So here we are. Down to less than two weeks now. It first really hit me when I was putting away crates of ice cream and I noticed the expiration date was the 22nd of August. I thought, I'll be gone before this ice cream expires!
I preached last week and we had this week off. I think my sermon went pretty well. After the first service I had 3 different people come up to me asking if I was planning on going to seminary after the summer! I still don't know... one day at a time. Last week I also had to work on Sunday for a few hours. Chris isn't doing any storekeeping at all now, and we're still working on a relief storekeeper. The guy we're most interested in, Steve, helped me put stuff away last Sunday. It was nice, but stuff was EVERYWHERE instead of nicely organized, he wasn't reading labels very well. A bit rough around the edges, but he really wants the job and I hope that he'll learn my way of doing things, or that he'll find better ways of doing things. On Monday, Chris had kinda tossed Steve into the fire. Basically gave him our order list and told him to go for it. So when I got back to work on Tuesday, we had a MASSIVE order that came in. The good news is though, we haven't been running out of items since I took over, except what the warehouse doesn't give us, and even then we've survived pretty well. The rest of the week was pretty much a blur. In to work, out to sleep. Not a whole lot has changed there. We've had 3 cooks leave so far, all heading home so our staff has somewhat changed faces a bit.
A few prayer requests. Keep praying for Marcus and his (ex)wife. We've talked a bit recently and they're both actively trying to get back together again, which was good to hear. Pray that God would heal their marriage and keep them together.
I'd also appreciate prayer as I try to find work when I get back. I asked Jen about a letter of recommendation and she told me that Xanterra absolutely 100% is not allowed to write them... but she will anyway since she likes to bend the rules and she's done it before. I know that she will give me a good recommendation, so please pray that God will lead me to the right job that He wants me at for this semester at least.
I know this post is really short, I feel like there's more that I could write about but I'm not feelin it right now. I'll just save it for when I can tell stories in person :)
Thank you so much again for all your support and prayers. It's really meant a lot to me and your comments have more than frequently lifted my spirits and fueled me forward, I wouldn't have survived without them!
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Thursday, July 29, 2010
End of July
It has finally been done. I've gone through almost 2 weeks now as full time storekeeper. Chris has taken my jobs, cook and relief storekeeping, although I think he's still trying to switch locations. Either that or he could quite possibly be fired soon, it's not looking good for him.
I still love storekeeping, a very good thing! Although Tuesday was pretty rough for me. Last week while storekeeping I finally had time to get everything organized how I liked it, by the end of the week it was all pretty comfortable, everything had a place and it was all neat and orderly (go figure!). Tuesday, I get in from my "weekend" and after 2 days of Chris' relief storekeeping, I felt like I had lost all of the progress I had made. I was not happy at all for the first few hours of work. We were running out of stuff left and right, not entirely Chris' fault, I guess we're hitting our busiest few weeks right now. But it's my job to bring in what we need, and when we run out of stuff, people come to me asking where it is. Well, I settled down after a bit, and got to organizing things again. The order that we brought in was pretty massive, and I had a few other special things on my lists to do. Getting in at noon, I was finally able to leave around 10:30. Wednesday was a bit better. Another massive order, still trying to keep up with demands, but since it was the last Wednesday of the month we had to do inventory. Basically, we count EVERY food item that we bring in. Prepared or not, we have to count it all and enter it into the computers. I did this with Jenn the head cook, and she was VERY appreciative. I don't how things worked out while she did it with Chris, but she read off the list of items and I told her how much we had of it. It was a lot like when I go through for my daily orders, except I'm writing down how much we have instead of how much we need. Jenn was excited too because we would have one random item in a different cooler, and instead of having to go and find out how much we had, I could remember, mainly because I had already gone through and done my ordering for the next day. It all really wasn't that bad, and today Jenn was asking why I had to leave so early and if I could extend my end date (NOT A CHANCE!). It was quite the compliment though, and last week Frank was asking the same thing haha. Today, we had a few discussions about who will be my relief storekeep. We've got eyes on one guy in particular who works in the pantry, I'm not too fond of him, he's kind of annoying but we'll see what happens. The good part is that I get to train the relief this time, so he'll be learning to do it my way! HAHA!
Sunday we ran the services at Madison again. Sarah preached her first ever sermon, and pulled off an awesome Christmas message! (July 25th, Christmas in July) We sang Christmas carols and she talked about how we can have the excitement of Christmas year round instead of just once. It was very well done! After that, we went to West Yellowstone and hung around there for the afternoon. It was a lot of fun, we visited random shops, and went to the park. I had bought a kite, one of those 5 dollar cheap bird kites and we had a steady wind. I had it up for a little bit then my line got severely tangled. So after about 10 minutes of untangling I finally had it up in the air... then it crashed and ripped. I flew it for maybe 15 minutes :( devastated. After that I pulled out my soccer ball. The size 4, really light one. I kicked it a couple times... then got it stuck in a tree. DEVASTATED!! It was maybe 20 feet up in a lodgepole pine, the nearest branch was 8-9 feet up which I somehow managed to grab and pull myself up to rescue the ball. I played with it a bit longer and a little kid in 2nd grade came and joined me. I showed him a few tricks and we talked about soccer and how he wants to be a professional. I encouraged him to keep practicing and working hard, we had a blast :)
Eventually, we went back to Madison for our final service to find that they were setting up right at our amphitheater for several speeches to be made the next day, one of the key speakers being Vice President Joe "Bison" Biden. We nick-named him thus because, like a bison walking down the road throwing off people's plans, Joe "Bison" Biden was walking into our amphitheater and we had to cancel our night service.
So there it is. Tomorrow, Nam and I are going to be joining a few of the Crusaders to read through the book of John. I'm looking forward to this one because I haven't been able to make it to any of their events yet. I've barely met any of them either and for some reason they don't always show up for our services... Be praying for Nam as we read through the Gospel message!
Less than 3 weeks now, I think I'm preaching this week, and I think I'll be preaching about where we call home... a good sermon for the end of this summer!
Thanks all for your prayers! I'll be home before you know it!
I still love storekeeping, a very good thing! Although Tuesday was pretty rough for me. Last week while storekeeping I finally had time to get everything organized how I liked it, by the end of the week it was all pretty comfortable, everything had a place and it was all neat and orderly (go figure!). Tuesday, I get in from my "weekend" and after 2 days of Chris' relief storekeeping, I felt like I had lost all of the progress I had made. I was not happy at all for the first few hours of work. We were running out of stuff left and right, not entirely Chris' fault, I guess we're hitting our busiest few weeks right now. But it's my job to bring in what we need, and when we run out of stuff, people come to me asking where it is. Well, I settled down after a bit, and got to organizing things again. The order that we brought in was pretty massive, and I had a few other special things on my lists to do. Getting in at noon, I was finally able to leave around 10:30. Wednesday was a bit better. Another massive order, still trying to keep up with demands, but since it was the last Wednesday of the month we had to do inventory. Basically, we count EVERY food item that we bring in. Prepared or not, we have to count it all and enter it into the computers. I did this with Jenn the head cook, and she was VERY appreciative. I don't how things worked out while she did it with Chris, but she read off the list of items and I told her how much we had of it. It was a lot like when I go through for my daily orders, except I'm writing down how much we have instead of how much we need. Jenn was excited too because we would have one random item in a different cooler, and instead of having to go and find out how much we had, I could remember, mainly because I had already gone through and done my ordering for the next day. It all really wasn't that bad, and today Jenn was asking why I had to leave so early and if I could extend my end date (NOT A CHANCE!). It was quite the compliment though, and last week Frank was asking the same thing haha. Today, we had a few discussions about who will be my relief storekeep. We've got eyes on one guy in particular who works in the pantry, I'm not too fond of him, he's kind of annoying but we'll see what happens. The good part is that I get to train the relief this time, so he'll be learning to do it my way! HAHA!
Sunday we ran the services at Madison again. Sarah preached her first ever sermon, and pulled off an awesome Christmas message! (July 25th, Christmas in July) We sang Christmas carols and she talked about how we can have the excitement of Christmas year round instead of just once. It was very well done! After that, we went to West Yellowstone and hung around there for the afternoon. It was a lot of fun, we visited random shops, and went to the park. I had bought a kite, one of those 5 dollar cheap bird kites and we had a steady wind. I had it up for a little bit then my line got severely tangled. So after about 10 minutes of untangling I finally had it up in the air... then it crashed and ripped. I flew it for maybe 15 minutes :( devastated. After that I pulled out my soccer ball. The size 4, really light one. I kicked it a couple times... then got it stuck in a tree. DEVASTATED!! It was maybe 20 feet up in a lodgepole pine, the nearest branch was 8-9 feet up which I somehow managed to grab and pull myself up to rescue the ball. I played with it a bit longer and a little kid in 2nd grade came and joined me. I showed him a few tricks and we talked about soccer and how he wants to be a professional. I encouraged him to keep practicing and working hard, we had a blast :)
Eventually, we went back to Madison for our final service to find that they were setting up right at our amphitheater for several speeches to be made the next day, one of the key speakers being Vice President Joe "Bison" Biden. We nick-named him thus because, like a bison walking down the road throwing off people's plans, Joe "Bison" Biden was walking into our amphitheater and we had to cancel our night service.
So there it is. Tomorrow, Nam and I are going to be joining a few of the Crusaders to read through the book of John. I'm looking forward to this one because I haven't been able to make it to any of their events yet. I've barely met any of them either and for some reason they don't always show up for our services... Be praying for Nam as we read through the Gospel message!
Less than 3 weeks now, I think I'm preaching this week, and I think I'll be preaching about where we call home... a good sermon for the end of this summer!
Thanks all for your prayers! I'll be home before you know it!
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
July 20th
These updates are getting further and further between. I guess in most part because not a whole lot happens during the week, just work. Anyway!
Work has been pretty good still. Frank still wants me to be the storekeeper. On Friday he told me that they would do something about it on Sunday. For some reason I thought that he would have done it sooner, but I guess he's not allowed or something. Anyway, he told me today that he talked to Jen and that they'll be doing something soon... we'll see.
Something to pray about, on Saturday there was a little incident with Amber. It just happened that my roommates wanted to go to lunch at the EDR at the Inn instead of our usual Snowlodge EDR. So we headed over there and had lunch. Amber was in there and I said hi, but not much more. We were just finishing up when I noticed her and another guy a few tables over. The guy was almost yelling at Amber and wasn't too happy (fortunately there were other people with Amber). As we were leaving I felt like I should talk to her about it and make sure she was ok. She has had some trouble with this guy in the past. He's a Christian, he's showed up to a bunch of our service, but he has some kind of mental trouble, I'm not entirely sure what. We're pretty sure he's got a serious crush on Amber and she's had to tell him off a few times in the past. That day it just happened that he had told her that he bought her a present while he was in West Yellowstone. Amber figured what he was up to and told him that she didn't want it because he wasn't going to be able to buy a date so to speak. This upset him pretty good I guess, and he got angry and was saying how she isn't really a Christian because Christians don't act like that etc. then he stormed off. Amber has talked to her managers since then, and they know that he's caused problems like this in the past few months. They said that they could get him out of here on grounds of harrassment. Amber was pretty shook up, she almost started to cry when she was telling me about it, she was afraid he was going to get physical. I prayed for her there and told her that if she ever needed anything, anytime, to contact me. I feel a bit responsible for the girls on our team since I'm the only guy in the group. Anyway, she went back to work and she's still trying to avoid him as much as possible. It's a tricky situation because we know we're supposed to show love to him, but this is almost getting dangerous, and Amber isn't the only girl this has happened to. Please be praying!
Sunday, the college team had the day off, and Staci, Sarah and I have been plotting a camping trip. We got our permits and started looking at the gear we had and realized we were a bit short. So we drove to West Yellowstone and bought some stuff, just kinda the bare minimum survival gear in my opinion. We then drove out to our trailhead, on the East side of Lake Yellowstone, called 9 mile trail or something like that. It was 5 miles in to our campsite. Not a horrible hike at all, mostly flat travelling, but the mosquitos were THICK. A couple river crossings which I managed to find a way across so that I wouldn't have to change intno sandals, or... ahem... go through in my boots. I stayed dry! We got to our campsite at about 5pm, which was great because we had a bit of set up to do, I was worried that we wouldn't have enough sunlight to get it all done but we were fine for time. The site was BEAUTIFUL, and the wind coming off the lake once in a while kept the mosquitos manageable. The edge of the forest behind us and Lake Yellowstone in front. We built a fire and got that going first. I cut a couple lodgepole pine trunks and lashed together a lean-to: I hope we got a picture of it... I'm pretty proud of that one! :) As rough as this trip was, it was great being able to use skills I learned from Royal Rangers. Thanks so much to Mr. Nast and the rest for teaching us all, I loved it! So we had a good fire going, I had bought a pot to use for cooking so we had potatoes and bacon. The first real meal I've cooked in almost 2 months... it was great! After that, we had to boil water for the next day, I really miss those water filters now, but no one got sick so I guess we did ok. Sarah didn't have a sleeping bag so I gave her mine, and her and Staci shared the lean-to. I stayed by the fire and kept it going, we were a little worried about bears as we weren't exactly following the rules on food prep and all. I slept for a little bit, but for the most part just watched the fire and the stars. I enjoyed it but I missed my buddies, you guys make a trip anywhere loads of fun! We had a couple doe deer that kept wandering near our camp, they would get about 30 feet away and just kinda watch us. Around 4 pm I noticed one of them had laid down near our site. It was comforting having them around, it was like they were guarding us, in that they wouldn't have been there if a bear were around. We got up around 6 and I made breakfast. Potatoes, eggs and spamwiches hahaha. I haven't had spam in YEARS, but it wasn't half bad. We broke camp quick and hit the trail, we needed to get back ASAP because Sarah had to work at 4. Uneventful hike back, although, right by our campsite we started following bear tracks down the trail, fresh poop and what looked like what was left of a grouse. It all wasn't there the day before! We made it back to Old Faithful around 1. I showered and fell asleep for about 4 hours.
Tuesday, I got into work and instead of spending the first few hours doing food prep as usual, I had a bit of work to do reorganizing. Again, I'll have something real nice working in one of our coolers and it's a complete mess when I get back. Keeps me busy! I might miss working with some of these people. I really like Steve, our morning sous chef, and Adam, who was our Pantry lead, but he just took over the evening sous chef position. They're both pretty neat guys to work with. So I guess that's all for now. Next week Sarah will be preaching, her first time ever, and we're going to have a Christmas service for July 25th. Normally out here, they celebrate Christmas on August 25th, they get a huge tree for the Inn and have cookies and music, since we're all going to miss it we're doing it early! Should be fun, I'm looking forward to it.
So, good night for now. Keep praying, I'll be home soon, now less than 1 month!
Work has been pretty good still. Frank still wants me to be the storekeeper. On Friday he told me that they would do something about it on Sunday. For some reason I thought that he would have done it sooner, but I guess he's not allowed or something. Anyway, he told me today that he talked to Jen and that they'll be doing something soon... we'll see.
Something to pray about, on Saturday there was a little incident with Amber. It just happened that my roommates wanted to go to lunch at the EDR at the Inn instead of our usual Snowlodge EDR. So we headed over there and had lunch. Amber was in there and I said hi, but not much more. We were just finishing up when I noticed her and another guy a few tables over. The guy was almost yelling at Amber and wasn't too happy (fortunately there were other people with Amber). As we were leaving I felt like I should talk to her about it and make sure she was ok. She has had some trouble with this guy in the past. He's a Christian, he's showed up to a bunch of our service, but he has some kind of mental trouble, I'm not entirely sure what. We're pretty sure he's got a serious crush on Amber and she's had to tell him off a few times in the past. That day it just happened that he had told her that he bought her a present while he was in West Yellowstone. Amber figured what he was up to and told him that she didn't want it because he wasn't going to be able to buy a date so to speak. This upset him pretty good I guess, and he got angry and was saying how she isn't really a Christian because Christians don't act like that etc. then he stormed off. Amber has talked to her managers since then, and they know that he's caused problems like this in the past few months. They said that they could get him out of here on grounds of harrassment. Amber was pretty shook up, she almost started to cry when she was telling me about it, she was afraid he was going to get physical. I prayed for her there and told her that if she ever needed anything, anytime, to contact me. I feel a bit responsible for the girls on our team since I'm the only guy in the group. Anyway, she went back to work and she's still trying to avoid him as much as possible. It's a tricky situation because we know we're supposed to show love to him, but this is almost getting dangerous, and Amber isn't the only girl this has happened to. Please be praying!
