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.

From Phoenix to Utah!

Ladies and gentleman, you have missed so much! It has been quite an interesting week with much to say, so here we go.
Leaving Phoenix on Wednesday, February 22nd, we drove up the 17N through Sedona which was massively gorgeous. (I would post pictures but I don't have the right cord with me, which is why I will direct you to Marc's YouTube channel. Search "the urbanpilgrims" and you'll probably see my face.) Anywho, a very very gorgeous place to be but also very new age. We were there for a couple hours, just driving through and checking out the scenery and things. From there we headed to Flagstaff. We got into town around 5:45 and went straight to Calvary Chapel Flagstaff, hoping to catch midweek service. Turns out church started at 6:30, very sweet! We got to talk to Pastor Steve for a few minutes then went into church. He taught on Zechariah 14:12-end, all about end times. Some pretty sweet stuff. Afterwards we hung out and talked for over an hour with these 2 awesome young adults, Ryan and Alicia. Well, Ryan is still in high school but freshly 18 so I guess considered a young adult. :)Alicia treated us to Denny's (thank you!)and the 4 of us had a great time of fellowship.

The church let us sleep in their parking lot and the next day Pastor Steve told Alicia and Ryan that he was glad that we didn't stab them lol. After that I think they trusted us :)
We went out on Thursday to the college and the downtown. No bueno. We got pretty discouraged pretty quickly because of the lack of interest and the constant blow offs. Then Marc was stopped by this guy who asked for a dollar. For a moment it was a beacon of hope...until we realized that this drunk/high man was crazy! They talked for quite a while but at some point he took Marc's Bible and wouldn't give it back and started speaking all these blasphemies. Eventually he got it back and we kept walking down San Francisco St. Feeling pretty defeated, we headed back to the car and then back to the church, which kind of became our home base while we were in town. Again, we ended up hanging out with Ryan and his girlfriend, Katelyn. (I think I spelled that wrong. Kaitlin?)
The next day (Friday) we prayed and read a lot because we weren't sure if our rejection meant to leave town or to be more persistent. At the end of my reading, Paul shook the dust off of his sandals and left to the next city. A prayer answered! We decided to wait until after church on Sunday so that way we could get fed before we left.
On Friday night, CC Flagstaff had a night of worship called "Extol Him." It was such a blessing! Ryan is the church's worship leader and Kaitlin is one of the singers. Their 2 friends are also on the team, playing drums and electric guitar/vocals. It was really awesome to see 5 high schoolers rising to their calling and following after the Lord. That night, the daughter of the head pastor (Pastor Ron) invited us to stay at their house. They have this huge 5 bedroom house that Pastor Ron built himself! Four out of the 5 bedrooms are master bedrooms and their house is truly beautiful. That man has a gift! It was super awesome too because built into the shapes in the drywall, he imprinted the words "Jesus", "Father", and "Lord". Super awesome. That family/household (a few other people live there also) was such a huge blessing to us. Please pray that the Lord would bless them.
Saturday night we went to Ryan's 18th birthday party. It was '20's themed and they decked out the basement of the church. Marc was pretty much the only one who wasn't dressed according to the theme. (Don't worry, he doesn't read this blog so he won't know that I made fun of him lol) The party was great though. Ryan's girlfriend, in my opinion, stole the show with her adorable flapper dress, but that's just my opinion. We got to talk a lot with the pastor's son in law, Roman, then we ended up staying later to help put the church back in order. This is when I met my 3rd hero. (1, Jesus. 2, Ravi Zacharias. 3, Marsha)

Let me tell you about Marsha. Everyone talked about her, how crazy (in a good way) she is, always decorating and doing things, up at 2 am doing dishes or cooking for people. Oh yeah, she's 65 years old. Age has nothing on this woman, she is more energetic than people my age! I walked into the room and she's hanging this giant mirror on the wall and I asked, "Why isn't someone helping her with that?!" They, of course, are used to the way she is and that's what they said,..."That's just the way she is." We were constantly asking if she needed help with anything but she never did, she just did everything. She was always up later at night and earlier in the morning. Riana (her daughter) told us that she walked in one day and she was painting the vaulted ceiling by putting a ladder on the bed. Crazy right. BUT AWESOME!
Ok, I tried to be brief but it's not working. Moving on, Sunday morning! We got up, went to church and then after went to Subway with Riana, Roman, Ryan, Kaitlin, Kaylee (positive I spelled that wrong), Marsha, and Pastor Ron. From there we headed out. Not to steal their crowns or anything, but we were blessed by a lot of people there. Their love and support meant more than I think they know.
From Flagstaff it was a LOOONG drive to the Grand Canyon, or, as Roman put it, a huge hole in the ground.

