We made it!

Hello to my family and friends,
Yes, my friend Gareth and I made it to Utah. Our trip was fairly smooth, with no major problems. Of course it wasn't without it's hic-ups. Gareth drove to my house on Sunday evening. We planned our route soon after he arived, we hadn't yet decided what we wanted to see or do on the way. We went and picked up a bike from my friend Marshall's house. I'm so glad and greatful I have bike to ride around. Anyways, after talking for a while we decided to visit the Grand Cayon. After more college age rational thinking we decided to leave at three in the moring. This would have alowed us to arrive near the Grand Cayon the next evening. Sounded like a great plan. Little did we know. So we headed out, we had to pick up a chair for someone in Rockwall, after that it was up to Amarillo and then a straight shot to Flagstaff, AZ on 40. It turns out Gareth's little truck isn't running quite right. We found out very quickly that we could only cruise around 60-65 mph, that was going on flat land. Going up hill things quickly digressed. We weren't in a hurry though so it was ok with us. Anyways, just outside of the DFW area Gareth wanted to sleep, which I had been doing. So about 30 min later Gareth is asleep and I am driving, slowly. All of the sudden Gareth jumps and kinda yells out reaching for the dash. This of course sparks curousity, I ask him what happened and he told me he thought he was still driving. This of course made me feel very safe throughout the rest of the trip, NOT! We had a very smooth drive most of the rest of the way. We stopped just before Amarillo and tried to clean out the in-line fuel strainer. It was really dirty but it didn't help much. After a quick snack we were back on the road. Our next stop was on the way to Albaquerqy. About an hour away from Albaquerqy we ran into some hills, and one of them felt like we weren't going to make it up. So we stopped to see if we could figuere out someway to make the truck run better. One reason could be that all the vaccum hoses are mostly just plugged in somewhere with an educated guess. Anyways Gareth decided to pull the carb apart a bit to see if we could clean it out. After we got the truck back together it wouldn't start. After about a half hour of tinkering the truck finally started and we were on away again, and surprisingly the truck ran a little bit better. In Albaquerqy we decided to stop at Autozone to buy an ingintion coil, as well as stop at Walmart. We wanted to get some snacks, I had to get eyedrops. While we were in Walmart Gareth thought it would be a good idea to try and cook some pizzas in the engine comparment, the air filter housing was the perfect size to set pizza on. I told him it sound like we should at least try it. In the busy parking lot we made some PB&J sandwhichs and Gareth preped the pizza. After all this we pack up and get ready to leave. Of course the starter on the truck starts acting up again so we have to push start it. We seemed to be well practiced at push starting so we went for style this time. Each of us pushed on his side of the truck and then at the last second we both jumped in, poped the clutch and took off. All the while this little girl was "yelling mommy mommy look look" almost as if she was accusing us of stealing the truck. So we were on the road again. I drove for a while, and then let Gareth take over. It was now around 1 or 2 in the morning the next day. Gareth made it through flagstaff, and we stopped at a rest stop and caught a few hours of shut eye. We both suddenly woke up in the morning at the same time, it was a bit weird. Anyways we headed to the Grand Cayon to hike for the day. Gareth and I hiked a trail down into the Cayon. We didn't want to go all the way down. I would say we hiked about 3 and 1/2 miles down. The way back up was much more difficult. We found a guy on the side of the trail, he wasn't looking too good. We gave him some water and waited on him. We hiked back up barely making it out, yes we are out of shape. I went back to the truck and Gareth went back down with some water to check on the guy. He gave us 20 bucks for helping him. After leaving the Grand Cayon we just wanted to get to Utah, with as little stopping as possible. It was already about 4 in the afternoon. We did stop and eat dinner with the money we were given. We finaly arrived at our destination at 2:30 in the morning.

Preparing for Utah

School is out, and I'm back at home. Hopefully I can get my dirt bike sold. Summer is finally here.

If all goes well I will be going up to Utah. Prayers are needed. Me and a friend of mine should be driving up in a couple of weeks. I'm not even sure we know what we will drive. But, it will all work out. I have had so much free time while at home, I just hope that I will be able to take advantage and use this time of non-busyness to really focus on God. We really need prayers for our trip and the summer. Utah is a spiritual war zone. I have really been feeling it lately. My main concern is my relationship with God right now. My secondary concern is with preparing myself to go to Utah, that includes mentally, physically and spiritually. I am really excited to watch God work. My hope is that I will be able to write down what I see God doing throughout my Summer, so keep checking for updates.