Sunday, the college team had the day off, and Staci, Sarah and I have been plotting a camping trip. We got our permits and started looking at the gear we had and realized we were a bit short. So we drove to West Yellowstone and bought some stuff, just kinda the bare minimum survival gear in my opinion. We then drove out to our trailhead, on the East side of Lake Yellowstone, called 9 mile trail or something like that. It was 5 miles in to our campsite. Not a horrible hike at all, mostly flat travelling, but the mosquitos were THICK. A couple river crossings which I managed to find a way across so that I wouldn't have to change intno sandals, or... ahem... go through in my boots. I stayed dry! We got to our campsite at about 5pm, which was great because we had a bit of set up to do, I was worried that we wouldn't have enough sunlight to get it all done but we were fine for time. The site was BEAUTIFUL, and the wind coming off the lake once in a while kept the mosquitos manageable. The edge of the forest behind us and Lake Yellowstone in front. We built a fire and got that going first. I cut a couple lodgepole pine trunks and lashed together a lean-to: I hope we got a picture of it... I'm pretty proud of that one! :) As rough as this trip was, it was great being able to use skills I learned from Royal Rangers. Thanks so much to Mr. Nast and the rest for teaching us all, I loved it! So we had a good fire going, I had bought a pot to use for cooking so we had potatoes and bacon. The first real meal I've cooked in almost 2 months... it was great! After that, we had to boil water for the next day, I really miss those water filters now, but no one got sick so I guess we did ok. Sarah didn't have a sleeping bag so I gave her mine, and her and Staci shared the lean-to. I stayed by the fire and kept it going, we were a little worried about bears as we weren't exactly following the rules on food prep and all. I slept for a little bit, but for the most part just watched the fire and the stars. I enjoyed it but I missed my buddies, you guys make a trip anywhere loads of fun! We had a couple doe deer that kept wandering near our camp, they would get about 30 feet away and just kinda watch us. Around 4 pm I noticed one of them had laid down near our site. It was comforting having them around, it was like they were guarding us, in that they wouldn't have been there if a bear were around. We got up around 6 and I made breakfast. Potatoes, eggs and spamwiches hahaha. I haven't had spam in YEARS, but it wasn't half bad. We broke camp quick and hit the trail, we needed to get back ASAP because Sarah had to work at 4. Uneventful hike back, although, right by our campsite we started following bear tracks down the trail, fresh poop and what looked like what was left of a grouse. It all wasn't there the day before! We made it back to Old Faithful around 1. I showered and fell asleep for about 4 hours.
Tuesday, I got into work and instead of spending the first few hours doing food prep as usual, I had a bit of work to do reorganizing. Again, I'll have something real nice working in one of our coolers and it's a complete mess when I get back. Keeps me busy! I might miss working with some of these people. I really like Steve, our morning sous chef, and Adam, who was our Pantry lead, but he just took over the evening sous chef position. They're both pretty neat guys to work with. So I guess that's all for now. Next week Sarah will be preaching, her first time ever, and we're going to have a Christmas service for July 25th. Normally out here, they celebrate Christmas on August 25th, they get a huge tree for the Inn and have cookies and music, since we're all going to miss it we're doing it early! Should be fun, I'm looking forward to it.
So, good night for now. Keep praying, I'll be home soon, now less than 1 month!
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
July 11th...ish
So through all the hassles of having to mess with our employers over where we can and can't use internet... we now have wireless in our dorm again and it's much higher quality!
In no particular order, I guess that's how my mind works, here's what's happened in the past week.
Work as usual, although I was cooking in the mornings getting everything all set up. I love working with Steve, but I hate waking up at 6-6:30 in the morning. On the plus side, on Thursday I was able to go on a hike up Purple Mountain with Amber and a couple of her friends from Singapore I think. That was pretty cool. Sunday we were conducting the Old Faithful services so Amber preached. She did a really good job talking about "sanctuary" and how sometimes God has us step back so we can learn new things and prepare for what He has in store for us. I can't help but believe that God has me out here to learn new things and prep for the next leg of the race. One possibility that has come up in conversations and other things, particularly in the past year or so, I feel like God might be leading me into a pastoral internship. It's all still kinda up in the air and I guess I'm waiting for more confirmation, but I'm now openly considering this as a possibility after graduation. Come to think of it, that might be the most stable possibility so far. ANYWAY.
Sunday after our second service, we were going to drive out to Lake Yellowstone and rent a rowboat and just chill for the afternoon. Thanks to the lovely hills and horrible reception, our group got split up and Staci, Sarah, and I ended up driving around. Loads of fun! I want to bring back the Sunday afternoon drive tradition.
Cool story number 1. I'm in my room and my roommate Nam comes in. He was out on a trip with some people (Campus Crusaders) and one of the girls in the group told him about Jesus and gave him a Bible to read. He told me about it and said, "I think I like this stuff". I don't think he's taking it entirely seriously yet, but he started reading Genesis and he's pretty into it. I've been able to answer questions and explain things for him too so it's been pretty neat!
Cool story number 2. Before our last service, I'm sitting outside the Lodge Cafeteria eating a pretzel and this guy Marcus I met before came and sat down next to me. He's a traditionalist Catholic I think... anyway, he asks if I could pray for him and he starts telling me about how his ex-wife is in a rough situation with her current boyfriend and Marcus wants her and his son back and how he's genuinely changing who he is now for her and he's willing to do anything for her to be safe. This is with about 30 minutes until we start our last service, I really wanted to stay and hear him out more but duty called. I was able to pray for him and I'm really hoping that God will show up powerfully. It sounded like Marcus already had his wake up call and was ready to change. If you remember, please pray for him too!
Cool story number 3. After a crazy trip to Bozeman with my roommate Nam, and friends Tung and Hiep, (all Vietnamese) they invited me over for dinner. Chicken and fried ramen noodles, it was pretty dang good for not having a kitchen and equipment to work with! More of their friends showed up, I mean my friends too but yeah, we ate and chatted and hung out for a while. And somehow, perhaps Niah told them, but I guess they heard that I'm a pastor. Once again, the first question I get when I tell them that I might: "Can you get married???" followed by "Ooooooooooooooooh" when I tell them yes, yes I can get married. I love em! They make me laugh! Noon, one of the girls, showed me a Vietnamese Bible that she has. She told me that she isn't a Christian but she likes reading it because it gives her good feelings. I told her that if she ever has any questions I'd love to talk to her about it. She seemed pretty interested, and again, Niah was there as well, my old roommate, and when we were talking about the Bible he seemed VERY interested. Keep praying that God will work in their hearts more and more and draw them to the Truth!
We kept saying that it was like Christmas, everyone coming back to their room to find us there with stuff we bought for them in Bozeman. Since I'm the one driving the car they've nick named me Santa Claus :D which I can't remember what it is in Vietnamese but I love it hahaha! When they found out that I could drive some of them there next week I had 5 of them crowding around me practically begging me! I'm looking forward to it, I hope we do it, at the least it will give us time to talk and I'm sure the Bible will come up at some point.
Cool story number 4. Not really a story but, I got back from work today and found out that I have a third roommate now. His name is Andres and he's from Quito, Ecuador. Somehow he found out that I play soccer and he was already asking me if I knew where to play, he wants to start as soon as possible... no objections!!
I feel like I have more cool stories to tell, but I'm gettin pretty tired so if I remember more I'll throw them in another post!
Thanks for all your prayers and support!
(1 month!!)
In no particular order, I guess that's how my mind works, here's what's happened in the past week.
Work as usual, although I was cooking in the mornings getting everything all set up. I love working with Steve, but I hate waking up at 6-6:30 in the morning. On the plus side, on Thursday I was able to go on a hike up Purple Mountain with Amber and a couple of her friends from Singapore I think. That was pretty cool. Sunday we were conducting the Old Faithful services so Amber preached. She did a really good job talking about "sanctuary" and how sometimes God has us step back so we can learn new things and prepare for what He has in store for us. I can't help but believe that God has me out here to learn new things and prep for the next leg of the race. One possibility that has come up in conversations and other things, particularly in the past year or so, I feel like God might be leading me into a pastoral internship. It's all still kinda up in the air and I guess I'm waiting for more confirmation, but I'm now openly considering this as a possibility after graduation. Come to think of it, that might be the most stable possibility so far. ANYWAY.
Sunday after our second service, we were going to drive out to Lake Yellowstone and rent a rowboat and just chill for the afternoon. Thanks to the lovely hills and horrible reception, our group got split up and Staci, Sarah, and I ended up driving around. Loads of fun! I want to bring back the Sunday afternoon drive tradition.
Cool story number 1. I'm in my room and my roommate Nam comes in. He was out on a trip with some people (Campus Crusaders) and one of the girls in the group told him about Jesus and gave him a Bible to read. He told me about it and said, "I think I like this stuff". I don't think he's taking it entirely seriously yet, but he started reading Genesis and he's pretty into it. I've been able to answer questions and explain things for him too so it's been pretty neat!
Cool story number 2. Before our last service, I'm sitting outside the Lodge Cafeteria eating a pretzel and this guy Marcus I met before came and sat down next to me. He's a traditionalist Catholic I think... anyway, he asks if I could pray for him and he starts telling me about how his ex-wife is in a rough situation with her current boyfriend and Marcus wants her and his son back and how he's genuinely changing who he is now for her and he's willing to do anything for her to be safe. This is with about 30 minutes until we start our last service, I really wanted to stay and hear him out more but duty called. I was able to pray for him and I'm really hoping that God will show up powerfully. It sounded like Marcus already had his wake up call and was ready to change. If you remember, please pray for him too!
Cool story number 3. After a crazy trip to Bozeman with my roommate Nam, and friends Tung and Hiep, (all Vietnamese) they invited me over for dinner. Chicken and fried ramen noodles, it was pretty dang good for not having a kitchen and equipment to work with! More of their friends showed up, I mean my friends too but yeah, we ate and chatted and hung out for a while. And somehow, perhaps Niah told them, but I guess they heard that I'm a pastor. Once again, the first question I get when I tell them that I might: "Can you get married???" followed by "Ooooooooooooooooh" when I tell them yes, yes I can get married. I love em! They make me laugh! Noon, one of the girls, showed me a Vietnamese Bible that she has. She told me that she isn't a Christian but she likes reading it because it gives her good feelings. I told her that if she ever has any questions I'd love to talk to her about it. She seemed pretty interested, and again, Niah was there as well, my old roommate, and when we were talking about the Bible he seemed VERY interested. Keep praying that God will work in their hearts more and more and draw them to the Truth!
We kept saying that it was like Christmas, everyone coming back to their room to find us there with stuff we bought for them in Bozeman. Since I'm the one driving the car they've nick named me Santa Claus :D which I can't remember what it is in Vietnamese but I love it hahaha! When they found out that I could drive some of them there next week I had 5 of them crowding around me practically begging me! I'm looking forward to it, I hope we do it, at the least it will give us time to talk and I'm sure the Bible will come up at some point.
Cool story number 4. Not really a story but, I got back from work today and found out that I have a third roommate now. His name is Andres and he's from Quito, Ecuador. Somehow he found out that I play soccer and he was already asking me if I knew where to play, he wants to start as soon as possible... no objections!!
I feel like I have more cool stories to tell, but I'm gettin pretty tired so if I remember more I'll throw them in another post!
Thanks for all your prayers and support!
(1 month!!)
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
July 4th Week
Well, we are past the midsummer point. I'm having a great time but still, I can't wait to be home! Workdays have been mostly uneventful. I'm getting a bit faster and more efficient at all this cook stuff. However, I've been asked by head chef Jen if I would mind switching jobs with storekeeper Chris. I would work full time storekeeper and he would cook and relief. I haven't heard back about that, of course I agreed, but I do know that Chris is trying to transfer to a different job. Again, lots of people that I've talked with really don't want him around much longer, most likely if he doesn't get his transfer he might get the boot anyway. Just an example. Last week when I storekeeped I tried to organize our freezer a bit better. Things went pretty well, I was able to fit more boxes on the shelves and keep like items with each other, I was pretty proud of it. That next week, although saying that he really liked the organization and some of the changes made, when I got in this week it was all out of whack again. Not wiggidy whack, no not even regular type. I think we have 8 boxes of peas which we only use once in a while when we make chicken pot pie filling... which we make MAYBE twice a week. 2 boxes, what we're supposed to have is more than enough. Ok, now I'm just venting. At least he keeps me busy!
I'm starting to get more comfortable around people now too. 2 guys in particular, our Sous Chef for the mornings, Steve - he's a great guy, sarcastic quite often but you get used to it. He's been here for 7 years total. I eat lunch or dinner with him once in a while and its always worth it. The other is a front of the house guy named James. We met a while back when he noticed I was from Minnesota, he used to live in Minneapolis. He's a really nice guy, and I'm trying to fix his laptop at the moment haha. Last night we met one other guy named Charlie. He works over at the Old Faithful Inn as a line cook so I don't know if I'll see him again. Story though:
Staci and I decided that we wanted to have a campfire so I reserved a spot through the ranger station, got the permit and headed out there right after work. It was a bit of a rush trying to get the fire started and enough wood before things got dark, fire was started but I still had to scrounge in the dark for more wood (by the way, my new "chain saw" works AWESOME... just wear hand protection of some sort). So I started the fire and I'm waiting around for Staci to get off work and this guy shows up randomly. We talked for a little bit and he asks me if I'd ever hear of fire dancing. Not a clue... I thought it was a movie or something. Anyway, he asks if it'd be cool if he seasoned his new fire staves. Me not knowing any better said, "sure!". He leaves, Staci shows up, and this guy comes back with two fire staves he bought recently. He had to soak the ends in gasoline for so long then burn them for a while etc. While he burned the ends he put on a little show for us. More like he was so excited to try them out he couldn't wait, but I still got most of it all on video and let me say it was AWESOME. Firedancing, by the way, is basically twirling batons with fire on each end. He was going with both at the same time before we left. I think we're going to try and meet up again sometime, I really hope we do! That was a great treat for last night.
Hmm Sunday. Going back in time a few days.
Our services went well. We were at the Madison campground, our first service we had one family show up. It was ok though when that happens things get really informal and kinda fun. Second service we had the National Director for ACMNP Spencer Lundgaard show up with his family. We knew he was coming but it was still a treat. We all kinda knew him from our regional conferences which I think he was at all of them. I preached again, but I felt like it didn't flow as well as my previous ones. I redid my first sermon and I think that might have been the problem. Instead of completely rewriting the whole thing and using the same points, I rewrote some of it, so it was like 2 different thought processes coming together. All the same, Spencer told me afterwards, he never would have guessed I was a college student from the thoughts I shared in my sermon. That was pretty encouraging! He also remembered that I was a PK and he said that he could definitely tell I got some of that from my dad.
Monday, we had another ACMNP parkwide fun day. 31 of us hiked Avalanche Peak. About 3000 feet change in altitude in less than 3 miles. It was a beast of an uphill climb, but at the top it was amazing. And we had snow fields to slide down!!! :D (I was the only one to climb up twice)
I guess that's all for now, I'm running out of battery and I have to get to work!
I'm starting to get more comfortable around people now too. 2 guys in particular, our Sous Chef for the mornings, Steve - he's a great guy, sarcastic quite often but you get used to it. He's been here for 7 years total. I eat lunch or dinner with him once in a while and its always worth it. The other is a front of the house guy named James. We met a while back when he noticed I was from Minnesota, he used to live in Minneapolis. He's a really nice guy, and I'm trying to fix his laptop at the moment haha. Last night we met one other guy named Charlie. He works over at the Old Faithful Inn as a line cook so I don't know if I'll see him again. Story though:
Staci and I decided that we wanted to have a campfire so I reserved a spot through the ranger station, got the permit and headed out there right after work. It was a bit of a rush trying to get the fire started and enough wood before things got dark, fire was started but I still had to scrounge in the dark for more wood (by the way, my new "chain saw" works AWESOME... just wear hand protection of some sort). So I started the fire and I'm waiting around for Staci to get off work and this guy shows up randomly. We talked for a little bit and he asks me if I'd ever hear of fire dancing. Not a clue... I thought it was a movie or something. Anyway, he asks if it'd be cool if he seasoned his new fire staves. Me not knowing any better said, "sure!". He leaves, Staci shows up, and this guy comes back with two fire staves he bought recently. He had to soak the ends in gasoline for so long then burn them for a while etc. While he burned the ends he put on a little show for us. More like he was so excited to try them out he couldn't wait, but I still got most of it all on video and let me say it was AWESOME. Firedancing, by the way, is basically twirling batons with fire on each end. He was going with both at the same time before we left. I think we're going to try and meet up again sometime, I really hope we do! That was a great treat for last night.
Hmm Sunday. Going back in time a few days.
Our services went well. We were at the Madison campground, our first service we had one family show up. It was ok though when that happens things get really informal and kinda fun. Second service we had the National Director for ACMNP Spencer Lundgaard show up with his family. We knew he was coming but it was still a treat. We all kinda knew him from our regional conferences which I think he was at all of them. I preached again, but I felt like it didn't flow as well as my previous ones. I redid my first sermon and I think that might have been the problem. Instead of completely rewriting the whole thing and using the same points, I rewrote some of it, so it was like 2 different thought processes coming together. All the same, Spencer told me afterwards, he never would have guessed I was a college student from the thoughts I shared in my sermon. That was pretty encouraging! He also remembered that I was a PK and he said that he could definitely tell I got some of that from my dad.
Monday, we had another ACMNP parkwide fun day. 31 of us hiked Avalanche Peak. About 3000 feet change in altitude in less than 3 miles. It was a beast of an uphill climb, but at the top it was amazing. And we had snow fields to slide down!!! :D (I was the only one to climb up twice)
I guess that's all for now, I'm running out of battery and I have to get to work!
