow, it would've completed the scene. I played the twelve days of Christmas by Straight No Chaser just cause it needed to be played and my father wasn't able to get on skype to talk :/

From there, we went back to the train station to catch the last bus home. Lia's been away having Thanksgiving with family in Italy for about a week now, but she came home today, and it just happened to be that we walked into the train station just as she was arriving back there. We rode the bus back together with another group that'd been hanging out in Frieds all day.

Tonight is my night to catch up on some Bible reading for the report that's due soon. It's funny how you always tell yourself you'll stay on track with that sort of thing, but you just never follow through. Oh well..good practice staying up late at least.. Haven't done that in awhile!

Psalm 85:8
I will listen to what God the LORD says; he promises peace to his people, his faithful servants— but let them not turn to folly.

11/24

Saturday. Brunch. No further enthusiasm is required from me than what I have already invested into this blog in regards to brunch.

Today, Steph taught me how to curl my hair. I now have nine burn marks in total on my hands and wrists. But my hair was pretty:) After I curled my hair, I read the Bible out loud to catch up while Steph cleaned her room.

After lunch, I took a run and grabbed a shower. Before The Crossing, I wanted to have a little Bible Study, so while everybody else was getting ready, I went down to the library with my Bible. About five minutes in, a girl walked in who I didn't recognize. She was from Germany, her name's Lisa and she was really happy to talk to me about her life and we had a nice conversation :)

During the program, my job was to stand outside the door and make sure all the right people went in at the right time. It went flawlessly. I say it's due to my air traffic controller-like dexterity.

As the program was concluding, two Alexander from Serbia and Scott (Stephen from Vienna trip's brother) were playing chess and Alexander didn't want to anymore. I later found out that Scott is some sort of genius chess player, and he did beat me, but apparently the skills I learned from past father-daughter chess matches were sufficient to impress them enough that they want to play more chess with me!

...I'm not sure if that's actually the reason, or if they just can't find anyone else willing to face almost certain loss, but I'm gonna stick with option A cause it makes me feel so much more accomplished!

After The Crossing, we're supposed to socialize with people and talk about it and ask what they thought and stuff and it tends to promote awkward situations, but tonight Steph and I sat at a table with five or six German students from a local college Bible study group and it was a lot of fun =)

Galatians 2:20
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

11/23

Since tomorrow is our second Crossing and Steph's in charge this time, I helped her with setup.

I played an intregal role in the whole production.

I tied leaves on a decorative tree for three and a half hours. =P

Tonight after dinner, they had the dress rehearsal for The Crossing. The theme is living a fruitful faith. Yvonne from making cookies yesterday is actually the one giving her testimony! Then there's a quick skit about the sower of the seeds and a twenty minute sermon.. I'm not sure how much I said about it the last time, but it's a ministry for Germans in the area, so it's all done in German, and it's a pretty awesome production.

The other person giving his testimony is a boy named Jordan. He was pretty deeply involved in drug dealing in the city he lived in until the end of last year, when he turned his life around. He's a gifted musician and will give his testimony in English with a translator, then sing a song he wrote to go along with it.

There are a few other songs being sung and then it's over.

After the dress rehearsal, Steph, Annelie and I went up to Marj's apartment and hung out for awhile. We were all tired and pretty emotionally drained for some reason, so we headed to bed pretty quick.

Galatians 5:13
You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh ; rather, serve one another humbly in love.

11/22

Today we had another Reflection Hour instead of a lecture.

I haven't posted about my faith a lot on here in order to avoid feeling like I need to watch what I say about it so as not to have my words misinterpreted.. It seems to me that a lot of people are much more interested in debate than in understanding another person's point of view. I think that's good in certain circumstances and bad in others and I'm not gonna make a judgment call for this particular circumstance-mainly cause I'm eighteen and there's not a whole lot of experience to back it up =P-but I would ask that you take what I say with a little grace and the understanding that I'm growing up and learning new stuff every day, alright? :)

I've been struggling a little bit lately to feel the connection with God that I've been seeking. And I'm not seeking some constant warm fuzzy feeling from Him...the only thing that would do for me would be to make me stagnant and weak in my faith.
Alright, are you ready for this? This makes me sort of excited:) In my mind, it's easier to condense the idea of sin into two basic umbrella sins: pride and fear. Every wrong that I can think of can be fit into one of those two categories, or a combination of the two. I'll let you think that one through on your own and decide whether or not you can agree fully, but here's one example:

Take the idea of faith. You've got images of falling back into someone's arms, trusting they'll catch you...rappelling down a mountain assuming your belayer's got a good grip on the rope...taking the medicine your doctor prescribes... All of these things require you to acknowledge, subconsciously or otherwise, that you don't have the power to do for yourself what will be best for you, but someone else does and will. In other words, you must humble yourself, and you must put away fear of the unknown in order to have faith. So when you lack faith, your pride and your fear are getting in your way.

