two weeks later...

oh jeez. Two weeks of not updating the blog! I have a feeling this could be really long so I'll try to condense a little bit!
The last time I wrote was on St. Patrick's day after the parade so there is much to say!
After service that night, Amy & Jeda brought us dinner :) Amy had made her traditional corned beef and cabbage. Usually I don't like beef, but this was delicious! So we had church the next day and some more great fellowship.
(It's kinda hard to write this time because I haven't written for like 2 weeks, aka I can't remember all the details like I usually do. lame. lesson learned....blog more! lol)
We spent a lot of time at Clement Park, a beautiful place that always had people! Pretty much if it was too early to do nothing, we went there to witness to people. It is really huge and has a nice, legit, FREE skate park, a lake and a couple playgrounds. After being there a couple of times we found out that there was a Columbine Memorial there so we went to go see it. It was so crazy being there. The mood was very somber. Each student and the one teacher who were killed each had their own plaque and eulogy then on the surrounding wall there were quotes from some people that were there. It was really hard to read all of them, knowing that these were real people who died less than a mile away from where I stood and for no reason.

A couple of days later Mike Lloyd came out to see us! Yeah Mike!

It was great hanging out with him and encouraging him while he encouraged us. Marc and I were both amazed at the sudden change that the Lord had produced in him since we had left. The Lord has big plans for that guy! We spent a lot of time together over the next few days and he even came witnessing! Turns out he's really good at striking up random conversations with people. He got to start up a conversation with 2 young guys who were joining the Marines and got to seriously talk to them about God. So sweet! On his last night in Littleton, he and Marc went longboarding at like 11:00 at night because they're ridiculous! haha but anyways, God totally used it! They started talking to this guy Alex who admitted to being really interested in God but unsure of where to go from there. They shared about god and repentance and Jesus and he ended up accepting the Lord! Super sweet! Praise God!
Alex was the only one in Colorado that accepted the Lord but we got to talk to so many people. There was one instance where these 4 high school kids were at the park and 2 of them had walked away from believing in the Lord in the past couple of months so we got to share with them and address their questions, their issues, and their anger. After that day, I told Marc that if we never led anyone to the Lord but knew that we planted seeds like that, I would be ok with it. (Obviously desiring to lead others to Jesus.) That was just a couple days before Alex got saved. Sweeeeet!
So we planned on leaving Littleton on Sunday, March 24th after church. Well, on Friday/Saturday our van started acting up again! Oh no! So we took it to a mechanic that the head pastor, Lonnie Trujillo, recommended but he couldn't see us till Monday. Oh bother. Well, our plans were set back again. So we spent a lot of that week with the McKenney's. I spoke briefly of them in the last blog, but here I will expound. Jeda McK. was the first person to greet us in Littleton at Horizon Christian Fellowship. He and his wife, Amy, and daughter, Maddi, took us to dinner that night and we got to share with them all about what we were doing. That Sunday night they invited us to stay at their house and we gladly took them up on it. Over the next week and a half we grew to be great friends with them. We played games and talked and had sweet fellowship. I know I always say this about people that I meet, but please please pray that the Lord would bless this family. They took us in and treated us with so much love it was almost weird. Haha, totally just kidding, but really, they were great. They fed us and included us in their lives, which isn't an easy adjustment to make.
On our 2nd to last night there, we were able to have a conversation that blessed me so much. We talked a lot about my past and my issues, but Amy was able to give counsel from having been there and understanding where I have been. I was encouraged and strengthened by this person who knew where I had been and had come through stronger and blessed and thankful because of it. I have never even imagined being able to be so strong and "over" the things in my past, but she showed me how it is possible to glorify God in everything. She gave me these verses:

Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know [Him thus] no longer.Therefore, if anyone [is] in Christ, [he is] a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
2 Corinthians 5:16-17

There is much more, but I'm going to keep it for myself :) sorry guys!

Horizon Christian Fellowship was such a huge blessing to us while we were in Littleton. They provided us a place to hang out, to have our home base of operations out of, and some really good fellowship. Also, they ended up taking care of the mechanic bill from our van being in the shop for 4 days. Thank you Horizon and thank you Jesus for all you have done.

Phoebe, me, & Maddi

Marc & Jeda being rock stars at Red Rocks Amphitheater

The McKenney Family-Amy, Maddi, Phoebe, and Jeda. We love you guys!

after 32 days.

