Weekend in Waterloo/Cedar Falls

Last weekend I went to the Waterloo/Cedar Falls area to visit my friends Traci and Deb. As most of you know Traci used to throw at UNI and I would go watch her in the first UNI home indoor track meet each year. Even though she is no longer involved in track (and is no longer in college) I still went to the track meet to keep the tradition alive. Traci, Deb, and I all went the meet. Traci watched while Deb and I chatted. After the throwing was over we headed around the dome to find things that had changed and also see if we could spot anything with Traci in it. We were in luck-we found her name on a board for spring honor roll and also a picture of her with the rest of last years team in the trophy case. I tried to take a picture of the team picture, but it didn't work because of the flash and lighting. I did however get a picture of your name so you can all see how famous and smart she is :)

After the meet we headed back to Traci's house to decide what were were going to do and we watched some tv. I also introduced Traci to marcel the shell with shoes on and also I told my kids I ate all their Halloween candy on youtube. They did not find Marcel the shell with shoes on as funny as I do, but with time I think the will appreciate it more.

We ended up going over to Deb and Aaron's and Aaron made us some chili. We were also introduced to their pets-a bearded dragon, turtle, and 2 cats. As I am not really an animal lover I did not get close to the bearded dragon or turtle and only interacted with the cats when they came to me. There is a picture that Deb took of me with one of the cats that is on facebook where I only look slightly terrified.

On Sunday Deb, Aaron, Traci, Danielle and I all went to church and then went out to eat for some tasty Mexican food. Then I headed back to Traci's and hung out with her for a while until it was time for me to head back to Des Moines. It was a lot of fun to catch up with Traci and Deb (and Aaron) and see what they all have been up to. I only saw Deb briefly in Hampton when we were both there since her wedding so it was great to spend some time seeing what she is up to. It's also always great to catch up with Traci and see what her life is as a "real" person with a full-time teaching job.

When I got to Des Moines I headed to Courtney's house and we went to Sleepy Hallow and went snow tubing. I had never been snow tubing before this experience, but it was a lot of fun. It was a little too cold out though, so we didn't stay too long. We ended up going quite a few times down the hill though and decided it would be great to check out another time when it is a little warmer out and also with a few more people.

TV Shows/Books

I've also used this time on break to catch up on tv shows that I've been meaning to, but haven't had time. I started off by finishing up season 2 of Once Upon a Time. I started watching it in November and fell in love so if you haven't watched it yet you really should. The first season is on Netflix and then abc had all of season 2 online, but I'm not sure how much longer they will have it on for.

The second show that I finished watching was How I Met Your Mother. I started watching it this summer, but wasn't very consistent with watching. I have seen most of the episodes on re-runs, etc. but it was nice to see them all in order and know what exactly is happening and I've seen all of the current seasons episodes.

I'm currently watching Parenthood. I watched the first season as it aired and then I stopped watching (I'm not really sure why), but started watching again during this current season. So now I'm catching up  and really enjoying it.

The last tv show that I'm really excited about starting up is the bachelor. It premiers tonight so I'm really excited about that. I loved Sean on Emily's season and so I can't wait to watch him as the bachelor.

I also just finished a the book Gone Girl. I've read a lot of places that it's a great book and Carina and Isaac got it for me for Christmas. I was really excited to receive it since the waiting list from the library was really long. It's a great book with lots of twists and turns so I would really recommend it if you like that type of book.

Urbana 2012

I spent the December 27-January 1 in St. Louis for Urbana 2012. I'm still processing my experience, but overall I really enjoyed it. Urbana is a missions conference that Intervarsity hosts every 3 years. I also went in 2009 so I sort of knew what to expect.

The theme for the week was the great invitation. We studied the chapter of Luke. The beginning of the week challenged us to accept God's invitation to us. We need to accept Him and look at ourselves and what is holding us back from accepting all of Him before we can share this invitation to others. As the week went on we learned more about how to extend that invitation to others and how we needed to go and share the good news with others.