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
June 27th week
wow. Internet has been out in my dorm for over a week now, excuse number 1 for no new blog updates. And it's been a pretty busy week, excuse number 2. Fortunately, they recently put in some pretty fast wireless internet at the Old Faithful Snowlodge, roughly 5 minutes walk from my dorm and I usually go there to read anyway so problem mostly solved!
Hm... the past week. Well, I finally was able to work a full shift/day as a cook. I enjoy it quite a bit, especially the rush after Old Faithful goes off, I like to stay busy, and the more pressure the better!
Saturday I had off, and Dad stopped by, it was GREAT seeing him, and we watched part of the US-Ghana game online... tsk tsk. Seemed that most of his passengers were excited to see me too, I guess I'd gotten a lot of publicity in the past few days :) Thanks Dad, it was very encouraging, especially having everyone pray for me. Saturday night before we met as a group to discuss our services, I had my soccer ball with me in our Rec center. 2 guys that I guess work in my cafeteria (yup, getting possessive already) joined me for a little bit. One is from Columbia and the other is from Turkey. They told me that the park-wide 6v6 soccer tournament team for Old Faithful was full already :( heart breaker. BUT, I gave them my number and they said they would text me whenever they play over at our field. Not sure of the condition of said field but soccer is soccer right?
Sunday, I preache again. I didn't feel too nervous this time on Saturday night, but I still only got about 4 hours of sleep and I had what I would call a nightmare, even if I didn't wake up in a cold sweat. I was dreaming that it was Sunday, I was with a bunch of people that I know and I knew that I was supposed to preach but I was just talking with everyone. Finally it dawned on me that I wasn't at the right location (I'm not even sure where in my dream I was) - panic number 1. Second thing that I remember, I thought it was weird... Michael Gatlin was there and he sat down next to me and we just kinda chilled there for a bit and I think I was waiting for him to pray for me or to offer some kind of encouragement, but he just suddenly got up and left. I remember feeling really discouraged/disappointed - nothin against you Michael! Third thing I remember, I'm finally at my "location" and there are a few people that I know sitting in a half circle around me. I start preaching on something, no clue what but it wasn't what I had planned and I realize that I don't have my notes, I don't know what I'm preaching. My notes were just outside of the half circle so I explained myself and stepped out to grab them. By the time I get back someone else is talking/preaching from the half circle and I'm left standing up front waiting for them to finish. Then I woke up. It's weird for me to remember dreams, even more weird for me to remember this much detail.
Next morning I was preaching at Old Faithful. Nervous right up until I started, and God comes through again, taking over and really making the most of the scraps of paper and sermon I had thrown together the night before! Coolest story I had from it all. The scripture was from 1 Corinthians 9 about running the Christian Race (NOT the Christian WALK!!). So I got to talk about my old running days with Track. After the sermon, I had a couple an their son come up to me. We had been talking a bit before so I kinda knew them. They were very appreciative of the message I had to share because their son was in Junior high and has been in Track and cross country! I pretty much know that God had that message just for them! All 3 services went well, our third service, usually the one where most of the employees show up, we had about 4 show up. I was a little disappointed but, I'm still learning that this isn't about me at all or my performance! I'll be preaching again next week at the Madison campground on (hopefully!) what it means to be Kingdom citizens.
Sunday in between services, Staci, Sarah and I went for a drive. The Lamar Valley is on the north east side of the park and supposedly all the animals have been migrating there lately, particularly bears and wolves. So we were looking to see some bears and wolves! Traffic was pretty horrendous, although we were on the short side of a probably 3 hour long Bison jam, they were walking down the road and Rangers were trying to shoo them on. We were driving past cars for at least 10-20 minutes after seeing the Bison. We made it to Lamar Valley and saw 5 bears! I think 3 were grizzlies, sow and 2 cubs. The last 2 were black bears. One was a tiny guy just off the side of the road, I think we were pretty lucky to spot that one. Only a couple other cars were there when we got there, pretty early, for those grizzlies just driving past took about 10 minutes. It was a fun trip, we laughed a lot and my left arm got pretty well sunburned, but thankfully we made it back just in time to prep for our last service. We weren't sure if we would make it or not because of more Bison jams. A lone bull walking down the road. Monday and Tuesday I worked storekeeper again. I traded my Monday off for Saturday so that Chris would work Wednesday for our inventory day- last Wednesday of the month we take complete inventory going through all of our food items and recording, including EVERYTHING that is being prepared or has already been prepared. He'll be out maybe by 10pm tonight.
Ah, but back up a couple days. For some reason, every time I go back to store keeping we run out of foods. This isn't my fault, things should have been ordered the day before but they weren't. So I get left having to tell everyone that we're out of such and such. Someone was making a list, I think we ran out of at least 6 different items - all of which we frequently use. Butter, and BBQ pulled pork are just a couple examples. I was talking with Frank today because I wasn't sure if I was supposed to be working or not, and he was completely honest with me (as usual, probably more than necessary) in saying that he didn't give a flying *yup* if Chris never showed up again. Thank you God for helping me talk through that one! So things aren't getting any better for Chris. We've had trout going bad in our thaw box - one of our more expensive items- main reason for it is that our boxes haven't been marked and rotated out for the cooks and that's one of our main responsibilities. Once again, I don't think Chris will be around for long.
Weather has been great, lots of sun lately but mosquitoes have made a pretty big and nasty appearance. I'll have to get a bottle of spray for the services this weekend. Vince and Kristi Pinson did the services at the Madison campground this last weekend and they said they got eaten alive.
I finished reading White, time to start working on Green. And I've also got Wild at Heart and now Crazy Love on my reading list. I'm trying to not read through those last two so fast like I normally do. I think I blow through them so quickly I don't have time to think and absorb what they have to say as much as I should so I'm reading them at the same time, hopefully that will slow me down a bit.
Oh, I'm also planning on doing a Bible/book study on Wild at Heart next semester for the guys in Antioch so be praying for that.
A couple weeks ago I ran into a verse in 1 Corinthians. I was reading in the Message version and it said something along the lines of be content with where you are right now because you are exactly where God wants you to be. That REALLY hit home for me and was a huge encouragement. I still can't WAIT to be home, I really miss having friends and family around. But I still know that I'm right where God wants me right now, and I'm going to stick it out.
2 Corinthians 4:8-10 "We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body"
Hm... the past week. Well, I finally was able to work a full shift/day as a cook. I enjoy it quite a bit, especially the rush after Old Faithful goes off, I like to stay busy, and the more pressure the better!
Saturday I had off, and Dad stopped by, it was GREAT seeing him, and we watched part of the US-Ghana game online... tsk tsk. Seemed that most of his passengers were excited to see me too, I guess I'd gotten a lot of publicity in the past few days :) Thanks Dad, it was very encouraging, especially having everyone pray for me. Saturday night before we met as a group to discuss our services, I had my soccer ball with me in our Rec center. 2 guys that I guess work in my cafeteria (yup, getting possessive already) joined me for a little bit. One is from Columbia and the other is from Turkey. They told me that the park-wide 6v6 soccer tournament team for Old Faithful was full already :( heart breaker. BUT, I gave them my number and they said they would text me whenever they play over at our field. Not sure of the condition of said field but soccer is soccer right?
Sunday, I preache again. I didn't feel too nervous this time on Saturday night, but I still only got about 4 hours of sleep and I had what I would call a nightmare, even if I didn't wake up in a cold sweat. I was dreaming that it was Sunday, I was with a bunch of people that I know and I knew that I was supposed to preach but I was just talking with everyone. Finally it dawned on me that I wasn't at the right location (I'm not even sure where in my dream I was) - panic number 1. Second thing that I remember, I thought it was weird... Michael Gatlin was there and he sat down next to me and we just kinda chilled there for a bit and I think I was waiting for him to pray for me or to offer some kind of encouragement, but he just suddenly got up and left. I remember feeling really discouraged/disappointed - nothin against you Michael! Third thing I remember, I'm finally at my "location" and there are a few people that I know sitting in a half circle around me. I start preaching on something, no clue what but it wasn't what I had planned and I realize that I don't have my notes, I don't know what I'm preaching. My notes were just outside of the half circle so I explained myself and stepped out to grab them. By the time I get back someone else is talking/preaching from the half circle and I'm left standing up front waiting for them to finish. Then I woke up. It's weird for me to remember dreams, even more weird for me to remember this much detail.
Next morning I was preaching at Old Faithful. Nervous right up until I started, and God comes through again, taking over and really making the most of the scraps of paper and sermon I had thrown together the night before! Coolest story I had from it all. The scripture was from 1 Corinthians 9 about running the Christian Race (NOT the Christian WALK!!). So I got to talk about my old running days with Track. After the sermon, I had a couple an their son come up to me. We had been talking a bit before so I kinda knew them. They were very appreciative of the message I had to share because their son was in Junior high and has been in Track and cross country! I pretty much know that God had that message just for them! All 3 services went well, our third service, usually the one where most of the employees show up, we had about 4 show up. I was a little disappointed but, I'm still learning that this isn't about me at all or my performance! I'll be preaching again next week at the Madison campground on (hopefully!) what it means to be Kingdom citizens.
Sunday in between services, Staci, Sarah and I went for a drive. The Lamar Valley is on the north east side of the park and supposedly all the animals have been migrating there lately, particularly bears and wolves. So we were looking to see some bears and wolves! Traffic was pretty horrendous, although we were on the short side of a probably 3 hour long Bison jam, they were walking down the road and Rangers were trying to shoo them on. We were driving past cars for at least 10-20 minutes after seeing the Bison. We made it to Lamar Valley and saw 5 bears! I think 3 were grizzlies, sow and 2 cubs. The last 2 were black bears. One was a tiny guy just off the side of the road, I think we were pretty lucky to spot that one. Only a couple other cars were there when we got there, pretty early, for those grizzlies just driving past took about 10 minutes. It was a fun trip, we laughed a lot and my left arm got pretty well sunburned, but thankfully we made it back just in time to prep for our last service. We weren't sure if we would make it or not because of more Bison jams. A lone bull walking down the road. Monday and Tuesday I worked storekeeper again. I traded my Monday off for Saturday so that Chris would work Wednesday for our inventory day- last Wednesday of the month we take complete inventory going through all of our food items and recording, including EVERYTHING that is being prepared or has already been prepared. He'll be out maybe by 10pm tonight.
Ah, but back up a couple days. For some reason, every time I go back to store keeping we run out of foods. This isn't my fault, things should have been ordered the day before but they weren't. So I get left having to tell everyone that we're out of such and such. Someone was making a list, I think we ran out of at least 6 different items - all of which we frequently use. Butter, and BBQ pulled pork are just a couple examples. I was talking with Frank today because I wasn't sure if I was supposed to be working or not, and he was completely honest with me (as usual, probably more than necessary) in saying that he didn't give a flying *yup* if Chris never showed up again. Thank you God for helping me talk through that one! So things aren't getting any better for Chris. We've had trout going bad in our thaw box - one of our more expensive items- main reason for it is that our boxes haven't been marked and rotated out for the cooks and that's one of our main responsibilities. Once again, I don't think Chris will be around for long.
Weather has been great, lots of sun lately but mosquitoes have made a pretty big and nasty appearance. I'll have to get a bottle of spray for the services this weekend. Vince and Kristi Pinson did the services at the Madison campground this last weekend and they said they got eaten alive.
I finished reading White, time to start working on Green. And I've also got Wild at Heart and now Crazy Love on my reading list. I'm trying to not read through those last two so fast like I normally do. I think I blow through them so quickly I don't have time to think and absorb what they have to say as much as I should so I'm reading them at the same time, hopefully that will slow me down a bit.
Oh, I'm also planning on doing a Bible/book study on Wild at Heart next semester for the guys in Antioch so be praying for that.
A couple weeks ago I ran into a verse in 1 Corinthians. I was reading in the Message version and it said something along the lines of be content with where you are right now because you are exactly where God wants you to be. That REALLY hit home for me and was a huge encouragement. I still can't WAIT to be home, I really miss having friends and family around. But I still know that I'm right where God wants me right now, and I'm going to stick it out.
2 Corinthians 4:8-10 "We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body"
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
June 20th Weekend
Saturday.
Work as usual. Nothing horrible happened, it was almost weird having the truck come in at a normal time. I was able to leave about an hour early, which was nice because I was pretty exhausted from the week. Something really awesome came up Saturday night. I was in my room and Nam came back. He told me he was at another dorm and had found a Bible and started reading it. He asked if I had one that he could read because he wanted to keep reading! Needless to say I was pretty excited about that one. I pulled out my Bible and was showing it to him. Niah was in the room as well and he looked really excited and curious as well. At dinner on Sunday I asked Nam what he knew about Christianity and he told me that his mom is a Christian in that she goes to church. Otherwise, they don't read the Bible or anything so I guess he doesn't know much.
Sunday.
I didn't sleep well that night, but I woke up at 6 and decided that I wanted to try trail running. Some of you may remember a certain hill on our way to the Bighorns that a certain group of teens thought they could run to the top of... It was kinda like that. I tried running to the top of Observation point, and I was doing fine until I got to the hill part. I only had to stop 3 times going up, it was pretty killer on the legs. Otherwise, I think I'm in pretty good shape right now. Our first two services went well. This week we were at the Madison campground and we had 16 people show up for our morning service. Amber preached a great sermon on God the Father for Father's day. It was her first time speaking/preaching and she did a great job. In between services we had almost 2 hours. So we walked around the area for a little bit and chased ground squirrels into their holes. We had about 8 people for our second service.
After the services, we went back to Old Faithful and had lunch. Then I went out with Nam and Toong to West Yellowstone. I missed the turn at first so it was almost an hour longer trip than it should have been. But we still had plenty of time. We walked around for a bit and found an amazing clothing store with ridiculously low prices. I bought a jacket that I'm pretty excited about for $26. We had a pretty good time. On our way back we are told that the road to Old Faithful is loaded down with traffic because of an accident. An SUV broadsided an RV and we had seen the ambulances rush through. The front of the SUV was smashed in to the windshield, the RV had it's tires blown and right side torn up a bit, it was pretty bad. Unfortunately this was right in between Old Faithful and Madison. We got back in time for me to eat dinner and run back to my room and get ready for our last service. I picked up Staci and Sarah, Amber was going to meet us at Madison. And there was the crash still. Rangers were alternating traffic through a pulloff, but the line from Old Faithful was at least a mile long, probably more. It was actually a lot of fun waiting to get through, we laughed a lot. But we got to the campground at 7:30, service started at 7. So that one didn't go through unfortunately, we all felt really bad that Amber was the only one there, we couldn't call her because of cell phone reception. We pretty much got to the campground, turned around and headed back. Of course, the crash was clear now and we got back in good time. We got to attend the service put on by Rod and Linda. Rod has some pretty good messages. He preached about the "lunatic" who was the first called missionary - the story of the possessed man and the herd of pigs. Not who you would expect at all. It was a very good sermon. After that we met as a group for our debriefing. I'll be preaching next week and I think I'm actually looking forward to this one. I think I already know what I'm going to preach about.
Monday.
I've been looking forward to this day for a while now. Whitewater rafting!! Amber, Staci and I met at 9 and drove down to Grant village, less than 20 miles south of Old Faithful, I think. There we met up with the rest of the ACMNP group that we were going with. We hopped in the van and drove down through the Tetons... that place still gets my heart racing every time I see it. We got to Jackson Hole and paid for our trip. Got into our wetsuits (AWESOME) and loaded onto their shuttle bus. About 30 minutes later we got to our rafting area on the Snake river. I had been told they were class 4-5 rapids, but I think our guide said more like 2-4. The water was freezing but we had sunshine the whole time. Our rafting guide, Ben, was amazing. A really really funny guy with a lot of stories to tell. The Snake river had been at it's highest this year since 1997 and it was still pretty high, which I think lessened the rapids a little. But we still got plenty wet. No one fell over, several of us jumped in though. I paddled for about half and sat in the front for a little while - the major splash zone. I definitely would go again if I got the chance! That lasted about 2 hours. We were picked up by the shuttle at the end and drove back to Jackson Hole. We went to a Mexican restaurant called The Merry Piglets. I thought the name sounded more like a bar than a Mexican restaurant... The food was pretty good. We loaded up the cars/vans and headed back. We got back to Old Faithful about 9pm, and I was surprised how tired I was. I think I was asleep by midnight. It was a great weekend, and now I get to go back to work!
Work as usual. Nothing horrible happened, it was almost weird having the truck come in at a normal time. I was able to leave about an hour early, which was nice because I was pretty exhausted from the week. Something really awesome came up Saturday night. I was in my room and Nam came back. He told me he was at another dorm and had found a Bible and started reading it. He asked if I had one that he could read because he wanted to keep reading! Needless to say I was pretty excited about that one. I pulled out my Bible and was showing it to him. Niah was in the room as well and he looked really excited and curious as well. At dinner on Sunday I asked Nam what he knew about Christianity and he told me that his mom is a Christian in that she goes to church. Otherwise, they don't read the Bible or anything so I guess he doesn't know much.
Sunday.