My problem is that I tend to think of a lot of things as weaknesses that, in reality, are evidence of strength. So when I'm struggling with something, my first impulse is to deal with it on my own. If I rely on someone else to help me solve my issue, first of all, it's inconvenient for them and they've got their own problems to deal with. But second of all, I'm "giving up". I'm being weak.

The truth is that in going to someone for help, I'm humbling myself and putting aside my fear. It's good. And it's something that requires a lot more strength than just pretending I've got everything under control.

So anyways..........haha today during free time, I had all these things floating around in my brain and I wasn't feeling very peaceful at all. I wasn't a huge fan of the first 15 minutes of reflection hour. I didn't feel like talking to God, and I didn't really feel like doing much else, so I opened up my computer and just started writing out questions as they came to my mind.

Being here, it seems like there are so many complicated concepts being thrown around pretty casually. The reason for this is that the majority of the complicated concepts within Christianity are man's attempts to come to grips with God's reality. I think this is good for us to do. A couple of C.S. Lewis's models really help me to approach my faith in a better way, so I like them. But they don't answer all the questions. They just can't! And this was maddeningly frustrating for quite a long time...

So there I was, down in the little basement game room area, typing out my questions with some pretty heavy frustration, resenting the fact that God would dare to do something that didn't fit into my picture of His story.

And then it hit me: the issue wasn't the fact that there were things I didn't understand about my faith. The issue was that I wasn't operating out of faith! In my pride, I had taken a defensive stance for myself against God's word. I allowed myself to believe only what fit the right way, as if I planned to sort through everything, checking and re-checking every concept, testing it against my own experience and the experience of others and science and all the rest of the convoluted mass of opinion and knowledge that I've encountered in my lifetime.

Don't get me wrong, I think that's an excellent way to start out this journey. I think of Lee Strobel, an atheist who made up his mind to prove once and for all that it was all nonsense and instead ended up becoming a Christian. It's always good to proactively seek the truth. Not many people do I don't think... And it's wise to want to be sure that what you believe in is logical to believe in.

But there comes a point where it's time to stop challenging and start believing on faith. And by the time I'd gotten to the end of the second page full of irritated questions, I realized I'd reached that point. I realized that to worship a God I understood fully would defeat the idea of an all-powerful God altogether. And I decided I believe that the Bible's true whether I understand it all the way or not!

Haha I know that's a simple realization for such a long post, but it seems to me.......that you can hear something over and over your entire life and it means nothing to you. But then one day, you hear it again and for some reason, it means everything.

I'm not gonna talk about why I ultimately made that decision cause it just feels like more of a coffee date conversation than blog post material.. though I think I might've stretched the whole blog post material status already =P

This week, our speaker, Johan Schep, is sort of awesome. He was born in Germany, his dad was a drunk and didn't support the family, so that became his job. When he was old enough, he was eager to escape and went to Israel as a hippie. While he was there, a war began and ended. He tells stories of helping in different ways in the war...chasing cows through fields of active mines...meeting high-up military officials...

Before he'd left, his mom had slipped a little Bible into his backpack and on the lonely nights, he started reading it and ultimately came to believe in its message passionately.  From the moment he accepted his message, he was filled with such joy that he told everyone he saw. His prayer from the beginning was for Bibles in the language of the people around him. One of the people he told about Christ's salvation brought him to the house of an elderly woman that he said was "just as crazy as you are."

Turns out, this woman was a Christian and had an entire back room filled with boxes of Bibles in Hebrew that had been sent to her years earlier by an organization associated with Billy Graham, but she was too weak and old to distribute them on a large scale.

Conveniently, Johan had both the health, and the passion to do it for her :) He spent most of his life in Israel serving the people there. He got married ten years ago and is now a vibrant 60 year old man who plays simple little sing-along songs on his guitar, complete with dance moves and hand motions.