Today is Day 32. Thirty-two long days of being gone, away from family and friends. It's even harder because this is the weekend of the retreat! I've been to every young adult retreat since 2008, when I started going to them! Yes, I realize that that means this is only the 5th one I will have missed which isn't too much of a record, but I really love the retreats! Sigh. Anyways.
So here is what we have been up to in the days past.
Wyoming-we went out again with very little luck at finding people. That night (Wednesday) we went to church and had an awesome time.

The message was great. Pastor Shaun thoroughly explained what it meant that Jesus fulfilled the law and it was a really cool breakdown, oddly enough, in the Proverbs, but it worked out lol. That night we met a couple other pastors and got to share a lot about the trip. Pastor Aaron, the Youth & Facilities Pastor, offered to let us stay in the youth annex which was pretty much the best day of my life! Especially because Pastor Dan gave us 5(!) microwavable pizzas to enjoy. So the place was filled with couches & bean bags so we spent the night watching a movie and eating pizza. It was so relaxing and really nice to be able to just chill with Marc. I know we spend all of our time together anyways, but this was more like quality time :)
Ok, the next day we got up and did some work around the church then around 1 or 2 (I think) we headed south to Colorado.

After what seemed like too long to be driving so close, I got a little grumpy because I thought I could read a map but apparently not so well :( but eventually we ended up finding the church we were headed for: Horizon Christian Fellowship in Littleton which, I believe, is a suburb of Denver. We met Pastor Jedda (sp? it's short for Jedidiah) and his wife Amy who are both really awesome people. They took us out to dinner and showed us a safe place behind the church to park our van. Tiiiight! Then kinda gave us some ideas on where in the city we can go.
So the next day we went out! First we went to the downtown Denver area but it was super crazy and overwhelming so we headed back to Littleton which has become our home base area. We ended up parking it at this little tiny park where there was a pretty constant flow of people getting off of the nearby train. Marc was playing his guitar for a while then Jedda joined us and played his djembe and as people walked by they would stop and hand them tracts and try to start up a conversation.

This is kinda exciting I suppose lol. Most of the time (besides in Utah), I rely on Marc to start the conversation and I jump in if he needs me. He's the evangelist and I'm the apologist pretty much. Well, I was looking at this woman in the park while we were eating and I kept thinking, I should go talk to her but I was unsure. Then out of nowhere, not knowing where I was looking, Marc says, "You know, you can start conversations too." Man, talk about a push from the Lord. So I, for the first time, went to start a conversation by myself. Aaaand she didn't speak English lol. I wondered, "Lord, why? She didn't even speak English!" But He gave me peace right away. That wasn't the point. She took the tract and was reading it, but more importantly I realized that it's not a big deal to walk up to people. The worst they can tell you is no right? So to continue, after Marc and Jedda had been playing for a while, these kids came up and we knew we could suck them in with a game of hackey sac :) (thanks Ralph & Jen for those)

After talking to them for a while, we invited them to the Young Adult group that night and gave them a ride home. They didn't end up coming but it was a very cool divine appointment where we got to spend a lot of time talking to them. So we took them home then went back to the church for the Young Adults group that they have. After talking with the leader (Isaac) for a few minutes, he discovered that Marc could do worship which was perfect because their worship leader was out that night! So Marc played "All in All", "Always, Forever" (our wedding song!), and "Revelation Song". It was a super huge blessing to me not only to see my husband being used, but also willing to be used.

After the message, Isaac called us up to share and be prayed for and the people started asking us questions about the trip then asked us to share our testimonies! That was a new experience! But it was cool to be able to share what God has brought us both from and encourage others with that. So that ended Friday, which brings us to Saturday! St. Patrick's Day! Oddly enough, a celebration of a missionary who converted a sinful nation to the Lord, but people celebrate with drinking and debauchery! As if they needed an excuse! So we got up pretty early and headed back downtown for the St. Patty's Day parade. CRAZY business!

So Marc talked to quite a few people and handed out tracts but mostly people weren't too concerned :( There was this one guy who "kinda believed in God" but didn't really know what it meant to so Marc gave him the straight up gospel and an invitation to accept the Lord but he didn't want to. :( heartbreaking.