I didn't sleep well that night, but I woke up at 6 and decided that I wanted to try trail running. Some of you may remember a certain hill on our way to the Bighorns that a certain group of teens thought they could run to the top of... It was kinda like that. I tried running to the top of Observation point, and I was doing fine until I got to the hill part. I only had to stop 3 times going up, it was pretty killer on the legs. Otherwise, I think I'm in pretty good shape right now. Our first two services went well. This week we were at the Madison campground and we had 16 people show up for our morning service. Amber preached a great sermon on God the Father for Father's day. It was her first time speaking/preaching and she did a great job. In between services we had almost 2 hours. So we walked around the area for a little bit and chased ground squirrels into their holes. We had about 8 people for our second service.
After the services, we went back to Old Faithful and had lunch. Then I went out with Nam and Toong to West Yellowstone. I missed the turn at first so it was almost an hour longer trip than it should have been. But we still had plenty of time. We walked around for a bit and found an amazing clothing store with ridiculously low prices. I bought a jacket that I'm pretty excited about for $26. We had a pretty good time. On our way back we are told that the road to Old Faithful is loaded down with traffic because of an accident. An SUV broadsided an RV and we had seen the ambulances rush through. The front of the SUV was smashed in to the windshield, the RV had it's tires blown and right side torn up a bit, it was pretty bad. Unfortunately this was right in between Old Faithful and Madison. We got back in time for me to eat dinner and run back to my room and get ready for our last service. I picked up Staci and Sarah, Amber was going to meet us at Madison. And there was the crash still. Rangers were alternating traffic through a pulloff, but the line from Old Faithful was at least a mile long, probably more. It was actually a lot of fun waiting to get through, we laughed a lot. But we got to the campground at 7:30, service started at 7. So that one didn't go through unfortunately, we all felt really bad that Amber was the only one there, we couldn't call her because of cell phone reception. We pretty much got to the campground, turned around and headed back. Of course, the crash was clear now and we got back in good time. We got to attend the service put on by Rod and Linda. Rod has some pretty good messages. He preached about the "lunatic" who was the first called missionary - the story of the possessed man and the herd of pigs. Not who you would expect at all. It was a very good sermon. After that we met as a group for our debriefing. I'll be preaching next week and I think I'm actually looking forward to this one. I think I already know what I'm going to preach about.
Monday.
I've been looking forward to this day for a while now. Whitewater rafting!! Amber, Staci and I met at 9 and drove down to Grant village, less than 20 miles south of Old Faithful, I think. There we met up with the rest of the ACMNP group that we were going with. We hopped in the van and drove down through the Tetons... that place still gets my heart racing every time I see it. We got to Jackson Hole and paid for our trip. Got into our wetsuits (AWESOME) and loaded onto their shuttle bus. About 30 minutes later we got to our rafting area on the Snake river. I had been told they were class 4-5 rapids, but I think our guide said more like 2-4. The water was freezing but we had sunshine the whole time. Our rafting guide, Ben, was amazing. A really really funny guy with a lot of stories to tell. The Snake river had been at it's highest this year since 1997 and it was still pretty high, which I think lessened the rapids a little. But we still got plenty wet. No one fell over, several of us jumped in though. I paddled for about half and sat in the front for a little while - the major splash zone. I definitely would go again if I got the chance! That lasted about 2 hours. We were picked up by the shuttle at the end and drove back to Jackson Hole. We went to a Mexican restaurant called The Merry Piglets. I thought the name sounded more like a bar than a Mexican restaurant... The food was pretty good. We loaded up the cars/vans and headed back. We got back to Old Faithful about 9pm, and I was surprised how tired I was. I think I was asleep by midnight. It was a great weekend, and now I get to go back to work!
Friday, June 18, 2010
Friday June 18
A few interesting days.
Thursday I went into work at 7am, the cafeteria opens at 11. I kinda had a bad feeling about this one... I wasn't sure if Chris was still sick or not. He showed up for work but was sent home by Frank. Still sick. So, I got to stick around and be the storekeeper again. I had a little bit to do, not much though and much of my time revolves around when our supply truck shows up. Jokingly, Jen stopped me and asked if I did my order correctly and if we were going to see the supply truck soon or not. She was just giving me a hard time, and we both laughed. A couple hours later she finds out that we were NOT getting our supply truck. She was very clear that it wasn't my fault... Thank God! But I know that's my responsibility and I still feel like it's my fault, kinda stresses me out. What had happened is our issuing warehouse changed their computer system or something so they lost EVERYEONE's order lists. They made phone calls at 8AM and we never got the message. Anyway, I got out of there about 6:30, a nine hour day I was pretty tired. I finished off the day eating a burger and fries from the Geyser Grill, (I wanted a decent meal for a change) and reading. I finished the second book of the Circle Cycle, Red? or is it White? All I remember is coming to the title page and wondering how you could end a book like that. I always remember Brett telling me how he finished Black(or was it Red?...) and throwing the book across the room because of the cliffhanger ending and he didn't have the next book yet :) I had a good talk with Niah later too. One question he asked me was if I wanted to be a pastor. I told him I don't know yet, but it was possible. He told me that Buddhism and Christianity are the 2 major religions in Vietnam. I asked him what he believed and he told me he's a businessman haha.
Friday, I went into work at 11- once again as a cook. I've got my order in now for my new uniform, 2 actually. A full cooks uniform and the storekeeper uniform. Again, Chris is still sick, and since we missed our order yesterday, we had a LOT of food coming in today. I had cooks and front runners coming to me asking if we had any of this or that... all out, I told them it'll be in with the truck. 4pm rolls around and still no truck. We tried calling the warehouse and didn't get an answer. Jen was getting a little frustrated... she walked me out to her car, handed me her keys and told me how to get to the warehouse, and to ask if our order was ever going to get here. It's just on the other side of Old Faithful, fairly easy for me to find. They said that they were going to get to it, but I guess on Friday's they normally run late. The truck finally came in at 6:30, I already went through and estimated our order for tomorrow. After seeing the food that we got today, I think I did alright. Somehow, our moving dolly disappeared, and we didn't have enough room in the freezers for the warehouse guys to move it all in there so they piled a lot of it in the hall. My arms are going to be pretty dead tomorrow, but at least I already know that I'm working storekeeper tomorrow. I had another cook tell me today that I'll probably be taking Chris' job soon.
Our "college" ministry group met tonight to work on our service for Sunday. We're doing the service at the Madison campground this time, and Amber is giving the sermon. Afterwards we went to the pub and got 2 large pizzas. We had a great time just getting caught up with each other, I really wish we would do that more often.
Also just got back from a midnight hike. There is a short trail, less than half a mile up a hill overlooking the geyser basin called Observation Point. We went up there and watched the sky for about 2 hours. It was all really really bright, we could see the Milky Way and satelites and several shooting stars. The other guy who went with us (Staci, Sarah, and myself), was a real interesting character. He's the type who has experienced everything, and his main passion in life is cooking. I liked him quite a bit, he was great to listen to. Many stories to tell. However, it was slightly frustrating, more sad hearing about his views on Christianity. He had a lot of it right, I could definitely stand by him on many issues and beliefs, but he still misses the main focus. For all of his knowledge it seems that he lacked understanding. His overall view of Christianity and God was right, but I felt like he misunderstood the main focus: God.
I'm going to bed now, I think I really need some sleep!
Thursday I went into work at 7am, the cafeteria opens at 11. I kinda had a bad feeling about this one... I wasn't sure if Chris was still sick or not. He showed up for work but was sent home by Frank. Still sick. So, I got to stick around and be the storekeeper again. I had a little bit to do, not much though and much of my time revolves around when our supply truck shows up. Jokingly, Jen stopped me and asked if I did my order correctly and if we were going to see the supply truck soon or not. She was just giving me a hard time, and we both laughed. A couple hours later she finds out that we were NOT getting our supply truck. She was very clear that it wasn't my fault... Thank God! But I know that's my responsibility and I still feel like it's my fault, kinda stresses me out. What had happened is our issuing warehouse changed their computer system or something so they lost EVERYEONE's order lists. They made phone calls at 8AM and we never got the message. Anyway, I got out of there about 6:30, a nine hour day I was pretty tired. I finished off the day eating a burger and fries from the Geyser Grill, (I wanted a decent meal for a change) and reading. I finished the second book of the Circle Cycle, Red? or is it White? All I remember is coming to the title page and wondering how you could end a book like that. I always remember Brett telling me how he finished Black(or was it Red?...) and throwing the book across the room because of the cliffhanger ending and he didn't have the next book yet :) I had a good talk with Niah later too. One question he asked me was if I wanted to be a pastor. I told him I don't know yet, but it was possible. He told me that Buddhism and Christianity are the 2 major religions in Vietnam. I asked him what he believed and he told me he's a businessman haha.
Friday, I went into work at 11- once again as a cook. I've got my order in now for my new uniform, 2 actually. A full cooks uniform and the storekeeper uniform. Again, Chris is still sick, and since we missed our order yesterday, we had a LOT of food coming in today. I had cooks and front runners coming to me asking if we had any of this or that... all out, I told them it'll be in with the truck. 4pm rolls around and still no truck. We tried calling the warehouse and didn't get an answer. Jen was getting a little frustrated... she walked me out to her car, handed me her keys and told me how to get to the warehouse, and to ask if our order was ever going to get here. It's just on the other side of Old Faithful, fairly easy for me to find. They said that they were going to get to it, but I guess on Friday's they normally run late. The truck finally came in at 6:30, I already went through and estimated our order for tomorrow. After seeing the food that we got today, I think I did alright. Somehow, our moving dolly disappeared, and we didn't have enough room in the freezers for the warehouse guys to move it all in there so they piled a lot of it in the hall. My arms are going to be pretty dead tomorrow, but at least I already know that I'm working storekeeper tomorrow. I had another cook tell me today that I'll probably be taking Chris' job soon.
Our "college" ministry group met tonight to work on our service for Sunday. We're doing the service at the Madison campground this time, and Amber is giving the sermon. Afterwards we went to the pub and got 2 large pizzas. We had a great time just getting caught up with each other, I really wish we would do that more often.
Also just got back from a midnight hike. There is a short trail, less than half a mile up a hill overlooking the geyser basin called Observation Point. We went up there and watched the sky for about 2 hours. It was all really really bright, we could see the Milky Way and satelites and several shooting stars. The other guy who went with us (Staci, Sarah, and myself), was a real interesting character. He's the type who has experienced everything, and his main passion in life is cooking. I liked him quite a bit, he was great to listen to. Many stories to tell. However, it was slightly frustrating, more sad hearing about his views on Christianity. He had a lot of it right, I could definitely stand by him on many issues and beliefs, but he still misses the main focus. For all of his knowledge it seems that he lacked understanding. His overall view of Christianity and God was right, but I felt like he misunderstood the main focus: God.
I'm going to bed now, I think I really need some sleep!
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Wednesday June 16th
A few days to cover now.
Sunday. It was the "college" group day off for doing weekend services, so three of us, Staci, Sarah and myself drove up to Bozeman for the day. It was a blast. A very long drive, but this time it was much better actually having people with me to talk with. We met with Sarah's Aunt and Uncle for lunch at a Mexican restaurant. Pretty good food, highlight was catching a glimpse of the Germany-Australia game. Unfortunately, that's gotten me more desperate than ever to see a game. Fortunately, looking ahead, the final is on a Sunday and I've already cleared it with Linda, you can bet that I won't miss a minute of that one! After the restaurant, we went to Target to pick up "supplies". More like junk food, but hey! I also bought a fan. Very helpful to fall asleep to since our walls and floors are paper thin and people like walking around and slamming doors at 3am. That's been a life saver! We also went to REI... drool. Unfortunately, it wasn't a whole store, more like an outlet but still amazing! I only spent $60... One purchase was a pair of belaying gloves for work. I wasn't entirely sure if they'd help with the cold or if I'd have a good enough grip on boxes... but a few days in and it was definitely the right choice. We also went to the World Market and looked around for a while since we had time. After that we headed back and drove into West Yellowstone... which is kinda misleading, it should be West "of" Yellowstone as it isn't in Yellowstone but just outside. A tourist trap of a town for sure, to which I'll be going back to this Sunday with Nam and Toong.
Monday.
Staci and I hiked to Fairy Falls and Imperial geyser. We started early, about 9am (for some reason I've been waking up earlier on my days off than when I work... strange) and things were pretty foggy. A couple hours later though and we had beautiful weather, white puffy clouds and blue sky, really couldn't have asked for better. I got a lot of really good pictures, hopefully I'll be able to throw some online sometime. We had a packed lunch so we took our time. It was great being outdoors again, and the scenery was most excellent! After that, I passed the rest of the day reading. I'm almost done with Red...
Tuesday.
Back to work, and things did not seem like they were going too well. I've been hearing more and more complaints about Chris, the storekeeper... which is good and bad. Bad for him, but good for me, it's looking better and better that I'll have his job soon. I feel bad, but honestly, he's bringing it on himself. I had a lot of stuff to put away and we were missing a lot of other items. Stuff just didn't get ordered or we went through them faster than expected. As a restaurant of course it's the end of the world if you run out of food! For me, this keeps thing interesting and there is a definite adrenaline rush while I'm at work at those times. Of course, it would be much much MUCH worse if Frank were yelling at me instead of complaining about Chris, but I stay busy and just follow instructions.
One quick anecdote, we had run out of Romaine lettuce heads, and our Pantry Chef Lead, Adam was kinda tied down without it. (I work fairly close with Adam, since he's Pantry Lead I ask him about pars and if he needs any items, staying informed, he's a really nice guy and I've got more to tell about him...) He asked if I could make some phone calls, either to a warehouse or otherwise to see what we could get. Well... I hate phones, so I was dreading this one. I couldn't get through to our main warehouse where all of our food comes from, but I was able to connect to another of our restaurants here, the one in the Snowlodge. A quick trip over and we had half a box of Romaine lettuce, enough to get us through the day at least. I keep learning more and more of what I'm capable of doing with my job :)
Wednesday.
Today was possibly just as hectic, although this time we weren't running out of stuff. I know that things were bad today because I was in our freezer putting stuff away and head chef Jen walks in. She had tears in her eyes and was just about to breakdown it seemed. Lots of things hadn't been done and she was under quite a bit of stress. I think there was more to it, but that's all I got from it. Anyway, she was on edge, Adam seemed a little jumpy, and Frank... well, he was just Frank.
Here's what made today really great. Twice I was talking with Adam, mostly about stuff that needed ordering. In our first conversation he told me that I've been doing a great job and that a lot of people have noticed, if they hadn't said anything. The second conversation he finished by saying something along the lines of, "it's a good thing we have you to rely on." Those compliments alone would have gotten me through the week. A little while later I was talking with Jen and she brought up a "disaster in the Thaw Box". The Thaw Box is mostly my responsibility, I have to unpack raw meats so that they can thaw for the cooks, shuffle them around so that the latest date is used first, keep it clean and a few other things. So when she mentioned that, I basically asked what I did wrong. On Monday, Jen had come in and the meat racks in the Thaw Box were empty. Meat unpacked in the Thaw Box usually takes about 3 days to completely thaw out. We can water thaw meat, but that's a hassle and it wastes a lot of water and time. So on Monday there were a lot of people mad at Chris. Jen finished by telling me that I've been doing an awesome job... Any wonder why I love my job? :)
I have a few things left to learn, ordering bread, and ordering kitchen supplies: latex gloves, cups, knives etc. But otherwise, I've got this job down.
So many times today I found myself thanking God for all that He's blessed me with. Tomorrow I'll be working the early shift as a cook, 7am. I'm not entirely sure what I'll be doing since I haven't been trained in much, but I'm sure they'll find something to keep me busy.
Bed time! Thank you again for all your prayers, no doubt it's working :)
Sunday. It was the "college" group day off for doing weekend services, so three of us, Staci, Sarah and myself drove up to Bozeman for the day. It was a blast. A very long drive, but this time it was much better actually having people with me to talk with. We met with Sarah's Aunt and Uncle for lunch at a Mexican restaurant. Pretty good food, highlight was catching a glimpse of the Germany-Australia game. Unfortunately, that's gotten me more desperate than ever to see a game. Fortunately, looking ahead, the final is on a Sunday and I've already cleared it with Linda, you can bet that I won't miss a minute of that one! After the restaurant, we went to Target to pick up "supplies". More like junk food, but hey! I also bought a fan. Very helpful to fall asleep to since our walls and floors are paper thin and people like walking around and slamming doors at 3am. That's been a life saver! We also went to REI... drool. Unfortunately, it wasn't a whole store, more like an outlet but still amazing! I only spent $60... One purchase was a pair of belaying gloves for work. I wasn't entirely sure if they'd help with the cold or if I'd have a good enough grip on boxes... but a few days in and it was definitely the right choice. We also went to the World Market and looked around for a while since we had time. After that we headed back and drove into West Yellowstone... which is kinda misleading, it should be West "of" Yellowstone as it isn't in Yellowstone but just outside. A tourist trap of a town for sure, to which I'll be going back to this Sunday with Nam and Toong.
Monday.
Staci and I hiked to Fairy Falls and Imperial geyser. We started early, about 9am (for some reason I've been waking up earlier on my days off than when I work... strange) and things were pretty foggy. A couple hours later though and we had beautiful weather, white puffy clouds and blue sky, really couldn't have asked for better. I got a lot of really good pictures, hopefully I'll be able to throw some online sometime. We had a packed lunch so we took our time. It was great being outdoors again, and the scenery was most excellent! After that, I passed the rest of the day reading. I'm almost done with Red...