In the afternoon, I went to make cookies at one of my K-group leaders' house. Inga works in the kitchen at Bode. She has a really interesting testimony..she lived a very free sort of esoteric lifestyle from an early age, became pregnant at seventeen and traveled with the baby to Austrailia, and later to India in search of "truth". At some point while she was living in a small community of similarly spiritual people, she realized that she wasn't being fulfilled, and somehow (I forget the story exactly) came to the Christian faith.

Anyways, Inga, Valeska, Yvonne (all three from Germany), Megan (from Canada), Johan's wife and I rode our bikes past the church along the road I usually run on and then over to Inga's house the back way. It took us about 30 minutes, and it was such a peaceful, beautiful ride!

Inga had the dough all ready for us when we got there, and we rolled it out and used cookie cutters to make three different kinds of traditional German cookies: a spice cookie rolled in powdered sugar, butter cookies with jelly in between, and regular cookies with frosting.

I was slightly disappointed because Germans don't eat cookie dough, nor do they eat massive numbers of their own freshly-baked cookies like us Americans do. (or at least like Steph, Aly and I are accustomed to) Other than that though, it was a lot of fun and I got to know a little bit more about all of them that I wouldn't have otherwise.

When the cookies were done, Inga fed us some potato soup and for dessert, she'd made pumpkin pie because Germans for the most part have never heard of pumpkin pie! We told them about it at Thanksgiving dinner and they thought it was like a salty casserole type of thing or something.

So Inga made it, but as she's bringing it out, she's telling us how it didn't look right to her, so she stuck some vanilla pudding mix in there to thicken it and all this stuff and she sets it on the table and asks us if it looks right and Megan and I just sorta snuck a quick glance at each other and smiled a little bit and told her it was beautiful.

It was a yellow-green color. Inga had hand-cubed a fresh pumpkin and there were therefore pumpkin strings sticking out of the surface of the pie in all directions. She put a generous portion on Megan and my plate and everyone watched carefully as we took the first bite. It tasted like chunks of pumpkin suspended in vanilla pudding! And so of course we finished off our pieces and watched with little smirks on our faces as everyone else at the table silently did the same. I'm not sure if they were more afraid of offending Inga, or us, but to put it plainly, I don't foresee pumpkin pie becoming a new part of German holiday traditions.

We biked home with buckets of cookies on the backs of our bikes. It was really cold. I'm always cold here. I wear multiple pairs of pants, several sweatshirts, carry around a blanket and a cup of hot water and am still cold the vast majority of the time. Daily I'm becoming more and more convinced that it's a problem more with my internal temperature regulating system than anything else.

When I got back to Bode, Annelie ran up to me and told me I was gonna be SO excited, Steph had a surprise for me!! Out walks Steph from the kitchen with a piece of pumpkin pie she had saved for me. I guess someone brought it in for all the American students. Made my day:)

2 Corinthians 7:10
Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.

11/21

The Bible Study project was due today. I worked on it until dinner and turned it in on time. I am very happy to have finished it.

Since today was American Thanksgiving, I tried to Skype the family as soon as I got finished. Mom's ipod was off, dad's laptop was broken, and I think Aly might've been sleeping. Of course Uncle Ron came through for me on Tango and we talked for a couple minutes before the internet cut out. It was good to talk to him though, and he said hello to everybody for me.

I haven't missed home very much since I've been here. I mean of course I love my home and family, and of course there are things that you miss. ...family dinners...driving Aly to school...my own room...the freedom to eat whatever and whenever I want, haha. But I haven't ever really wanted to be home instead of here. Today was the first time I've felt a little pang of homesickness thinking about missing my first Thanksgiving dinner away from the Trigueiro's house with all the favorite foods, made the usual way:)

I really think it's good for me though. It's painfully cliche to say, but I think I appreciate the familiarity of those things more knowing what it's like to not have them for awhile.

To finish off the day, I took a nice shower. There are four rooms with showers on each floor. One has just two showers, two have three showers and two toilets, and one is a single room, all-inclusive, luxurious, resort-style shower-toilet-sink-mirror-heater-window combination.

..Guess which one's my favorite?

So tonight I beat the crowd to my favorite shower room. Bible school student victories, right? But it made me really happy. I said hello to my two spider friends. They are always in the same spots on the ceiling.

I'm not sure how they're still alive. Sometimes, they mix it up on me and dangle precariously from the ceiling right above the shower.