So that's been the past few days. We're not sure how much longer we'll be in Denver. Maybe a few more days, maybe longer but we're not really sure. As usual, as long as the Spirit leads.
I will say, we have been so humbled by the church. Not just here in Littleton, but the church in general. People have truly shown us the love of Christ and totally encouraged us when we have bad days witnessing or feel like we're getting nowhere. It's so comforting to be able to go anywhere and truly have brothers and sisters, people to fellowship with. It makes missing home a little easier.

bye bye Salt Lake City, hello.....

Since we last spoke we have left Salt Lake City, much to the chagrin of many people there. We got the mail we were waiting for on Friday afternoon, freeing us up to go whenever the Spirit said so. After much prayer and discussion, we both had a peace about leaving on Sunday after church. We spent Friday cleaning out the van and doing laundry, just getting ready to go. Then on Saturday we ventured into the city one more time. Stopping at the convention center we stumbled upon a tattoo convention which was unfortunately $20 to get into so that was a no go but outside we got to talk to a couple vendors who bent silverware into jewelry. The woman was a believer but the husband was still on a search. Marc reminded him that nobody is promised tomorrow. After talking for a while longer, we headed back down to Temple Square, just a couple short blocks away.
Walking through we were stopped by 2 woman missionaries (as usual). One was from Seattle and the other was 1/2 Guatemalan and 1/2 German, a self-admitted unusual mix! We got to talk to them for about 45 minutes about how emotional conversions are just the stepping stone into a faith because, let's face it, most Christians become such because of an emotional experience, but that's not where it should end. Studying, reading, knowing God through His word should ensue. Most of the time all they could answer us was, "I don't have all of the answers, I just encourage you to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it." It was really sad because they were both so nice but so unable to analyze anything or think apart from emotions. There was a point where one of them even told us, "We don't like to pull out the scriptures and look at them because we don't want to seem like we're bashing." I was almost incensed at this! If you can't use your scriptures to support your faith then you have no basis! As we were winding down our conversation, a sister we had previously talked to came up and was saying hi to us.
(Backstory: the day we talked to her (Sister Astorga from Guatemala), she told us that she became a Mormon after her brother passed away because she wanted hope that she would see him again. Immediately, this puts us on very fragile ground because we need to be overwhelmingly loving before we can even try to talk to her! Also that day as we were sitting in the tabernacle, two ladies (Sister Chen from China and Sister Andrade from Brazil) approached us and were talking about how sad it is that hateful people come in just to tell Mormons that they are wrong for believing what they believe. Again, fragile ground where LOVE needed to be shown more than anything.)
Ok, backstory finished, back to the main story:
Sister Astorga came up and after 2 seconds of small talk said, "We're going to have to ask you not to stop the sisters anymore. There are people here who are genuinely interested in what we have to say and we don't need you guys taking up all of their time." Man! I wanted to be so mad! But calmly and as nicely as I could I just replied, "Oh, they stopped us, we don't ever stop anybody." Even the other ladies were on our side :)
That's the closest we came to getting kicked out of the Temple Square area.
Sunday rolled around and off to church we went. We were super blessed with a tank of gas by Ryan & Kim, a very awesome couple who heads up the children's ministry. (Thanks guys!) Then from there we headed out, taking the 80 East to Wyoming! First stop: this huge business called Little America in the middle of NOWHERE! It looks like a little tiny city but is actually just a huge business. Our van started acting up again, losing power and stuff so we pulled into their mechanic's shop. Fifteen minutes and $50 later we were back on the road with a new fuel filter. Sweet. Another 15 minutes later Monstro (aka the van), started doing the same thing again. UGH! We had already passed the next biggest city, Rock Springs, by 30 miles. (see map below)