Tuesday.
Back to work, and things did not seem like they were going too well. I've been hearing more and more complaints about Chris, the storekeeper... which is good and bad. Bad for him, but good for me, it's looking better and better that I'll have his job soon. I feel bad, but honestly, he's bringing it on himself. I had a lot of stuff to put away and we were missing a lot of other items. Stuff just didn't get ordered or we went through them faster than expected. As a restaurant of course it's the end of the world if you run out of food! For me, this keeps thing interesting and there is a definite adrenaline rush while I'm at work at those times. Of course, it would be much much MUCH worse if Frank were yelling at me instead of complaining about Chris, but I stay busy and just follow instructions.
One quick anecdote, we had run out of Romaine lettuce heads, and our Pantry Chef Lead, Adam was kinda tied down without it. (I work fairly close with Adam, since he's Pantry Lead I ask him about pars and if he needs any items, staying informed, he's a really nice guy and I've got more to tell about him...) He asked if I could make some phone calls, either to a warehouse or otherwise to see what we could get. Well... I hate phones, so I was dreading this one. I couldn't get through to our main warehouse where all of our food comes from, but I was able to connect to another of our restaurants here, the one in the Snowlodge. A quick trip over and we had half a box of Romaine lettuce, enough to get us through the day at least. I keep learning more and more of what I'm capable of doing with my job :)
Wednesday.
Today was possibly just as hectic, although this time we weren't running out of stuff. I know that things were bad today because I was in our freezer putting stuff away and head chef Jen walks in. She had tears in her eyes and was just about to breakdown it seemed. Lots of things hadn't been done and she was under quite a bit of stress. I think there was more to it, but that's all I got from it. Anyway, she was on edge, Adam seemed a little jumpy, and Frank... well, he was just Frank.
Here's what made today really great. Twice I was talking with Adam, mostly about stuff that needed ordering. In our first conversation he told me that I've been doing a great job and that a lot of people have noticed, if they hadn't said anything. The second conversation he finished by saying something along the lines of, "it's a good thing we have you to rely on." Those compliments alone would have gotten me through the week. A little while later I was talking with Jen and she brought up a "disaster in the Thaw Box". The Thaw Box is mostly my responsibility, I have to unpack raw meats so that they can thaw for the cooks, shuffle them around so that the latest date is used first, keep it clean and a few other things. So when she mentioned that, I basically asked what I did wrong. On Monday, Jen had come in and the meat racks in the Thaw Box were empty. Meat unpacked in the Thaw Box usually takes about 3 days to completely thaw out. We can water thaw meat, but that's a hassle and it wastes a lot of water and time. So on Monday there were a lot of people mad at Chris. Jen finished by telling me that I've been doing an awesome job... Any wonder why I love my job? :)
I have a few things left to learn, ordering bread, and ordering kitchen supplies: latex gloves, cups, knives etc. But otherwise, I've got this job down.
So many times today I found myself thanking God for all that He's blessed me with. Tomorrow I'll be working the early shift as a cook, 7am. I'm not entirely sure what I'll be doing since I haven't been trained in much, but I'm sure they'll find something to keep me busy.
Bed time! Thank you again for all your prayers, no doubt it's working :)
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Saturday June 12
Not a whole lot to put into this one I guess. I went into work at 11 again today, I was supposed to work as a cook. I did a little more prep work, and I was just about to get to use the grill and cook some chicken when we got the call from Chris, he was still sick. Kinda a bummer, but I still love that job! It was still a long day though, I worked about 2 hours longer than I normally do. Which is a good thing I suppose, more money that way, and being clocked in as the storekeeper I get paid more.
There were a few cool things that happened today. First off, I was at dinner and this guy named Marcus sits down with me. He prayed before he ate and "crossed" himself. After sitting in silence for a bit eating I had to start a conversation... so I asked him if he was Catholic. He is a traditionalist Catholic, he went on about the differences between Roman and Orthodox Catholics and we had a good talk about Christianity. He probably won't be at our services, I guess he's a very strict Catholic, but I hope to see him around and talk with him some more. He wasn't very shy about bashing Protestants, and he seems to be very set in his beliefs. All the same, I'd like to learn more about him and what he believes, even though I know I bet we'll agree on a majority of things.
Second thing. At work today, I had at 2 people come up to me and basically complain to me. Not about me, but just venting their frustrations I guess. After it happened the second time I thought about it, still thinking about it, it's kinda strange. One guy I barely know... I can't even remember his name. But the other is a cook named Eric. A pretty cool guy for the most part. Definitely not Christian, but he likes me for some reason, and I know that we'll get a long great as the summer continues. I'm already starting to feel much more comfortable at work. I love the people I work with, and there is definitely a different atmosphere in the place on Fridays and Saturdays when Frank isn't around. It's unfortunate, but that's just the way he is I guess.
A couple things that were SUPPOSED to happen today, first as a cook I was supposed to go through knife and sharps training... yeah I know, teaching ME about knives? But apparently I'm not allowed to use any knives until then... never mind all the chicken trimming I've done the past couple days. Second thing, the head store house manager guy for all of Yellowstone was supposed to be in today to train Chris and I was going to get in on that. But I guess he heard that Chris was sick or something so he never showed. Ooh which reminds me. I think I said earlier that Chris is kinda looking for a different job, which would put me as full time Store Manager. Also last week, Frank was talking with me and like usual he kinda blabs on. If he makes a point, he takes the longest conversational route to get there. He's kinda a confusing guy to follow (side note: he reminds me of that Seinfeld episode where George gets the job because the Boss likes how he understands him or whatever, and George has to guess what the Boss meant because he left mid-sentence, so he's not sure if he has the job or not and just shows up anyway and doesn't do any work because he has no clue what he's supposed to do... yeah, its kinda like that, hopefully someone else remembers that episode!).
ANYWAY: Frank was telling me how he likes that I don't procrastinate (I had to stifle a laugh... but it's true I don't procrastinate when someone tells me what to do) like Chris, and that if he keeps it up he might be outta there. I really think Frank expects me to replace Chris soon. And if I have that job all summer long, by August I'm going to be RIPPED. Moving 30-50 pound boxes around all day long hahaha, I love it! Chris told me that he's lost about 15-20 pounds already, Eric was telling me that he's lost about 15 pounds already too... I'm going to GAIN weight! Did I mention I really like my job? :)
I had a good little chat with Nyah today, we talked about video games. (Seriously, God hooked me up with the perfect roommates!) I still want to be home, I can't wait for the end of the summer, but I'm at peace with where I'm at right now. It's a good feeling.
Thank you all for your prayers and support! I love and miss you all!
There were a few cool things that happened today. First off, I was at dinner and this guy named Marcus sits down with me. He prayed before he ate and "crossed" himself. After sitting in silence for a bit eating I had to start a conversation... so I asked him if he was Catholic. He is a traditionalist Catholic, he went on about the differences between Roman and Orthodox Catholics and we had a good talk about Christianity. He probably won't be at our services, I guess he's a very strict Catholic, but I hope to see him around and talk with him some more. He wasn't very shy about bashing Protestants, and he seems to be very set in his beliefs. All the same, I'd like to learn more about him and what he believes, even though I know I bet we'll agree on a majority of things.
Second thing. At work today, I had at 2 people come up to me and basically complain to me. Not about me, but just venting their frustrations I guess. After it happened the second time I thought about it, still thinking about it, it's kinda strange. One guy I barely know... I can't even remember his name. But the other is a cook named Eric. A pretty cool guy for the most part. Definitely not Christian, but he likes me for some reason, and I know that we'll get a long great as the summer continues. I'm already starting to feel much more comfortable at work. I love the people I work with, and there is definitely a different atmosphere in the place on Fridays and Saturdays when Frank isn't around. It's unfortunate, but that's just the way he is I guess.
A couple things that were SUPPOSED to happen today, first as a cook I was supposed to go through knife and sharps training... yeah I know, teaching ME about knives? But apparently I'm not allowed to use any knives until then... never mind all the chicken trimming I've done the past couple days. Second thing, the head store house manager guy for all of Yellowstone was supposed to be in today to train Chris and I was going to get in on that. But I guess he heard that Chris was sick or something so he never showed. Ooh which reminds me. I think I said earlier that Chris is kinda looking for a different job, which would put me as full time Store Manager. Also last week, Frank was talking with me and like usual he kinda blabs on. If he makes a point, he takes the longest conversational route to get there. He's kinda a confusing guy to follow (side note: he reminds me of that Seinfeld episode where George gets the job because the Boss likes how he understands him or whatever, and George has to guess what the Boss meant because he left mid-sentence, so he's not sure if he has the job or not and just shows up anyway and doesn't do any work because he has no clue what he's supposed to do... yeah, its kinda like that, hopefully someone else remembers that episode!).
ANYWAY: Frank was telling me how he likes that I don't procrastinate (I had to stifle a laugh... but it's true I don't procrastinate when someone tells me what to do) like Chris, and that if he keeps it up he might be outta there. I really think Frank expects me to replace Chris soon. And if I have that job all summer long, by August I'm going to be RIPPED. Moving 30-50 pound boxes around all day long hahaha, I love it! Chris told me that he's lost about 15-20 pounds already, Eric was telling me that he's lost about 15 pounds already too... I'm going to GAIN weight! Did I mention I really like my job? :)
I had a good little chat with Nyah today, we talked about video games. (Seriously, God hooked me up with the perfect roommates!) I still want to be home, I can't wait for the end of the summer, but I'm at peace with where I'm at right now. It's a good feeling.
Thank you all for your prayers and support! I love and miss you all!
Friday, June 11, 2010
Up to Date
Sorry I realize that these blogs are extremely poorly designed and not very interesting to look at. I'd add pictures and do more but with the way our internet is here and having to share it with a whole dorm... I'm just making excuses.
I left a few things out from Sunday. One cool thing that happened at our second service, well, a couple things I suppose. First, I was just about ready to cancel it, we were coming up on 11:30 and no one had shown up yet. 5 minutes before, two people showed up. As we started our service, several others filed in and we were able to have a decent audience of 14 people. One of those people was a guy named Anthony that I met at work the week before. He is a quieter guy, I guess due to that I don't know much more than that. But he came up to me after the service and told me that he had been praying that he could find some more Christians in the area and that night he noticed our poster for our services. It was really encouraging to know that he is a Christian, he's working in the Pantry now so I still see him around. One of these days I hope we can sit and have a good talk, we'll see where God leads.
Monday. My second day off, and really I couldn't wait to get back to work so that I could start sleeping in again! We (Amber, Staci, Sarah, Amber's friend Heather, and I) piled into Amber's truck and drove up to Mammoth Springs to go hiking for the day. It was a long drive and the weather was rainy/drippy so we weren't too enthusiastic. Thank God, when we finally got to Mammoth and started hiking the weather cleared up and we had some pretty good hiking weather! I brought my big backpack, probably shouldn't have, but the exercise was appreciated. We hiked a loop first, about 5 miles. It reminded me a LOT of our backpacking trips, mainly because I started to get hungry about halfway through and by the end I was sore, tired, and I couldn't WAIT to get some food. We then went to Bill and Debbie Young's house where we met up with more ACMNP students who had done similar hiking. After eating most of us went off to hike Bunsen peak. About 4 miles round trip, but this one is pretty much switchbacks all the way up. As we got to the top some nasty storm clouds rolled in, and after sliding down a few snow fields (heck yes) we hiked the rest of the way through the rain back to the cars. So, we (Amber, Heather, and myself-Staci and Sarah skipped this second hike) are now in Amber's truck. A big, red Ford truck, and for the past week at least there had been lots of laughter about how tiny Amber drove such a big truck. Well, about 100 feet from the Young's house, this lady backs up her new Subaru and hits us as we rolled past. Surprisingly, the Subaru was fine, just some bumper damage, and I think the tailight was damaged. (Oh yeah, no one was hurt) The truck's back right wheel well was dented in pretty good and if we had hit even a slight bump or probably less, it probably would have shredded the tire. So, we got "stranded" at the Youngs for the night. They ordered pizza and we watched UP- such a good movie, I'm so glad I finally got to watch it!. The next morning, David, a friend of the Youngs, drove us back to Old Faithful as some of us had to work. Yup, we had to get up around 7:30 so I still didn't get a chance to sleep in.
Tuesday, I have to think now. Oh yes! This was my first day working Storekeep all by myself. Chris has Tuesdays and Wednesdays off so I work storekeep then. All went well for the most part... I'll get to that. I love that job though. I realized one day while working that one reason I love it so much is that it is at times like a big game of Rush Hour. The game where you have to move the trucks and cars to get the red car out... I love that game. I get to do roughly the same thing except with boxes of food. I get to stuff them onto shelves and hope that people can get to them when they need them, in addition to labelling and rotating so that we can keep "fresh" food coming out. So yeah, I was able check off our order that came in, making sure that we got everything. Then I put it all away, then walked around with my clipboard and made the next shopping list. I thought all went just fine... it sure seemed like it.
Wednesday: I get to work, again all by myself. I didn't really have much to do, waiting for the supply truck to show up. Frank gave me a few things, and I reorganized a bunch of shelves. When I get back from my dinner break, Jenn our head chef, finds me and tells me that my order didn't go through... there would be no truck. The warehouse manager had aparently tried calling her asking her what was up, we order SOMETHING everyday from them so they kinda figured but didn't get any further than that. I had sent the order to the wrong location, wrong numbers into the computer. Thankfully, it was during a lull, not a whole lot of food was needed and we were able to get by with what we had. So, added more items to the list and sent it properly.
Thursday. My first day starting my THIRD position here. I'm now also a cook. My training so far has consisted of following people around and doing whatever they tell me. I trimmed fat off of about 30 pounds of chicken breasts. One guy walking past, I'm assuming, jokingly asked if I was having fun yet. I thought about it... yeah actually, I am! Spending 2 hours with a large super sharp knife cutting stuff up, why wouldn't I enjoy it??? I think I might enjoy the storekeep job more, but switching between the two is going to be great. So Thursday, I did a little food prep, nothing huge. Between trimming chicken and putting frozen lasagnas and pizzas onto trays, they pulled me out and had me help poor Chris with putting away a huge order(ooops). Again, nothin that I didn't enjoy.
Friday. For some reason, I thought today was Saturday. Again, I was working the cooks position. A few new things added to my cooking experience, someone finally showed me how the steamers work so I'm capable of "cooking" things now. In addition, they gave me a meat thermometer. Everything we cook is considered ready when it hits about 160-165 degrees Farenheit. I shadow another cook and in the process they realize that I haven't taken knife and sharps safety training yet... ooops. So they wouldn't let me trim more chicken :(
Instead, when I got back from dinner they told me that Chris called in sick. So I got to clock in as storekeeper and did my job entirely correct this time. Jenn kept thanking me and asking if I was frustrated with the job yet or if I wanted to go home and I could honestly tell her no. I got off of work around 6 and enjoyed the rest of my evening. I went to the General Store and talked with Vince and Kristi for a bit. I really like them both, they're very cool people. After that, I called Koobmong and talked to him for about an hour... yep, I did it. It was good to catch up, it was well worth it :)
Tomorrow, I don't know if Chris will be back or not... I secretly hope not, but on the "down-side" I get to cook! I'm still waiting on my new uniforms, I don't know where or when I'll get them. I feel like I could almost run a restaurant now with all the positions I've held so far hahaha. Gonna keep on dreaming.
One last segment. I love my roommates. They're both just awesome. Nam works in the gift shop of the Old Faithful Lodge where I work. His English is very good, he sometimes has to translate for Nyah which I'm often very thankful for. A few days ago I went to lunch with Nyah and met up with his... our... other friends there. Nung, Hiep, and Tung. Tung and Hiep work in the EDR with Nyah and Nung works in the dish pit in the OFL Cafeteria where I work. Nung is the only girl in the group, she's very sweet and her English is pretty good as well. They're all very funny and great to hang out with. Hiep's English isn't that great, I'm not sure he's entirely interested in improving it either, he seems to be a quiet, loner type. I still love seeing them at the EDR though. OH! As we were eating lunch that day, I asked them what their favorite Thai food was. Pho. I'm not sure who was more excited. Me, because I know what Pho is and REALLY enjoy it... or them because I knew what Pho was and really enjoyed it!
Both my roommates want to watch the World Cup. Since Rod and Linda offered, I might try and see if I can bring my roommates to watch a few games, I'm pretty sure they (everyone) would love it.
So that just about finishes it. Sunday I'm planning another trip to Bozeman. Sarah and Staci will be with me at least, I might have Nyah or Nam with me as well. Otherwise, payday hit and boy is it nice to have some cash on hand. Monday I'm planning on hiking Fairy Falls and beyond making a full day trip. Hopefully we'll have good weather, I heard snow showers and rain at least the next couple days :(
Thanks for sticking it through!