Then I have to balance my time between taking lightning-speed quick-peeks to make sure the little guy's still there, watching agonizingly as the water vapor makes him slip down his meager webling closer and closer to me, jumping every time the water pressure changes and I think it was the spider landing on me, and actually showering.

And that's all I have to say about that.

Psalm 118:21
I will give you thanks, for you answered me; you have become my salvation.

11/20

Today I worked on my Bible Study project all day. There's a certain point at which writing begins to make me sick. I reached that point today. It's not even the subject matter that I dislike, it's just the fact that I have to write five thousand words on it when there isn't five thousand words worth of material to write about it! I would've gone online to look up more stuff, but the internet was so slow I couldn't even load my Google homepage..

Haha and a Bible school student with four hours of free time a day complains about a five thousand word essay. Irony. I'm pretty sure I can think of at least eight friends who are currently experiencing real college finals and would therefore laugh at my whining right now.

To finish the day, Steph, Annelie and I had a nice prayer time in the hall right before lock-up. I have good friends:)

James 5:16
The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

11/19

Today was my day to catch up online and try and finish my Bible study project.

When Annelie got off work (she's working in the kitchen now, so her schedule's different), she came and grabbed us and we went over to her apartment with probably five other girls to eat a special cake her mom brought her yesterday.

Her mom's family is from Denmark, and I guess there's a tradition that for a girl's birthday, you make a cake shaped like a girl and for a boy's, a boy and then you have a little party and everybody screams as the birthday person cuts off the cake's head. So we did:) Haha we warned the neighbors and steph filmed us all screaming as Annelie murdered her cake.

The cake was like cinnamon bread with a chocolate chip face, frosting dress and licorice hair. We all sat around eating it and one of the women from the kitchen came down and brought some cookies she had made along with a little present for Annelie.

We find that there are certain days here that just aren't good mood days for anybody. I don't know if girls' hormones are syncing up, or we're all just tired, or the weather affects us or what, but today was one of those days. I think it was good to take a break from writing and vent a little bit on topics ranging from boys to name-meanings.

Afterwards, I figured I was getting plenty of carbs from yesterday and today combined, so I skipped dinner to take a run that I really didn't feel like taking (you know, the whole "bad day" thing), and went to lectures. After lectures, Steph, Annelie and I went up to Marj's house for a cake party instead of a cereal party, to finish off what was left of her cheesecake.

A girl named Kezia came up a little later and hung out for awhile. She's such an interesting person, haha and fun to be around. She loves to dance, taught herself how and will all of a sudden break into dance once in awhile. She's only attracted to Asian men and wants to marry an Asian cowboy. Excercises more than anybody I've ever met and has a really great testimony of not wanting to come here, being forced, hating it and all of us for the first month and then slowly realizing how good it is for her. She's growing stronger in her faith and I'm so excited to see her mature throughout this year in that way:)

We headed back to the main building just before lockup and Steph and I ended up having one of our really deep talks, which was really good. It's tough to fit those in just cause there's so much going on and so many people you want to get to know, but tonight we both needed to figure some stuff out, so we went in the little double-shower room and talked til 2am!

We're all experiencing such incredible, constant growth here. It's so good, but a lot of times it's also difficult to work through. I really am thankful to have Steph here. Since we know each other so well, we're able to help each other through stuff that probably other students end up having to work through on their own.

I think my appreciation of Steph as my best friend is something that has really grown since I've been here. That's something that we've both recognized. I want to say that I'll come home a completely changed person. I know there are a lot of students here who will. The reality is that I will come home a person who more fully recognizes just how weak I am and how strong Christ in me is.

I can see my faults much more clearly now, and because of this, have been able to begin the process of surrendering them to my Savior. I am confident of His Spirit working powerfully in my life to heal me and teach me to grow beyond those things.

But ANYWAYS...my point in starting all that up is that one of the ways I've grown is that I'm becoming a much softer person as far as friendships and emotions go, so I'm beginning to appreciate things like coffee with Steph a lot more than I used to. It's good. It makes me happy:)

Psalm 37:30
The mouths of the righteous utter wisdom, and their tongues speak what is just.

11/18

Oh boy, this'll be a long post...prepare yourselves.

Today was Annelie's birthday.

Steph and I woke up early to wake the darling up with a flower and a little note telling her that she didn't have to work today. We'd talked to the housekeeping team and arranged to take over her duties for her.