Yours Truly

Dear Family and Friends,

God is awesome! Some of you may have known that over spring break I went on another mission trip. This time I was off to Utah. To tell you the truth, I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. Praise God! As some of you may know Utah is over 90% Mormon. Our group went there to spread God’s truth to these people.

God really has a sense of humor, the only snow we got while driving up there was in Texas. I dare someone to tell me that that is not ironic. The drive was beautiful once we got near the four corners area. To a Texas grown young man mountains and snow are the most beautiful things in the world. God really knew how to speak to my heart, even through the terrain. I, of course, tried to take pictures, but pictures can never do justice to what God has created. It was such a blessing to see God’s handy work. The lord knows me well.

When we finally arrived in Ephraim, Utah, after a total of 24 hours on the road and an over night stay in Albuquerque, we were exhausted. We unloaded our stuff and got settled into our rooms. We stayed in the college house above the Solid Rock Café run by the missionaries there. The guys’ dorm was above the café and the girls’ were above the garage. When I say dorm I mean more like house with rooms and a bathroom. The house they converted to a café is perfect for that use. The guys’ dorm had a kitchen and bathroom with a washer and dryer. The first night we didn’t do much. We mostly met the people who worked with Chip and Jamie (the missionaries who run the café) and the college students who currently lived in the dorm. That night we had to practice some songs for church in the morning. Yes, that’s right, we lead worship. God provided enough people on the team who could play instruments and sing that we were able to lead worship in church (the only Christian church in the county) on Sunday morning.

Sunday morning we went to church. It was refreshing to see the sincerity of these people. That Sunday they were celebrating the fact that they had just become debt free. Praise God! We celebrated with them by eating cake. The rest of the day we tried to get settled in and talk to the Christians there.

On the second day we began painting the upstairs of the café, that is the guys’ dorm. After painting for a good while we went sledding with some of the Christians that were there. It was such a blessing, going up to the mountains and seeing more of what God had made. I had never been sledding before and it was a blast. After sledding we had to hurry up and take showers and eat, God had been at work. Somehow we were able to get a meeting setup with one of the leaders in a polygamy group in the area. This may not mean a lot to some people, but to Chip and Jamie it meant a great deal. In one of the previous years he met with a mission team and they had left a good impression on him. Having a good relationship with him is a very good thing.

Our third full day there we finished painting the upstairs and began to hand out flyers for a Mexican food fiesta that we were sponsoring in the Solid Rock Café. The Mormon Church seems to be scared of the café and tells people not to go near it. If they catch people going in or out they will usually have a talk with the person and scare them back in line. Positive publicity for this place is crucial. While handing out flyers it was our goal to begin talking with people from the college there. We had been studying Mormonism for a couple of months so that we could talk and witness to the college students. I didn’t really have any good conversations that night. My group got back early, so I prayed for the other groups’ conversations and that God would provide good relationships.

The next day things really started to get interesting. My friend Josh and I went out together to pass out flyers and witness to college students on campus. God was good. He led us to a conversation with young man. Our goal in talking to these people is not convert them right on the spot. It takes on average seven years for someone to come out of Mormonism. Our job was to ask questions and show them what their church believes. We want them to ask questions. There are so many lies in their church, it is scary. The leaders know that there are holes in their doctrine so they discourage questions. The LDS people are taught to take peoples word for it and not ask questions. How sad is that. They are trapped in a well crafted snare of the devil. It scares them to ask questions, their whole life and culture is based on the Mormon Church. There are many conversations and things that happened that I don’t have enough room here to tell you about, you will have to ask me about them personally. All I can say is that there really is a God and he orchestrates things perfectly. If you have questions about your faith, ask them. If you don’t get your answer, then keep searching.

I think many times the Christian church is the same as the LDS. We just take what people say and believe it. It’s not that the people we listen to are bad, but they may be misinformed. After seeing how the LDS church treats scripture I value God’s word even more. God gave us the bible so that we wouldn’t be lied to we need to use it and study it. God can speak to us other ways, but to test what we hear we need the bible to back it up.

There are so many more things I could talk about here, but I will sum up everything God has shared with me over this trip. God wants a relationship with you! When I used to hear the word relationship I thought that meant reading my bible and praying. I missed it. You see reading your bible and praying are part of the relationship, but they are NOT the relationship. God wants a literal relationship with you; a real, loving, and passionate relationship. He is waiting for you to give up your dreams and desires and let him come in and fill you up.

In the Lord’s amazing Love

Blogging, for all the people who want to know who I am, what I am doing, and get a glimpse into my mind.