I left a few things out from Sunday. One cool thing that happened at our second service, well, a couple things I suppose. First, I was just about ready to cancel it, we were coming up on 11:30 and no one had shown up yet. 5 minutes before, two people showed up. As we started our service, several others filed in and we were able to have a decent audience of 14 people. One of those people was a guy named Anthony that I met at work the week before. He is a quieter guy, I guess due to that I don't know much more than that. But he came up to me after the service and told me that he had been praying that he could find some more Christians in the area and that night he noticed our poster for our services. It was really encouraging to know that he is a Christian, he's working in the Pantry now so I still see him around. One of these days I hope we can sit and have a good talk, we'll see where God leads.
Monday. My second day off, and really I couldn't wait to get back to work so that I could start sleeping in again! We (Amber, Staci, Sarah, Amber's friend Heather, and I) piled into Amber's truck and drove up to Mammoth Springs to go hiking for the day. It was a long drive and the weather was rainy/drippy so we weren't too enthusiastic. Thank God, when we finally got to Mammoth and started hiking the weather cleared up and we had some pretty good hiking weather! I brought my big backpack, probably shouldn't have, but the exercise was appreciated. We hiked a loop first, about 5 miles. It reminded me a LOT of our backpacking trips, mainly because I started to get hungry about halfway through and by the end I was sore, tired, and I couldn't WAIT to get some food. We then went to Bill and Debbie Young's house where we met up with more ACMNP students who had done similar hiking. After eating most of us went off to hike Bunsen peak. About 4 miles round trip, but this one is pretty much switchbacks all the way up. As we got to the top some nasty storm clouds rolled in, and after sliding down a few snow fields (heck yes) we hiked the rest of the way through the rain back to the cars. So, we (Amber, Heather, and myself-Staci and Sarah skipped this second hike) are now in Amber's truck. A big, red Ford truck, and for the past week at least there had been lots of laughter about how tiny Amber drove such a big truck. Well, about 100 feet from the Young's house, this lady backs up her new Subaru and hits us as we rolled past. Surprisingly, the Subaru was fine, just some bumper damage, and I think the tailight was damaged. (Oh yeah, no one was hurt) The truck's back right wheel well was dented in pretty good and if we had hit even a slight bump or probably less, it probably would have shredded the tire. So, we got "stranded" at the Youngs for the night. They ordered pizza and we watched UP- such a good movie, I'm so glad I finally got to watch it!. The next morning, David, a friend of the Youngs, drove us back to Old Faithful as some of us had to work. Yup, we had to get up around 7:30 so I still didn't get a chance to sleep in.
Tuesday, I have to think now. Oh yes! This was my first day working Storekeep all by myself. Chris has Tuesdays and Wednesdays off so I work storekeep then. All went well for the most part... I'll get to that. I love that job though. I realized one day while working that one reason I love it so much is that it is at times like a big game of Rush Hour. The game where you have to move the trucks and cars to get the red car out... I love that game. I get to do roughly the same thing except with boxes of food. I get to stuff them onto shelves and hope that people can get to them when they need them, in addition to labelling and rotating so that we can keep "fresh" food coming out. So yeah, I was able check off our order that came in, making sure that we got everything. Then I put it all away, then walked around with my clipboard and made the next shopping list. I thought all went just fine... it sure seemed like it.
Wednesday: I get to work, again all by myself. I didn't really have much to do, waiting for the supply truck to show up. Frank gave me a few things, and I reorganized a bunch of shelves. When I get back from my dinner break, Jenn our head chef, finds me and tells me that my order didn't go through... there would be no truck. The warehouse manager had aparently tried calling her asking her what was up, we order SOMETHING everyday from them so they kinda figured but didn't get any further than that. I had sent the order to the wrong location, wrong numbers into the computer. Thankfully, it was during a lull, not a whole lot of food was needed and we were able to get by with what we had. So, added more items to the list and sent it properly.
Thursday. My first day starting my THIRD position here. I'm now also a cook. My training so far has consisted of following people around and doing whatever they tell me. I trimmed fat off of about 30 pounds of chicken breasts. One guy walking past, I'm assuming, jokingly asked if I was having fun yet. I thought about it... yeah actually, I am! Spending 2 hours with a large super sharp knife cutting stuff up, why wouldn't I enjoy it??? I think I might enjoy the storekeep job more, but switching between the two is going to be great. So Thursday, I did a little food prep, nothing huge. Between trimming chicken and putting frozen lasagnas and pizzas onto trays, they pulled me out and had me help poor Chris with putting away a huge order(ooops). Again, nothin that I didn't enjoy.
Friday. For some reason, I thought today was Saturday. Again, I was working the cooks position. A few new things added to my cooking experience, someone finally showed me how the steamers work so I'm capable of "cooking" things now. In addition, they gave me a meat thermometer. Everything we cook is considered ready when it hits about 160-165 degrees Farenheit. I shadow another cook and in the process they realize that I haven't taken knife and sharps safety training yet... ooops. So they wouldn't let me trim more chicken :(
Instead, when I got back from dinner they told me that Chris called in sick. So I got to clock in as storekeeper and did my job entirely correct this time. Jenn kept thanking me and asking if I was frustrated with the job yet or if I wanted to go home and I could honestly tell her no. I got off of work around 6 and enjoyed the rest of my evening. I went to the General Store and talked with Vince and Kristi for a bit. I really like them both, they're very cool people. After that, I called Koobmong and talked to him for about an hour... yep, I did it. It was good to catch up, it was well worth it :)
Tomorrow, I don't know if Chris will be back or not... I secretly hope not, but on the "down-side" I get to cook! I'm still waiting on my new uniforms, I don't know where or when I'll get them. I feel like I could almost run a restaurant now with all the positions I've held so far hahaha. Gonna keep on dreaming.
One last segment. I love my roommates. They're both just awesome. Nam works in the gift shop of the Old Faithful Lodge where I work. His English is very good, he sometimes has to translate for Nyah which I'm often very thankful for. A few days ago I went to lunch with Nyah and met up with his... our... other friends there. Nung, Hiep, and Tung. Tung and Hiep work in the EDR with Nyah and Nung works in the dish pit in the OFL Cafeteria where I work. Nung is the only girl in the group, she's very sweet and her English is pretty good as well. They're all very funny and great to hang out with. Hiep's English isn't that great, I'm not sure he's entirely interested in improving it either, he seems to be a quiet, loner type. I still love seeing them at the EDR though. OH! As we were eating lunch that day, I asked them what their favorite Thai food was. Pho. I'm not sure who was more excited. Me, because I know what Pho is and REALLY enjoy it... or them because I knew what Pho was and really enjoyed it!
Both my roommates want to watch the World Cup. Since Rod and Linda offered, I might try and see if I can bring my roommates to watch a few games, I'm pretty sure they (everyone) would love it.
So that just about finishes it. Sunday I'm planning another trip to Bozeman. Sarah and Staci will be with me at least, I might have Nyah or Nam with me as well. Otherwise, payday hit and boy is it nice to have some cash on hand. Monday I'm planning on hiking Fairy Falls and beyond making a full day trip. Hopefully we'll have good weather, I heard snow showers and rain at least the next couple days :(
Thanks for sticking it through!
Catchup
Heinz ketchup can be found in our dry storage, back and on the right. 2nd shelf has dispenser packs, par 4 and 3rd shelf has emergency ketchup packets... I love knowing where everything is!
I'm getting ahead of myself. Where did I leave off, Saturday?
Saturday went well. More job shadowing. I went into work at 10 so that I could get out early for our campground call. This meant that I got to wait around for an extra 2 hours. Work went fine, when I finish my storekeep stuff I get to start with kitchen prep. I get to make our special vegetarian lasagnas and our pizzas. Two of our biggest sellers. Secret recipe of the veggie lasagna: Stouffers. And the pizza? Freschetta. Kinda disappointing, but hey, if people love it and we can sell em, fine! That night we went to Rod and Linda's trailer (they have a tv and cable so I can watch the World Cup there!!!). We had tacos, SO nice having a home cooked meal. Sarah and I were the only ones who could make it. Maybe a good thing because there isn't much room in that trailer. Also, we me the other couple who is joining us. Vince and Kristi. They're middle aged, and they've worked with ACMNP for the past 6 years in a different park each year. This year they weren't planning on working with ACMNP, but God worked things out and its nice to have them helping since we've lost 2 people. They're both very cool people. They're from Georia, and Vince reminds me a bit of Flanders from the Simpsons... Kristi is a tiny little lady but she's extremely energetic! She's pretty funny. After dinner, (brownies and ice cream YUM.) we drove up to Madison campground for our campground calling. We hold 3 services in Madison in an amphitheater that overlooks a BEAUTIFUL river/valley landscape. It was raining for most of our campground call. Which I was kinda thankful for because we walk through the campground and invite everyone we see to a few "special weekend events". We advertize for Ranger talks, that's our in for being allowed to tell about our church services. Otherwise, it's illegal for us to "prostheletize" in campgrounds. That night I got back to my room and I looked over what I had for my sermon for Sunday. I had written it all out, like I do with most speeches, and when I casually read through it and timed myself it came out to 5 minutes... we shoot for 8-15 minutes. This really freaked me out. I started scribbling more stuff down and really confusing myself. Then I didn't like what I had written out and I wanted to start over. Finally it was around 11 and I had to get up at 6:30 and I just put it away thinking that I would work on it in the morning.
Sunday morning. Got up and went to breakfast with Staci, the other girl that I work with. Even though she worked with ACMNP last summer, she still seemed just as nervous as I was. I don't think she got much experience leading services last summer, she's pretty shy too, I think Amber is the most outgoing one out of all of us. We're a pretty quiet group! Anyway, Vince was at our service to see where and when and how we did things. He offered to help, but Staci and I already had everything planned out so we figured we could handle things. It was still good to have him there for morale support, he was a pretty big comfort. We sang our hymns a capella, which can be kinda tough when you only have 13 people but we managed ok, and got to my sermon. I preached on Job 38, a few verses out of there. My main topic was focusing on Gods creativity in creation and His specific design for everything, and how everything He created points to Him in worship. I read through the verses, prayed, and set to it. I half read through my first paragraph, just kinda getting the feel for things. And then God took over. All I had to do was start the sermon, I somewhat used my notes, mostly as a reference, otherwise it all came from God and He really put the finishing touches on the sermon. I know it wasn't me preaching on Sunday, because things went VERY well. We had almost 3 hours before our next service so we grabbed a couch at the Inn and sat with Staci and Sarah and talked... I took a nap. Next service, I was still a little nervous, but there was this excitement that started to show up too. I remembered the feeling and thinking it was weird. It was almost like the adrenaline rush I used to get when getting into the starters blocks for a race in Track. Nervous excitement. Again, I started things out and God took over. Things changed a little bit, I added some parts and left out some parts but all went well again. (each sermon lasted about 10-13 minutes by the way) We ate lunch after that, pizza in the EDR, not bad at all, and I went back to my room and took another long nap. After that, I went to dinner, really gross looking fish soup/mash stuff that I didn't bother getting. I had plenty of time before our next service but I went to the Rec hall anyway. There is a Mormon service that is held right before ours in there so I sat in the room and watched the whole thing. It was pretty sad really. They were giving testimonies, and most of them had pretty moving stories. But they're just mislead. It all sounded well and good, until they declared this guy as their prophet and leader, whoever he is I can't remember his name, and declaring the Book of Mormon as inspired by God. I half listened and started reading Wild at Heart and my Bible. I've been reading through 1 Corinthians and I came across a verse that totally stood up and slapped me in the face. In the Message version it reads, "And don't be wishing you were someplace else or with someone else. Where you are right now is God's place for you." I kinda stopped and read through it again, a definite double take, and again I was just hit with the realization that I am exactly where God wants me to be. Instead of being disappointed, it was a comfort and I know it was from God.
Our third service also went very well. Rev. Bill Young, the resident minister for Yellowstone NP and our head guy for ACMNP was there. He offered a few critiques on our service but told us that we did an EXCELLENT job. He really enjoyed my sermon, he told me I shouldn't even think to throw away my notes but to add to it a little bit more, particularly a gospel message. That was very encouraging as well. After that we met as a whole group. Vince and Kristi, Rod and Linda, Staci, Sarah, Amber and myself. We talked about work and our services, and the next week and prayed at the end. I really like our staff here, I think we're going to fit very well.
Yikes. That was Saturday and Sunday, and right now I have to get to work!
I'm getting ahead of myself. Where did I leave off, Saturday?
Saturday went well. More job shadowing. I went into work at 10 so that I could get out early for our campground call. This meant that I got to wait around for an extra 2 hours. Work went fine, when I finish my storekeep stuff I get to start with kitchen prep. I get to make our special vegetarian lasagnas and our pizzas. Two of our biggest sellers. Secret recipe of the veggie lasagna: Stouffers. And the pizza? Freschetta. Kinda disappointing, but hey, if people love it and we can sell em, fine! That night we went to Rod and Linda's trailer (they have a tv and cable so I can watch the World Cup there!!!). We had tacos, SO nice having a home cooked meal. Sarah and I were the only ones who could make it. Maybe a good thing because there isn't much room in that trailer. Also, we me the other couple who is joining us. Vince and Kristi. They're middle aged, and they've worked with ACMNP for the past 6 years in a different park each year. This year they weren't planning on working with ACMNP, but God worked things out and its nice to have them helping since we've lost 2 people. They're both very cool people. They're from Georia, and Vince reminds me a bit of Flanders from the Simpsons... Kristi is a tiny little lady but she's extremely energetic! She's pretty funny. After dinner, (brownies and ice cream YUM.) we drove up to Madison campground for our campground calling. We hold 3 services in Madison in an amphitheater that overlooks a BEAUTIFUL river/valley landscape. It was raining for most of our campground call. Which I was kinda thankful for because we walk through the campground and invite everyone we see to a few "special weekend events". We advertize for Ranger talks, that's our in for being allowed to tell about our church services. Otherwise, it's illegal for us to "prostheletize" in campgrounds. That night I got back to my room and I looked over what I had for my sermon for Sunday. I had written it all out, like I do with most speeches, and when I casually read through it and timed myself it came out to 5 minutes... we shoot for 8-15 minutes. This really freaked me out. I started scribbling more stuff down and really confusing myself. Then I didn't like what I had written out and I wanted to start over. Finally it was around 11 and I had to get up at 6:30 and I just put it away thinking that I would work on it in the morning.
Sunday morning. Got up and went to breakfast with Staci, the other girl that I work with. Even though she worked with ACMNP last summer, she still seemed just as nervous as I was. I don't think she got much experience leading services last summer, she's pretty shy too, I think Amber is the most outgoing one out of all of us. We're a pretty quiet group! Anyway, Vince was at our service to see where and when and how we did things. He offered to help, but Staci and I already had everything planned out so we figured we could handle things. It was still good to have him there for morale support, he was a pretty big comfort. We sang our hymns a capella, which can be kinda tough when you only have 13 people but we managed ok, and got to my sermon. I preached on Job 38, a few verses out of there. My main topic was focusing on Gods creativity in creation and His specific design for everything, and how everything He created points to Him in worship. I read through the verses, prayed, and set to it. I half read through my first paragraph, just kinda getting the feel for things. And then God took over. All I had to do was start the sermon, I somewhat used my notes, mostly as a reference, otherwise it all came from God and He really put the finishing touches on the sermon. I know it wasn't me preaching on Sunday, because things went VERY well. We had almost 3 hours before our next service so we grabbed a couch at the Inn and sat with Staci and Sarah and talked... I took a nap. Next service, I was still a little nervous, but there was this excitement that started to show up too. I remembered the feeling and thinking it was weird. It was almost like the adrenaline rush I used to get when getting into the starters blocks for a race in Track. Nervous excitement. Again, I started things out and God took over. Things changed a little bit, I added some parts and left out some parts but all went well again. (each sermon lasted about 10-13 minutes by the way) We ate lunch after that, pizza in the EDR, not bad at all, and I went back to my room and took another long nap. After that, I went to dinner, really gross looking fish soup/mash stuff that I didn't bother getting. I had plenty of time before our next service but I went to the Rec hall anyway. There is a Mormon service that is held right before ours in there so I sat in the room and watched the whole thing. It was pretty sad really. They were giving testimonies, and most of them had pretty moving stories. But they're just mislead. It all sounded well and good, until they declared this guy as their prophet and leader, whoever he is I can't remember his name, and declaring the Book of Mormon as inspired by God. I half listened and started reading Wild at Heart and my Bible. I've been reading through 1 Corinthians and I came across a verse that totally stood up and slapped me in the face. In the Message version it reads, "And don't be wishing you were someplace else or with someone else. Where you are right now is God's place for you." I kinda stopped and read through it again, a definite double take, and again I was just hit with the realization that I am exactly where God wants me to be. Instead of being disappointed, it was a comfort and I know it was from God.
Our third service also went very well. Rev. Bill Young, the resident minister for Yellowstone NP and our head guy for ACMNP was there. He offered a few critiques on our service but told us that we did an EXCELLENT job. He really enjoyed my sermon, he told me I shouldn't even think to throw away my notes but to add to it a little bit more, particularly a gospel message. That was very encouraging as well. After that we met as a whole group. Vince and Kristi, Rod and Linda, Staci, Sarah, Amber and myself. We talked about work and our services, and the next week and prayed at the end. I really like our staff here, I think we're going to fit very well.
Yikes. That was Saturday and Sunday, and right now I have to get to work!
