Floor Retreat

This past weekend was our floor retreat! Hope you like the pics :)

D and Meg before the trip started!

Meg and Danielle

This is a heart

Sunset (but I guess that is pretty self-explanatory) 

Danielle and Julie decided to rough it sleeping underneath the stars, they got about 3 hours of good sleep, due to the misty conditions.

The camp site

We hiked up to this cave, the girls thought that we were nuts.

Then some of them thought that it looked like fun.

I know if doesn't look like it but I almost fell and died trying to take this picture of them.

view from the top of the cave

Meg and I on the hike (aren't the yellow flowers fun? :)

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Last night before I hopped into bed I grabbed my Mom's "Book of Virtues." She used to read it to us when we were little and I've missed them so much so I thought I would read a few of the stories.  As I turned the yellowed pages I found a dog-eared page unfolded it and found this:

   You Mustn't Quit

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,

When the road you're trudging seems all uphill,

When the funds are low and the debts are high

And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,

When care is pressing you down a bit,

Rest! if you must-but never quit!

Life is queer, with its twists and turns,

As every one of us sometimes learns,

And many a failure turns about,

When he might have won if he's stuck it out;

Stick to your task, though the pace seems slow-

You may succeed with one more blow.

Success is failure turned inside out-

The silver tint of the clouds of doubt-

And you never can tell how close you are,

It may be near when it seems afar;

So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit-

It's when things seem worst that you mustn't quit.

It gave me a lot of encouragement :) Well I am off to my floor retreat! Love you!

Persian Market Adventures

A couple of days ago I was really bored reading for my California History class out on the patio of our dorm enjoying the rays of the California sun, and mentioned to my friend that I felt like I needed some excitement in my life. Kind of like an adventure.

Interestingly enough my good friend Atila texted me as my last class of the day was about to end asking me if I would like to go with him to a persian market in Irvine. I said yes and in 30 minutes we were on our way. 

When we got to the market I was blown away at how nice it was.  Everything was perfect.  None of the fruit was old and gross, the floors were bright clean, and nothing was on the floor that had fallen over.  The only thing that was off about the store were the looks being glanced our way. I thought that it could possibly be from me being white and blonde with Atila who is from Iran. But then all of sudden he was like oh my gosh and pulled me to the side as on lookers were glaring us down. 

*Okay so heres the side note; here at Biola, the guys like to grow out huge beards during the manly month of march.  Atila being the fun-loving guy he is also went along with this male American tradition this semester.  

So he pulls me aside and says, "Oh my gosh! I forgot that in Iran only the really huge terrorists grow out beards.  Thats why everyone is staring at us!" 

Later in line we were buying some bread that Atila said was just the way that they make it in Iran.  While we were in line, he asked a lady in Persian, "How much is the bread?" So I asked him to teach me how to say it. He pronounced it and then I tried and ended up calling the lady a not very nice thing (on accident).  So here we are just wanting to check out Atila's culture and food and everyone thinks that he is a terrorist and I am calling people bad names.  The check out boy would barely make eye contact with us when we checked out!

So the picture above is of Atila with our huge piece of bread that we got from the market. Notice the beard! :o)

So that was my most recent adventure! I miss you guys and will post some fun pics soon.

Thank You For This Day Lord...

One of our prayer stations where you write out your prayer or thought and cast it into the water. Here is one of them.

Another prayer station where you painted out your prayer.  Mark and Amanda are pretending to paint :-)

Foot washing station: I know it sounds weird but it was really humbling and cool.

Our hardest prayer station: We put this in the tree with NO male help! :) lol we're pretty strong! This one was about finding your identity in Christ.

Some guy drew this by the mail boxes with chalk, it was pretty neat. 

While Amanda and I were waiting for someone to help us get the born identity board out of the tree, we saw this little boy sitting so peacefully in the grass, so I took a picture, but he got up and walked away.

Our time with the Teichs

There was this awesome wall by the beach, the graffiti on it has been painted over but over time the weather conditions were making the paint come off, allowing the art to show.  We thought it was unique.

Had to take one of the shoes ;-)

The mom's off in the distance.

Here is some on Reo, from tennis class, he is doing so well! He got 11 balls over the net last monday night!

This past week and weekend has been officially exhausting.  Missions conference was great! Just extremely stressful and busy, it didn't feel like much of a break but it was an amazing experience and I got to see my Mom and sisters, old friends, and meet tons of new people. I am so thankful for the experience. When I get some more free time I will write more about it, but for now here are just some fun pictures of this past week.