After oogling the grand view (pun intended), we rode the shuttle and figured out that that was a good way to talk to people who weren't too busy oogling themselves. We talked to this couple from Chicago who told us of their grand adventures but got off the bus before we could really tell them anything of substance. Next we struck up a convo with these 3 guys from Alaska who were on a 5 week trip going hiking and rafting and what not. SICK! The guy in front of us who we were mainly talking with seemed slightly uncomfortable with Marc but he still talked to him for a bit about his travels. We told him what we were doing and he seemed to turn around a little bit then soon after got off of the bus. So it goes.
From there we drive for almost 3 hours to a small town kind of east of Page, AZ. When I say small, I mean that we at first drove through it in about 15 seconds. Literally.
Which, essentially, brings us to the present...Salt Lake City! We stopped off at CC Salt Lake City and talked to the manager of the bookstore and the assistant pastor, Pastor John (not Milhouse) lol. They filled us in on a lot of things about the city and the culture. From there we went to Marc's mom's old family friend's house where we had dinner and are staying the night. Thankfully because it's snowing!
But that is the update...I have a little bit more to say but it's definitely time to get off of the computer!
Stay tuned, as always. :) We're going out into the city tomorrow so I'm sure there will be lots to talk about.

day 7...a day for the blog

Today was an experience! Or as I told Marc, "a day for the blog"!
We woke up this morning and drove from Phoenix to Tempe to go to ASU (Arizona State University), which apparently is the largest university in the nation. Interesting tid bit there for you. They have a religious group on campus called CoRA (Council of Religious Affairs) that set up an event called "I <3 Faith" where various religious groups on campus can come set up a table so that students can walk around and see their options of what is available to them.
Today was definitely an eye-opening day for a few reasons. You spend so much time around friends from church and just doing the same thing all the time that you don't really interact with new things/ideas so to see so much going on at one time was just crazy to me. But anyways, back to the story....
So we teamed up with YWAM, which stands for Youth with a Mission. That mission is to raise up and send out missionaries all over the world. We got there around 8:45 and helped set up, prayed for the table, and was introduced to a few people. Firstly, we met the leader of CoRA who reminded me of the Unitarian lady from The Truth Project. She said overall that their goal was to encourage spirituality on campus. Coming from a Christian, this kind of confused me, for what good is it to be spiritual if the spirit you're connected with is not true? Moving on from there, we walked around the campus. Marc talked to a couple people who were generally disinterested. They gave him the time of day but just didn't care about the whole "God thing". So we headed back to the table but on the way make a couple of stops. One of them was at "Youth Life", a Christian organization on campus that is all about fellowship. The guy was really into the fact that they are all about hanging out an developing relationships and the thing that drew him in was that "they're not always talking about stuff and trying to shove stuff down your throat". This made my heart sad to see Christians who weren't interested in the word. A woman from the group came over later and was talking to us about it and she said that at every meeting they share the gospel and a message and go into small groups so that was a little more encouraging.
Next we headed to the Mormon table! Exciting for me :) First I talked to the girl at the table who seemed a bit naive. We talked for about 20 minutes till this other guy, Mike, came and took over. He knew a little bit more than the girl did but I brought up a lot of questions to him that he wasn't really sure of. We talked for about 30 minutes and he agreed to go home and look up the different problems with the book of Mormon. He promised me that he would and in the mean time he told me to do 1 of 2 things. I replied with, "I'm not going to pray about the book of Mormon, so what's number 2?" I explained to him why and he said the other thing was to meet with a missionary. I told him that I am not new to talking to Mormons and about how many I've talked to in the past. He seemed a little astonished and told me instead of talking to a missionary to go to the institute of religion on campus (basically an LDS church where they teach their doctrine) and talk to one of the professors. Coincidentally, he happened to be walking by at the time so Mike pulled him over and I briefed him on what we had been talking about then I shared with him as I shared with Mike my skepticism of the Mormon beliefs/doctrines. It was really cool because I was able to give them the gospel, the true gospel, and also shared with them Galatians 1:8 which says, "But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed." and then shared with them that if they died today I don't want them to be deceived by this other doctrine and go to hell because they believed wrongly. It was cool talking to this guy who has been a leader and a missionary and just educated and high up and giving him the gospel. Pray for the 2nd guy, Mike, because I really think that seeds were planted.
Moving on from there, Marc had been talking to this Christian guy named Rich (I think) who was super encouraged by our trip. He was really, really nice and showed us to our next destination: a religious panel of "experts" who were going to explain to us their religion's stance on the end of the world. First up was a professor of anthropology who spoke on the 2012 end of the world controversy. Long story short, myth busted, they don't believe it. It's just a difference in calendar styles.
Guy #2-Rabbi Lee, who was, obviously, Jewish. Strangely enough, the Jews apparently don't have a definite belief on what will happen in the end. They have ideas of peace & justice where the enemies of the Jews are destroyed and the Jews are regathered to their land and another view of a day of wrath but there is no definitive prophecy of what will happen. He even said, "We're not even sure if it will happen." Crazy!
Up next we had a pastor of a Methodist church. I was thoroughly disappointed with the lack of knowledge he had on the subject. He read a couple verses from Revelation and spent most of the time discussing whether or not the book was to be taken literally or figuratively. He spoke of the peace that would come in the end but said nothing of the rapture/tribulation/armageddon. I was totally disappointed.
After him was a representative of Islam who was extremely thorough in the things that he presented. A lot of it sounded similar to what Christians believe. He even had a very evangelistic approach as he spoke. Totally showed up the pastor.
Lastly we have the Mormon professor who spoke from Matthew 24, also explaining WAY more than the pastor did. The whole experience was an interesting learning experience but it opened my eyes to see how "politically correct" people have become. People won't stand fully for what they believe because they want to appeal to their colleagues and audience. The best one, sadly, was the Muslim.
After leaving there we left ASU and went back to Phoenix. In the morning we will be heading out to Flagstaff and from there, Utah.
:) see you soon