Friday, June 4, 2010
June 4th
First full day working my new job. I'm still following Chris around, but Tuesday and Wednesday I'll be flying solo as Chris has Tuesdays and Wednesdays off. I started at 12:30, great start time by the way, and had to wait around for maybe 2 hours for our delivery truck to show up. There isn't a whole lot for us to do before then. As soon as that comes in, the delivery guys unload the truck for us, which is great because our dolly is severely crippled. We then pull out our inventory list and make sure we got everything that we ordered. After that we get to stack the new stuff, rotating the old out as we go. We have to label everything as it comes in with the date which is why we rotate our items, new goes in the back and old moves to the front to be used as soon as possible- one of the complexities I've realized of this job. As soon as everything is put away we go through all the inventory again (everything from basil leaves to spare rib-which costs $1000 a box!), and make sure that we have enough of each item. If something is low, we make a note of how many we need for "par", just like golf we have a set number of each item that we try to keep items at. Since the Cafeteria has a set menu our item pars don't change much, but we still have to check in with the chefs in case demands change. Once our list is completed we take it to our archaic computer and input the orders for tomorrow. All the items that we need to bring everything back up to par. I basically make a several thousand dollar shopping list. I'm beginning to look forward to things warming up around here. Sitting around doing nothing waiting for the truck got pretty old and very cold. Quite a change from the dish pit where we had to step out to cool off, now I go over there to warm up hahaha!
So, the first day went well. I still really enjoy this work and I'm sure as soon as I get things down I'll enjoy it even more. We finished off the day doing prep work for tomorrow. I got to "make" lasagna. I was pretty excited until I realized that I'm pretty much pulling frozen lasagna out of a box, stuffing it into a pan, and throwing it into the thaw box. Not much for cooking yet, but that still goes under store keep pay which is higher than cook pay :) And, on the days that Chris will be working store keep, I'll be working cook crew, so I'll get cooking someday soon. At this point however, I wouldn't mind keeping this store keep job at all. Only thing is, it is a pretty high responsibility job. As I said earlier, I'm ordering thousands of dollars worth of food, and if something goes bad because it wasn't used up in time, it quite possibly will be my fault. But on the bright side, since the Old Faithful Cafeteria has been open for roughly a month, our numbers are pretty solid, as long as I keep to the list and stay informed and in communication with the Chefs things will be fine.
I should mention, the Old Faithful Cafeteria isn't for employees, but for guests. It's set up cafeteria style, you get a tray and walk through, choose your food and pay at the end. Food is still much higher quality than what we get in our employee dining rooms.
After work, Staci and I met and set up our services for Sunday. As much as we had to at least. We were warned but its much more obvious now, Rev. Bill Young, Yellowstone's resident preacher, is rather particular with how we run our services. In going through our regional training last month, they gave us several different orders of service that we could choose from. We have our entire service laid out already by Rev. Young. The nice part is that we don't have to worry about printing out bulletins. The only thing we have to do is choose songs and the sermon. While it's nice not having a lot of that to do, Staci and I agreed that we would rather be more flexible with our services. Maybe on Sunday I'll post our bulletin, it's extremely structured and has a slight Catholic feel to it in that way. I must say, I already miss the Vineyard churches and I can't wait to get back!
Whoa, more big news I almost forgot about. Today I got a text from Amber, one of the girls from ACMNP, and she told me that Ben, the other young guy with ACMNP who I have yet to meet, is leaving next week. We're now down to 4 student ministers and Rod and Linda. It's hard to say that I'll miss him... simply because I don't know what things would be like WITH him around. But I do hope that it doesn't put too much strain on the rest of us. I'm pretty sure we will be able to handle things just fine. We also have another couple who worked with ACMNP last year who will help us with our services. In addition, Staci had a couple new roommates move in and turns out they're with Campus Crusade! Amber also knows of another Christian ministries group of about 8-10 who may be interested in helping us out as well. At the very least, we'll have an audience for our services!
A couple more things. Chris today told me a little bit about his past. I guess he grew up in a Mormon church and wanted to study Theology (not just Christianity but all world religions) but abandoned that. I bet we might have some interesting conversations. Also, I had to ask one of our Sous Chefs, Niki, (she's pretty awesome, great to work with) if I could leave early. I told her that I was with ACMNP and that I had to get some things settled for Sunday. She was all for it and was telling me how she used to go to those services a couple years back. It might have been the CRU services, I'm not entirely sure, but its really encouraging knowing that the people I work with won't be hindering what I'm here to do, and in many cases even supportive. God has been so great!
Lastly, thank you all so much everyone who has been following this blog so far. It blesses me and encourages me so much having your prayers and support and reading your comments. If you ever have any questions feel free to ask and I'll be more than happy to answer! Again, I can't wait to be back with you all again, I want to be home so badly but... not yet! (Gladiator- mom that one was for you!)
So, the first day went well. I still really enjoy this work and I'm sure as soon as I get things down I'll enjoy it even more. We finished off the day doing prep work for tomorrow. I got to "make" lasagna. I was pretty excited until I realized that I'm pretty much pulling frozen lasagna out of a box, stuffing it into a pan, and throwing it into the thaw box. Not much for cooking yet, but that still goes under store keep pay which is higher than cook pay :) And, on the days that Chris will be working store keep, I'll be working cook crew, so I'll get cooking someday soon. At this point however, I wouldn't mind keeping this store keep job at all. Only thing is, it is a pretty high responsibility job. As I said earlier, I'm ordering thousands of dollars worth of food, and if something goes bad because it wasn't used up in time, it quite possibly will be my fault. But on the bright side, since the Old Faithful Cafeteria has been open for roughly a month, our numbers are pretty solid, as long as I keep to the list and stay informed and in communication with the Chefs things will be fine.
I should mention, the Old Faithful Cafeteria isn't for employees, but for guests. It's set up cafeteria style, you get a tray and walk through, choose your food and pay at the end. Food is still much higher quality than what we get in our employee dining rooms.
After work, Staci and I met and set up our services for Sunday. As much as we had to at least. We were warned but its much more obvious now, Rev. Bill Young, Yellowstone's resident preacher, is rather particular with how we run our services. In going through our regional training last month, they gave us several different orders of service that we could choose from. We have our entire service laid out already by Rev. Young. The nice part is that we don't have to worry about printing out bulletins. The only thing we have to do is choose songs and the sermon. While it's nice not having a lot of that to do, Staci and I agreed that we would rather be more flexible with our services. Maybe on Sunday I'll post our bulletin, it's extremely structured and has a slight Catholic feel to it in that way. I must say, I already miss the Vineyard churches and I can't wait to get back!
Whoa, more big news I almost forgot about. Today I got a text from Amber, one of the girls from ACMNP, and she told me that Ben, the other young guy with ACMNP who I have yet to meet, is leaving next week. We're now down to 4 student ministers and Rod and Linda. It's hard to say that I'll miss him... simply because I don't know what things would be like WITH him around. But I do hope that it doesn't put too much strain on the rest of us. I'm pretty sure we will be able to handle things just fine. We also have another couple who worked with ACMNP last year who will help us with our services. In addition, Staci had a couple new roommates move in and turns out they're with Campus Crusade! Amber also knows of another Christian ministries group of about 8-10 who may be interested in helping us out as well. At the very least, we'll have an audience for our services!
A couple more things. Chris today told me a little bit about his past. I guess he grew up in a Mormon church and wanted to study Theology (not just Christianity but all world religions) but abandoned that. I bet we might have some interesting conversations. Also, I had to ask one of our Sous Chefs, Niki, (she's pretty awesome, great to work with) if I could leave early. I told her that I was with ACMNP and that I had to get some things settled for Sunday. She was all for it and was telling me how she used to go to those services a couple years back. It might have been the CRU services, I'm not entirely sure, but its really encouraging knowing that the people I work with won't be hindering what I'm here to do, and in many cases even supportive. God has been so great!
Lastly, thank you all so much everyone who has been following this blog so far. It blesses me and encourages me so much having your prayers and support and reading your comments. If you ever have any questions feel free to ask and I'll be more than happy to answer! Again, I can't wait to be back with you all again, I want to be home so badly but... not yet! (Gladiator- mom that one was for you!)
Thursday, June 3, 2010
New Beginnings
June 3rd.
I went in for a couple hours of dish washing and have since been told that I won't be doing that anymore. I started following this guy Chris around today, he's the storage manager for the Lodge Cafeteria. Pretty decent guy, he smokes a lot and cusses a lot but we get along just fine. First off, we oversee the unloading of our supply truck. It brings new food in every day, and I get to put it all away. A majority of the time, I'm in refrigerated areas, particularly the freezer, about 0 degrees (I keep joking that I'm right at home!). So I put foods away, somewhat organize them as well and label and rotate what we have according to when it came in. So now that I know where to find all the food in addition to the location of all of our pots pans and utensils, I'm starting to feel like I own the place haha. After moving food around for a bit, I get to go over orders for the next day. It seems that I pretty much sit with the head chefs and ask them what they need, which is totally awesome. I met the lead Pantry chef today, Adam, he's a really neat guy and offered to help me if I ever had any questions. The other that I would consult with is Jen, and we're pretty tight already. I'll probably have to report to Frank more often than not, but he seems to have taken a liking to me we'll be old friends in no-time. Once I'm done taking orders I get to enter them into our computer. Frank kept asking me if I had computer skills, nothing I know could have prepared me for this one. I think the computer might be older than I am. I've been told its running the very first OS for Windows. The printer looks just as old. I was thinking that with Graphic Design I've learned how to handle extremely high tech and complex printers and scanners as well as the most basic copper plate igntalio printing presses... but this one is another matter entirely. Fortunately, it all seems very straightforward, I'll have it down in a couple days.
I ate dinner with Chris, and he somewhat brought up how I'm the 'Relief Storage Manager", he's looking for an out so it's quite possible that I'll be stepping into his position in a month or so. I have to order new uniforms, one for the storage managing and one for the cooks position (I get to hold onto the hat!!!). Another thing that I'm looking forward to this job, because I'll know where everything is, everyone can come to me looking for things. I'll get to know our kitchen staff pretty well.
I think we've just brought in 6 new people to man the dish crew. Staci, one of the girls with ACMNP that I worked with, will be moved into the Pantry. I'm glad she got out, I would have felt bad if she had gotten stuck there.
Just a reminder of what some people are like around here, one of our workers was busted for underage drinking and we probably won't be seeing him again. I can't remember how many times during our training that they told us and warned us about providing alcohol to minors or having alcohol if you were underaged... poor kid.
Finally, I get back to my room after work and there are a few new bags on the floor. One of my new roommates moved in today. I'm not sure yet who the other will be, Jeremy moves out in a couple days though, maybe tomorrow. But the new guy, I must say I am pretty excited! His name is Niah (no clue if its spelled right) and he's from Hanoi, Vietnam. He seems to be a pretty quiet cool guy. He just finished his Freshman year in college in Hanoi as a Business Management major. He's been learning English for about 12 years, so he's pretty good. He's a little hard to understand at times, but he's eager to improve his English. As much as I "liked" my last roommates, I think I'm really going to enjoy having Niah here.
So that's all I've got. I keep forgetting which day of the week it is mainly because of my weird schedule, so hopefully I won't forget to work on my "sermon". I told Staci that it would be just the two of us running the services this weekend and I think she's just as nervous as I am haha. God knows what He's doing!
I went in for a couple hours of dish washing and have since been told that I won't be doing that anymore. I started following this guy Chris around today, he's the storage manager for the Lodge Cafeteria. Pretty decent guy, he smokes a lot and cusses a lot but we get along just fine. First off, we oversee the unloading of our supply truck. It brings new food in every day, and I get to put it all away. A majority of the time, I'm in refrigerated areas, particularly the freezer, about 0 degrees (I keep joking that I'm right at home!). So I put foods away, somewhat organize them as well and label and rotate what we have according to when it came in. So now that I know where to find all the food in addition to the location of all of our pots pans and utensils, I'm starting to feel like I own the place haha. After moving food around for a bit, I get to go over orders for the next day. It seems that I pretty much sit with the head chefs and ask them what they need, which is totally awesome. I met the lead Pantry chef today, Adam, he's a really neat guy and offered to help me if I ever had any questions. The other that I would consult with is Jen, and we're pretty tight already. I'll probably have to report to Frank more often than not, but he seems to have taken a liking to me we'll be old friends in no-time. Once I'm done taking orders I get to enter them into our computer. Frank kept asking me if I had computer skills, nothing I know could have prepared me for this one. I think the computer might be older than I am. I've been told its running the very first OS for Windows. The printer looks just as old. I was thinking that with Graphic Design I've learned how to handle extremely high tech and complex printers and scanners as well as the most basic copper plate igntalio printing presses... but this one is another matter entirely. Fortunately, it all seems very straightforward, I'll have it down in a couple days.
I ate dinner with Chris, and he somewhat brought up how I'm the 'Relief Storage Manager", he's looking for an out so it's quite possible that I'll be stepping into his position in a month or so. I have to order new uniforms, one for the storage managing and one for the cooks position (I get to hold onto the hat!!!). Another thing that I'm looking forward to this job, because I'll know where everything is, everyone can come to me looking for things. I'll get to know our kitchen staff pretty well.
I think we've just brought in 6 new people to man the dish crew. Staci, one of the girls with ACMNP that I worked with, will be moved into the Pantry. I'm glad she got out, I would have felt bad if she had gotten stuck there.
Just a reminder of what some people are like around here, one of our workers was busted for underage drinking and we probably won't be seeing him again. I can't remember how many times during our training that they told us and warned us about providing alcohol to minors or having alcohol if you were underaged... poor kid.
Finally, I get back to my room after work and there are a few new bags on the floor. One of my new roommates moved in today. I'm not sure yet who the other will be, Jeremy moves out in a couple days though, maybe tomorrow. But the new guy, I must say I am pretty excited! His name is Niah (no clue if its spelled right) and he's from Hanoi, Vietnam. He seems to be a pretty quiet cool guy. He just finished his Freshman year in college in Hanoi as a Business Management major. He's been learning English for about 12 years, so he's pretty good. He's a little hard to understand at times, but he's eager to improve his English. As much as I "liked" my last roommates, I think I'm really going to enjoy having Niah here.
So that's all I've got. I keep forgetting which day of the week it is mainly because of my weird schedule, so hopefully I won't forget to work on my "sermon". I told Staci that it would be just the two of us running the services this weekend and I think she's just as nervous as I am haha. God knows what He's doing!
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
June 1
So, I had Monday and today off, very nice to take a break. Monday we drove up to Mammoth Springs, about an hour and a half drive through the park, longer if you hit Bison jams as we did. Those guys are so bold, they'll just chill in the middle of the road and stare down RVs and trucks, they're awesome! We left Old Faithful around 8:30am and got in just in time for the start of things at 10. This was our orientation for ACMNP, they gave us information on how to run our services on weekends. Really, not much of this was new, we covered most of it during our regional training in March. However, we got to meet the rest of the ACMNP staff from around Yellowstone including our support staff and got to spend some quality time getting to know the other staffers in our own areas. I actually really appreciated that, I work with one gal but the others I really haven't gotten to know yet, in fact the other younger guy working in Old Faithful I STILL haven't met, he wasn't able to get work off on Monday. There are roughly 40 student ministers working with ACMNP in Yellowstone and add on our support staff, (families that live near Yellowstone, kinda like host families, they're there to take care of us) we had a grand barbecue potluck that night. SOOO many people, I was a little overwhelmed, although I haven't eaten that much good food in a while... deviled eggs ahhhhh. Oh yeah, part of our training, we got into our area groups and made some decisions on our services. Our Old Faithful crew covers the Old Faithful area and the Madison campground, about 15 miles north of OF. We hold 3 services at each, 2 in the morning and 1 at night. Best way to cover the most ground is to split our group of course. So we made 2 "teams" chosen basically by who had vehicles, so I'm one of the two team leaders. Split second decision, I volunteered to preach this first week. (eeep!!) In addition to that, I opted to cover the Old Faithful area, my team includes Staci, the gal that I work with. Just the two of us for 3 services on Sunday.
I'm just a little nervous about this one haha. Pretty cool though, last night I was trying to think of what I could preach about and God just started putting ideas into my head. And later tonight, I've started reading through Corinthians, and I got to chapter 2. Paul is telling the Corinthians how when he first came to them with the Gospel message he "did not come with eloquence or human wisdom"(vs 1) instead he went to them "in weakness with great fear and trembling." Suffice to say, I could identify with Paul. But I know, just as with Paul, it's not about me. I'm not out there to perform, I've got nothing to lose! This one is all about God and He's the one who's on the spot. Thank God for that!
So that was Monday, today was a pretty good day as well. Got up for lunch then went a few miles north for my first hike. I did about 5-6 miles, my body might be acclimated but my lungs aren't. It wasn't a difficult hike, about 2 hours, but still felt it pretty good. Halfway through some dark clouds rolled in, and it really started to rain just as I got out. (Thanks mom for my new raincoat, works GREAT!) Rain, hail, and sunshine all within about an hour. I actually think I heard that someone died today, got hit by lightning... probably shouldn't have said that, MOM PLEASE DON'T WORRY!! Got back and went to dinner, then sat in front of the fireplace in the Snowlodge and read more of Black, almost done with that one.