It's amazing to be with 16,000 people worshipping God in multiple languages, listening to speakers from different countries. They also have a variety of seminars that you can go to about a lot of different topics. The ones I went to were based on healthcare. I wasn't as impressed this year with the seminars as I was in 09.

One of the things that we did this year was called a join-in. We partnered with community workers in Swaziland and packed medical bags for them to use as they work with HIV/AIDS patients. The had videos telling the stories of how these medical bags came to be and we were also able to hear from one of the community workers. It was amazing to hear her story in person as well as some of the other people affiliated with World Vision and the medical packs. It was amazing to be able to partner with these community workers and package 32,000 medical kits to send to Africa so these community healthcare workers can continue to do the amazing job that they are doing.

The speakers at Urbana were also great. You can watch any of the talks online here.  Here are some of the quotes that I wrote down from the speakers that really spoke to me.

• Jesus is worthy of all our trust, all our plans and dreams, and all of our affections -David Platt
• What happens when the church believes that Jesus is really enough? -David Platt
• When was the last time you wasted time with God? -Calisto Odede
• When we act like God is dead, it is not Him who dies, but us -Ram Sridharan
• We are a lost humanity that needs to be found -Ram Sridharan
• Don't climb a tree from the top-you start where you are -Calisto Odede

The end of the week we each got a decision card to commit to what we are playing to do when we got home. I committed to a mid-year and long-term mission. I'm not quite sure what that will look like at this point in my life. I want to somehow use my pharmacy degree to do missions. This may be in an urban area or may be in another country. I still haven't figured out exactly what that will look like, but I know that I just need to continue to say yes to God and he will show me exactly where he wants me to be. 

If you decide to watch any of the videos from above I would recommend watching David Platt and Ram Sridharan's. They were both really good talks and I will probably watching them again to see things that I didn't catch the first time.

Christmas Festivities

Sorry it's been awhile. I was busy with end of the semester things and then Christmas, and Urbana, and I just didn't blog. But I'm back for at least a few days with some posts about what I've been up to.

My Christmas festivities started the Saturday after I was done with finals (December 15). We continued my moms family tradition of going bowling and wearing ugly Christmas sweaters. More people participated this year, which was nice and also funny. We make up strange things for us to do while bowling instead of normal bowling. For instance granny style, backwards, under someone's leg, etc. It's a lot of fun to just be silly with the family. The top 4 scores from the first 2 rounds of bowling then played a championship to determine this years winner. Isaac took away the top prize of the "traveling" trophy. I say traveling like that because it's supposed to be traveling, but people just leave it at my grandparent's house (which they love).

Then I sunday I helped with the Christmas program at Hope. My job was to help walk my class up front and then back to our classroom. It was a really cute program based on How the Grinch Stole Christmas and they all did a great job of memorizing their lines and knowing the actions the songs.

On the 22nd we headed to my dad's side for Christmas. We did the usual gift exchange-this years theme was 'as seen on tv'. I ended up getting grey away and a hearing aid thing. I really wanted a chia tree, but it was stolen from me too many times. It was good to see a lot of my cousins that I haven't seen for a while and to catch up with my family.

On Christmas Eve we went to my grandparent's church for our traditional oyster soup and chicken noodle soup dinner before the service. This is with my grandma's side of the family so a lot of our extended relatives. I mainly hung out with Carina and Isaac and a few of my younger cousins. Isaac and Carina also began to master the art of cats cradle once again with the help of my aunt and her smart phone.

Christmas day we woke up and my grandpa's side of the family came over for the day. We have Swedish pancakes and then catch up throughout the morning. We also usually have frozen pizza and beef stew for lunch. I spent the day talking with family and then played some games with my younger cousins. After everyone started leaving Carina, Isaac, and I went to the movie Silver Linings Playbook in Sioux City. My cousins from my mom's side Lacey and Kylie were also there so we sat with them. It was a really good movie that I would recommend to anyone.

We celebrated Christmas with my immediate family on the 26th when we were all back home.