Ok, so Little America is probably about 20 miles west of Green River (which is super tiny). Rock Springs is where the mechanic advised us to stop at the dealership, which wouldn't be open till the next day. So by the time we decided to turn back we were about where the "30" is on the map.
So that's that. We talked to the people at a fast food restaurant about what there is to do in town (nothing) and then just hung out for about 2 hours until they closed. Then we slept in the parking lot and the next day (Monday) took the van into the dealership.
Turns out our EGR Valve is (supposedly) stuck shut and isn't letting blah blah blah get into the gibberish I don't understand. Here comes the show stopper: it would cost $1,200 if we wanted it fixed and because the van has so many miles on it, it's not guaranteed. Fantastic. What the heck are we supposed to do now? So, we prayed and asked God what He would have us do. Our awesome mechanic back home (Steve Kirkwood) recommended that we hightail it out of the dealership and gave Marc some more advice that I didn't understand. So from there we made it to Cheyenne with not one single problem! Praise the Lord! And it actually hasn't acted up since! Nevertheless, the responsible thing is to get it checked out, just in case. Isaac Flores, a friend from church, hit us up on Facebook saying that his company has a campus in Laramie (see map-west of Cheyenne) that we should be able to take the van to to get checked and fixed. AWESOME! Thank you Isaac! And Jesus!
This pretty much brings us to the present. Yesterday Marc went to the men's study at Calvary Chapel Cheyenne and met a few people. We spent the night on a guy's couch where it was nice and warm :) Up at 7 am, we had breakfast and headed to the church where we met Pastor Bob and shared what we were doing and got his advice on where in the city to go, etc. First we went downtown to the Capital building, which was sweet! Outside as we walked around we talked to a girl who didn't believe in God but did believe in living a good life and if there is a heaven she will be judged according to her works. Kiiiind of true, but she's missing the most important part...Jesus!!! Next we talked to a guy who said he was Christian but attends a unitarian church. After that, 2 men, one who claimed to be a devil worshiper and the other who immediately cut us off and didn't want to "talk about religion". (There were others, but these were the noteworthy ones.)
After all of this we headed to the mall where there were tons of cars but few people. Where does everyone hang out in this city?! lol
Just to give an idea of this state:
Moreno Valley's population in 2009 was 191,766.
Cheyenne's population in 2007: 56,160
The whole state of Wyoming in 2011: 568,158.
Yeah, like nobody lives here. Side note, you also don't have to smog your car here or pay state income tax. AND! As long as you're not a felon you don't need a license to conceal. When we went to the mall today there was a sign that said "No Weapons Allowed" because apparently everyone here is strapped! You just can't take guns into courthouses, churches, or bars.
Ok, pray for us for the rest of the time here in Cheyenne, that we would have direction and know who to talk to and what to say!

day 23 and where are we now?

It is the beginning of the 4th week and where are we now you might ask? It's funny because we estimated being in each state for a week, give or take a few days. We got to Arizona on February 16th and left on the 27th, which means we were there for a total of 12 days. Well, 11 1/2 if you want to be technical. From there we drove to Salt Lake City where we have been ever since. Yup, still in Utah! According to our plans we should already have been in at least our 3rd state but oh well.
Our plan was to leave today but here's the story:
On Friday the 2nd, we went to Best Buy and ordered a new charger for the laptop (covered by warranty, praise the Lord!) And were told that it would take 3-5 business days to arrive vwhich puts us at today (the 8th) being the latest it would arrive. Knowing that we planned on leaving today but then we got an e-mail yesterday saying that our order had just been processed and that we would be notified when it was shipped and would then take 3-5 business days to arrive which will keep us here for at least 5 more days because they don't operate on weekends. Gosh.
This is why this is funny: 2 of the pastors here never planned on staying!!! They either came for a visit and were passing through and here they are, 6 & 20 years later in Salt Lake City. Everyone tells us to pray about moving here. I even told Marc that before we even met anyone that after the trip we should come back here where evangelical Christians are outnumbered 9 to 1!!! This state is really unlike anything I've ever seen before.
Pray with us for God's will and to know how long we'll be delayed here.
But anyways, that is the update. We've been here for 11 days and we'll see how much longer. As unreal as this city is, the family we've been staying with is beyond amazing. Pray that God would bless the Cowan family for all they've done for us!
Ooh! And exciting news which, if you're on my facebook you probably saw already :) but Marc and I celebrated our two year anniversary yesterday!! It was actually really cool. We didn't do too much of the "typical" stuff. We babysat, played games, went to church, then played some games with the people in the house. It was tons of fun!
Spiritually things have been well. Marc spent a good while talking to an LDS member at the temple visitor's center and I think that was the first time that he was really disheartened and sad for the deception you see here. It is really sad in that aspect because you see all of these people who are desperately trying so hard to be good because they are trying to earn grace but the Bible teaches that grace is a free gift. So pray that the spirit of oppression will just be lifted, that people would have open eyes and open hearts to hear the word of God.

and the truth shall make you free

Ok, so today is March 1st, 2012. (obviously, its just the logical next thing to say.)
The first two nights we were here in Salt Lake City we stayed with Eileen and Chris Jacobs and their two kids, Halle and Elias. Chris actually grew up in the LDS church so we all had a great conversation for about 3 hours. We studied and read and talked about different beliefs. They were super nice and fed us and were always interested in what we were talking about and how our day was.
So the second day we were in SLC we went out to Temple Square, which is the center of the city.