Of course, since she wasn't expecting anything, she was extremely excited:) She said it was the best birthday present ever! ..But she didn't know what we had planned either, so...

After breakfast, Steph headed over to Annelie's house to do her hair and help her pick out a cute outfit for church while I did Annelie's chores.

Then we had church and right after, one of the Germans here who has a car helped us sneak Steph past Annelie and drove her to pick up the cake.

Meanwhile, Annelie was opening presents in the hallway. Autumn and Jessica got her a bottle of a very expensive perfume that she'd always wanted.

Steph and I skipped lunch to put together the rest of Annelie's birthday surprise. We'd written out nine hints yesterday and we tied each to a little boquet of two or three flowers.

I spent the in-between times of yesterday and this morning running around frantically making sure everyone knew where they were supposed to be, giving the boquet-hint things to the people who were supposed to have them and checking on reservations.

Kelty (who went to Vienna with us) and I walked to Schwartz where she explained our plan to them in German and asked them to keep one of our hints. On the way there, I found out that Annelie's parents and little brother had dropped in for a surprise birthday visit and brought a cake. So when I got back from Schwartz, Steph and I joined them and each had a little piece of her mom's chocolate cherry cake, which was without a doubt the best cake I've ever eaten.

Of course, finding out her parents were here had a rather adverse effect on Steph and my planning, but while Annelie was out of the room, Steph explained to her family all that we had planned and it turned out they couldn't stay long anyways, so it worked out perfectly:)

After her parents left, Annelie went back to her apartment where we told her we wanted to hang out with her for awhile for her birthday. We met her there a few minutes later, holding one of the hints, saying "Look what we found in front of your door!"

The riddle told her to go catch the bus. Steph and I played it off as if we had no idea what was going on, sort of teasing her a little bit and she asked us over and over again, "Where do you think we could be going??!!"

Obviously, we replied with, "I have no idea! Do you think they're watching us right now? Do you see anyone you recognize? Are they kidnapping us??!!"

The bus ended up being an hour late. We were really cold by the time we got on. But it all worked out. Annelie's still asking where we're headed. How she's gonna know when to get off.

At the first stop, David and Austin were waiting with the next hint. Annelie literally squealed when she saw them, haha! ..Germans don't usually do that.. =P

Their hint told her what stop to get off at. Emma and Brooklyn were waiting there with a hint that lead her to a pizza place where the rest of the gang was waiting. I think there were ten or twelve of us total. When she saw everybody waiting there with balloons on her chair, pink roses on the table and her gift, she started crying, it was the cutest thing!

We ordered pizzas (I honestly don't know what they do to the pizza here, but it is incredible, all of it) and hung out just eating and joking around. Annelie opened a couple presents from her parents and grandma. The waiter was so nice to us! He brought out a complimentary birthday dessert plate with candles and we all sang happy birthday:) (he later tried to hit on Autumn and ruined his awesome waiter reputation...what is it with forty year old indian guys, my gosh?!)

Dinner ended costing us like four euros each, not bad at all. We caught the bus back home and Annelie was smiling like a crazy person, it was great! She even started tearing up again, haha cause like I said, she wasn't expecting anything for her birthday. After every step, she thought it was the end of her birthday celebration, but when we got back to the Bode, we had another hint waiting in her apartment.

David (German guy who helped us order the cake) helped me get everything ready while the whole group followed the clue over to Schwartz. At Schwartz, the lady handed her the next hint, which brought her to the kitchen. By this time, David and I had gathered everyone from the halls of the Bode downstairs in the games room where we had the cake set up with candles and everything.

In the kitchen, I met back up with the group and played a little "hot and cold" game until Annelie found the next clue, "a room with four beds that is close to your heart." She didn't hesitate at all, but headed straight up to my room. When we got up there, we blindfolded her and lead her down into the games room. When we got there, the room was silent, the candles were lit, and the lights were off. As soon as I took the blindfold off, everybody sang happy birthday and Annelie was in complete shock=)

She blew out all the candles in one breath and all thirty or so people got a piece of cake with some left over for Annelie to take home. She was so cute, her face was all red and she couldn't even talk she was so happy and excited! And she absolutely couldn't believe we remembered her favorite kind of cake:)

It was a great day and everything worked out just perfectly. I'll try and come back soon and post some pictures of it=)

Psalm 126:2
Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy. Then it was said among the nations, “The LORD has done great things for them.”