The whole city is centered around it. Going east you have the streets named "100 East, 200 East, 300 East," etc. Same with North, South, and West.
Backtrack-first we stopped at the Utah Lighthouse Ministry bookstore which is owned and operated by Sandra Tanner, an ex-Mormon and apologist who happens to be the great great granddaughter of Brigham Young! We picked up a copy of the 1830 Book of Mormon (to compare the changes in the current edition) and another book called "Where Does it Say That?" which has photo copies of hard to find Mormon documents with funky doctrine.
Ok, back to Temple Square. We went to the Capitol Building at the top of State Street and parked in thi visitor's center for tourists.

From there we walked down to the temple (while it was snowing) and went to the temple entrance. This is a big no-no. You can't go into the temple unless you've reached a certain something of "Mormon-hood" and received a "Temple Recommend", which, clearly, we don't have. We were stopped very quicklyby a man in an all white suit (which was what everyone was wearing) and redirected to the Visitor's Center. There we talked to these 4 different ladies (in groups of 2), all of which either knew very little or only were invested in what they believed emotionally because it made them "good people". Only one time in my life had I ever seen women LDS missionaries-the rest were men. I was slightly put off by their responses because they had no desire to be able to defend what they believed-feelings were enough for them. From then on I told Marc that I didn't want to talk to the girls anymore, find me a male missionary. He tried to reason with me but I was stubborn and irritated. As we walked through the temple grounds we came upon another visitor's center so in we went. Two missionaries came up to talk to us but in my stubborn refusal to talk to women the conversation didn't progress beyond small talk until I blatantly could no longer ignore it anymore. Sister Kyle asked if I had ever looked into Mormonism. Thus began the 20 minute conversation in which she looked interested, puzzled, intent, many things. She didn't seem to have a very firm foundation and at the end she told me that she wishes she knew the Bible better. Sweet! I told her that she could, she just has to read it with an open mind and let the Holy Spirit teach her. I also told her to read Chuck Smith's commentaries. :) I gave her my number so I hope she calls me and wants to meet up and talk.
It's so funny to see how God works. I was so over talking to women because they wouldn't reason with me and then in God's persistence He brought me this girl with who I had the most fruitful conversation of the day! All in all we talked to about 8-12 people. A very good day!
Wednesday morning we said bye to the Jacobs family and headed into the city. The first stop was the Rescue Mission where we spent two hours unloading boxes of canned food and stocking the pantry shelves.

Next we headed over to the church bookstore to help Lynn (the manager) with stuff. Marc cleaned out the fridges in the coffee shop while I rearranged the audiobooks section. Then we put stickers on about 800 tracts which took about 2-3 hours. We were blessed with dinner after that! The church every Wednesday serves dinner 2 hours before service starts. Very cool for fellowship! It was funny because people were always coming up to us saying, "are you the missionaries?" That sounds so strange to say that I'm a missionary.
We stayed the night with Pastor John and his family. Their house is huge and awesome! The basement has 3 or 4 bedrooms and they're adding on a kitchen! Tiiiiight! Getting in the driveway was a bit tough though. Marc had never driven in the snow before so we were sliding around like crazy! It took about 3 or 4 tries and about 7 minutes before we succeeded.

(this is the van after it had been snowing during church)

Side note: we are now the proud owners of an ice scraper! Something we never thought we, as Californians, would need.
On a somewhat more serious/spiritual note: before arriving here I set it in my mind that most likely I would be either planting or watering seeds because I had never heard of an active Mormon leaving the church before. It turns out that 60% of Calvary Chapel Salt Lake City are ex-Mormons! Praise the Lord! That was a huge encouragement. All of them say that the thing that made them see was just simply reading the Bible and realizing what it says. How amazing to see the power of God's word! We always think it takes these gimmicks or arguments or eloquence of speech but it really is the word!
"And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." John 8:32
But be in prayer for this city-it's like nothing I've ever seen before. You drive down the freeway and there is just steeple after steeple after steeple. In two miles I counted 7 steeples! Something that Marc and I discussed was the need to pray for their head guy, "the prophet". If he were to see the light and denounce the LDS church it could potentially change millions of lives. Pray for a Paul like conversion in his life.