This just in. My roommate Justin just got back, and apparently he's moving out tomorrow. He's hooked a deal and moving into a better dorm with a friend of his. Add to that, Jeremy moving to Roosevelt in 3 days, I'll have the room all to myself for a while! Downside, they'll probably be throwing more people in with me. It'll be a coin toss, so be praying that goes over well. I might see, if I ever meet Ben the other young guy in our ministry group, if he could move in with me.
I'm gonna do a quick Bio of our ACMNP staff, just a little of what I know anyway.
Staci Creekmore- Fine Arts major going to school in Oklahoma, she's lived all over the world having her dad in the Air Force. We work together in the Old Faithful Cafeteria.
Amber McKenzie- Very sweet petite girl from North Carolina. I'm only now starting to get used to her accent haha.
Sarah Staal- From Chicago. Her shyness just about rivals my own so I don't know much about her at all.
Ben Auger- From Georgia... haven't met him yet.
Rod and Linda Post- Sweet older couple. They worked in Yellowstone with ACMNP last year, so Rod is our area leader. Rod is retired and he's working here at the visitors center. They have an RV that they live in here and they've offered to have us over anytime, especially since Linda isn't working at all this year.
One last thing. I had to say goodbye to one of our workers today. I didn't know that she was leaving tomorrow, her name is Toon and she's from Thailand. It was kinda sad, she is a really sweet girl and I had fun working with her. Thankfully she had a notebook and she was writing down emails and names for facebook.
That's all for now. Thank you all for your prayers and support, I look forward to seeing you all again soon!
I'm just a little nervous about this one haha. Pretty cool though, last night I was trying to think of what I could preach about and God just started putting ideas into my head. And later tonight, I've started reading through Corinthians, and I got to chapter 2. Paul is telling the Corinthians how when he first came to them with the Gospel message he "did not come with eloquence or human wisdom"(vs 1) instead he went to them "in weakness with great fear and trembling." Suffice to say, I could identify with Paul. But I know, just as with Paul, it's not about me. I'm not out there to perform, I've got nothing to lose! This one is all about God and He's the one who's on the spot. Thank God for that!
So that was Monday, today was a pretty good day as well. Got up for lunch then went a few miles north for my first hike. I did about 5-6 miles, my body might be acclimated but my lungs aren't. It wasn't a difficult hike, about 2 hours, but still felt it pretty good. Halfway through some dark clouds rolled in, and it really started to rain just as I got out. (Thanks mom for my new raincoat, works GREAT!) Rain, hail, and sunshine all within about an hour. I actually think I heard that someone died today, got hit by lightning... probably shouldn't have said that, MOM PLEASE DON'T WORRY!! Got back and went to dinner, then sat in front of the fireplace in the Snowlodge and read more of Black, almost done with that one.
This just in. My roommate Justin just got back, and apparently he's moving out tomorrow. He's hooked a deal and moving into a better dorm with a friend of his. Add to that, Jeremy moving to Roosevelt in 3 days, I'll have the room all to myself for a while! Downside, they'll probably be throwing more people in with me. It'll be a coin toss, so be praying that goes over well. I might see, if I ever meet Ben the other young guy in our ministry group, if he could move in with me.
I'm gonna do a quick Bio of our ACMNP staff, just a little of what I know anyway.
Staci Creekmore- Fine Arts major going to school in Oklahoma, she's lived all over the world having her dad in the Air Force. We work together in the Old Faithful Cafeteria.
Amber McKenzie- Very sweet petite girl from North Carolina. I'm only now starting to get used to her accent haha.
Sarah Staal- From Chicago. Her shyness just about rivals my own so I don't know much about her at all.
Ben Auger- From Georgia... haven't met him yet.
Rod and Linda Post- Sweet older couple. They worked in Yellowstone with ACMNP last year, so Rod is our area leader. Rod is retired and he's working here at the visitors center. They have an RV that they live in here and they've offered to have us over anytime, especially since Linda isn't working at all this year.
One last thing. I had to say goodbye to one of our workers today. I didn't know that she was leaving tomorrow, her name is Toon and she's from Thailand. It was kinda sad, she is a really sweet girl and I had fun working with her. Thankfully she had a notebook and she was writing down emails and names for facebook.
That's all for now. Thank you all for your prayers and support, I look forward to seeing you all again soon!
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Memorial Day Weekend
For those who may work in a National Park in the future, make sure you get Memorial Day weekend off as soon as possible. For those wanting to visit a national park, again I'd advise going on when there isn't a holiday. We've been crazy busy, there are people everywhere! The cafeteria closes at 9 and apparently a bus full of tourists showed up just then, and they were hungry. Surprisingly we still managed to finish everything by 10:45.
Saturday I got off work at 4 and went and sat in front of the fireplace at the Old Faithful Snowlodge hotel, those chairs are amazingly comfortable. Read for 4 hours, finished Obsessed by Ted Dekker and started working on Black.
Today at work, the manager Frank pulled me aside and told me that he is planning on changing my job. I guess you could call it a promotion. He said that I'll be working as an assistant store manager, keeping check on storage items probably will include some database work(he kept asking if I knew how to use a computer... HA!), AND he also said that I'd have a cooks position as well! He also told me that there would be a pay increase, which is GREAT, I wasn't really looking forward to making $7.50 an hour for the whole summer. He said that he was planning on all this happening, and I'm not entirely sure but it seems that when he wants something done, it gets done. I don't know when that's gonna hit, but I'm pretty excited!
I have Monday and Tuesday off, but tomorrow I'll be up at 8 and heading up to Mammoth Springs to meet up with the rest of the Yellowstone ACMNP staff for our orientation. They say its going to be an all day thing, no clue what they've got planned because I thought we had covered everything a month ago. They did tell us that we'll be meeting at a church later that night for a steak dinner... yup, I'm in.
Oh, one last thing. I didn't opt for renting a mailbox, but anything addressed with my name and General Delivery on I can pick up at our post office. So here is the address:
for mail:
Timothy Charles
General Delivery- Old Faithful
Yellowstone National Park WY 82190
for packages:
Timothy Charles
YNP Lodges- Old Faithful Personnel Office
Yellowstone National Park, WY 82190
Saturday I got off work at 4 and went and sat in front of the fireplace at the Old Faithful Snowlodge hotel, those chairs are amazingly comfortable. Read for 4 hours, finished Obsessed by Ted Dekker and started working on Black.
Today at work, the manager Frank pulled me aside and told me that he is planning on changing my job. I guess you could call it a promotion. He said that I'll be working as an assistant store manager, keeping check on storage items probably will include some database work(he kept asking if I knew how to use a computer... HA!), AND he also said that I'd have a cooks position as well! He also told me that there would be a pay increase, which is GREAT, I wasn't really looking forward to making $7.50 an hour for the whole summer. He said that he was planning on all this happening, and I'm not entirely sure but it seems that when he wants something done, it gets done. I don't know when that's gonna hit, but I'm pretty excited!
I have Monday and Tuesday off, but tomorrow I'll be up at 8 and heading up to Mammoth Springs to meet up with the rest of the Yellowstone ACMNP staff for our orientation. They say its going to be an all day thing, no clue what they've got planned because I thought we had covered everything a month ago. They did tell us that we'll be meeting at a church later that night for a steak dinner... yup, I'm in.
Oh, one last thing. I didn't opt for renting a mailbox, but anything addressed with my name and General Delivery on I can pick up at our post office. So here is the address:
for mail:
Timothy Charles
General Delivery- Old Faithful
Yellowstone National Park WY 82190
for packages:
Timothy Charles
YNP Lodges- Old Faithful Personnel Office
Yellowstone National Park, WY 82190
Thursday, May 27, 2010
May 27th
Yeah, I'm running out of title ideas.
One major point of encouragement today. I was at work cleaning pots and pans, scrubbing away and the new head chef that I met last week stops by. She asked me if I had any trouble getting Sunday off and to talk to her if I ever had trouble getting them off for my "ministry thing". So, by that you could figure that she knew I was working for ACMNP, pretty safe bet there. Well, I thought that was cool she was willing to help me out as much as possible there rather than hinder. Later that night, still scrubbing dishes and she's back there helping us out, kinda odd but appreciated of course. And she up and asks me what church I go to. So we got into a good conversation about the Vineyard church and churches in general. Almost without a doubt she is a Christian. From what I understood, she grew up in a Christian home, but it sounded like she had just come from a bad church experience. I don't know where she's at now, but oh man when I walked away from that conversation I had chills running down my spine. I was pretty excited after that, God just showed that He still knows what He's doing and He knows exactly what I need, and when! It will be really cool when we start our church services and I can see all of these people I've met all at once, together to praise God! Very exciting indeed!
I realized today that my having trouble with schedules and the whole social security card thing may actually play to some use. It seems that there are a lot of people in high places, managers and the personnel office mainly, who know me from it all. It'll be interesting how this one plays out.
Well, I can't really think of anything else to write. Worked from 11:30 this morning until 10:30pm, 45 minutes off for dinner. Hm. One of my roommates just got back. He's an interesting fellow. His name is Justin, (Jeremy is the other but he's moving to a different part of Yellowstone next week, a real shame cuz I get along with him better than Justin). Anyway, Justin kinda mumbles while he talks, I'm amazed that he's employed here as a server heheh. Oh yeah, and its hard to carry a conversation with him. Well, easy if you don't mind not saying anything. For example, he just now asked me a question and I get a few words out in answer and he goes on with a completely different topic haha. He's 27, has a degree in graphic design (go firgure!) and is a fairly respectful guy. Really, I could have a much worse roommate I'm thankful he's not very extreme at all.
Ok, now I'm done :) I miss you all a lot, I can't wait to see you all again friends and family (especially Ricaya!!)
One major point of encouragement today. I was at work cleaning pots and pans, scrubbing away and the new head chef that I met last week stops by. She asked me if I had any trouble getting Sunday off and to talk to her if I ever had trouble getting them off for my "ministry thing". So, by that you could figure that she knew I was working for ACMNP, pretty safe bet there. Well, I thought that was cool she was willing to help me out as much as possible there rather than hinder. Later that night, still scrubbing dishes and she's back there helping us out, kinda odd but appreciated of course. And she up and asks me what church I go to. So we got into a good conversation about the Vineyard church and churches in general. Almost without a doubt she is a Christian. From what I understood, she grew up in a Christian home, but it sounded like she had just come from a bad church experience. I don't know where she's at now, but oh man when I walked away from that conversation I had chills running down my spine. I was pretty excited after that, God just showed that He still knows what He's doing and He knows exactly what I need, and when! It will be really cool when we start our church services and I can see all of these people I've met all at once, together to praise God! Very exciting indeed!
I realized today that my having trouble with schedules and the whole social security card thing may actually play to some use. It seems that there are a lot of people in high places, managers and the personnel office mainly, who know me from it all. It'll be interesting how this one plays out.
Well, I can't really think of anything else to write. Worked from 11:30 this morning until 10:30pm, 45 minutes off for dinner. Hm. One of my roommates just got back. He's an interesting fellow. His name is Justin, (Jeremy is the other but he's moving to a different part of Yellowstone next week, a real shame cuz I get along with him better than Justin). Anyway, Justin kinda mumbles while he talks, I'm amazed that he's employed here as a server heheh. Oh yeah, and its hard to carry a conversation with him. Well, easy if you don't mind not saying anything. For example, he just now asked me a question and I get a few words out in answer and he goes on with a completely different topic haha. He's 27, has a degree in graphic design (go firgure!) and is a fairly respectful guy. Really, I could have a much worse roommate I'm thankful he's not very extreme at all.
Ok, now I'm done :) I miss you all a lot, I can't wait to see you all again friends and family (especially Ricaya!!)
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
One Week Later
So a week later, things are much much better. I still can't wait to be home but for the time being I'm pretty happy. Work has been pretty good, although I had couple more run ins with Frank, our lead Manager. He's a very interesting guy to say the least. Yesterday he wasn't very happy that I asked for next Sunday and Monday off, I needed them off for our ACMNP orientation. However, when he found out that I am with ACMNP he was a bit more favorable... just a bit. He's not a Christian by any means but he seems to appreciate, at least, our work. Other run in happened today, I guess there was a mixup/miscommunication with my work schedule and I wasn't supposed to work. Frank still had me work so I still got in 9 hours, not sure how it worked out but it was ok.
Ah, Sunday night I had a weird dream. It was one of those dreams where you're running away. In my case I was hiding/running away from groups of people. I vaguely remember one group and it was just a nice seeming family. Soon after I woke up and I wondered why I would be hiding from them. It might just be my overinterpretation but I've had dreams like these before and I believe they carry some meaning. In this case, it was showing how I have a hard time just being open to new people, they could be the nicest family and I'd avoid them just because its my personality. Well I didn't think that much of it until after a little event later that night. I had worked earlier on Monday and got off at 4:30. Showered and ran some errands, called home. By the time I'd gone through that it was 7pm. I was going to dinner and found out our employee dining room closes at 6:30. So I decided to try another spot, but they closed at 7. As I was walking out there was a family of 3 leaving as well and for some reason I struck up a conversation. The parents had an adorable little girl who was maybe 8. She asked me if I wanted to hear something really scary. She then proceeded to tell me about her 2 pet rats she has at home and how I shouldn't touch her if I'm scared of rats. All I could do was listen and laugh! That definitely made my night, that short 5 minute conversation with the family from Kansas City for some reason brought me so much joy.
God's been so faithful even in teaching me how to interact with people. Really, it isn't hard here since everyone is from somewhere different there is always something new to learn or a new story to hear.
I gotta say, I love working with international students. I don't know if living in Antioch had anything to do with it, but work is so much more interesting because of it. Lately, I've been working with a few gals from Thailand, I think I mentioned one of them earlier, Rainy. The other two I got to know a bit better today, Am and Toon, who have been best friends since High School. They all speak English fairly well, sometimes I have to concentrate to understand them but we get along great. Today I set myself to start learning some Thai. Am seemed to really enjoy that, and I think it opened up our relationships a lot more. Unfortunately, Am and Toon are leaving in a couple weeks.
Ahh what else. We've gotten snow the past couple days. It usually melts by the end of the day but its been really weird having snow coming down all day long.
Oh, big news, I got an email yesterday from one of the girls in our ACMNP group. She told us that her heart wasn't really in this ministry and that she was going home. Really unfortunate that she would give up on us, but it strengthened my resolve to stick things out here. I know things won't always be easy here, but I also know that God is stretching me and growing me to be more effective in serving Him. Our last 2 members showed up yesterday too, so next week is our ACMNP orientation and we'll begin our Sunday services. I'm still thinking I'm going to enjoy working more than doing those services but its all in God's hands.
Thats all for now I guess. More later!
Ah, Sunday night I had a weird dream. It was one of those dreams where you're running away. In my case I was hiding/running away from groups of people. I vaguely remember one group and it was just a nice seeming family. Soon after I woke up and I wondered why I would be hiding from them. It might just be my overinterpretation but I've had dreams like these before and I believe they carry some meaning. In this case, it was showing how I have a hard time just being open to new people, they could be the nicest family and I'd avoid them just because its my personality. Well I didn't think that much of it until after a little event later that night. I had worked earlier on Monday and got off at 4:30. Showered and ran some errands, called home. By the time I'd gone through that it was 7pm. I was going to dinner and found out our employee dining room closes at 6:30. So I decided to try another spot, but they closed at 7. As I was walking out there was a family of 3 leaving as well and for some reason I struck up a conversation. The parents had an adorable little girl who was maybe 8. She asked me if I wanted to hear something really scary. She then proceeded to tell me about her 2 pet rats she has at home and how I shouldn't touch her if I'm scared of rats. All I could do was listen and laugh! That definitely made my night, that short 5 minute conversation with the family from Kansas City for some reason brought me so much joy.
God's been so faithful even in teaching me how to interact with people. Really, it isn't hard here since everyone is from somewhere different there is always something new to learn or a new story to hear.
I gotta say, I love working with international students. I don't know if living in Antioch had anything to do with it, but work is so much more interesting because of it. Lately, I've been working with a few gals from Thailand, I think I mentioned one of them earlier, Rainy. The other two I got to know a bit better today, Am and Toon, who have been best friends since High School. They all speak English fairly well, sometimes I have to concentrate to understand them but we get along great. Today I set myself to start learning some Thai. Am seemed to really enjoy that, and I think it opened up our relationships a lot more. Unfortunately, Am and Toon are leaving in a couple weeks.
Ahh what else. We've gotten snow the past couple days. It usually melts by the end of the day but its been really weird having snow coming down all day long.
Oh, big news, I got an email yesterday from one of the girls in our ACMNP group. She told us that her heart wasn't really in this ministry and that she was going home. Really unfortunate that she would give up on us, but it strengthened my resolve to stick things out here. I know things won't always be easy here, but I also know that God is stretching me and growing me to be more effective in serving Him. Our last 2 members showed up yesterday too, so next week is our ACMNP orientation and we'll begin our Sunday services. I'm still thinking I'm going to enjoy working more than doing those services but its all in God's hands.
Thats all for now I guess. More later!
Friday, May 21, 2010
I'll keep this one shorter. Not a whole lot happened today I suppose. Turns out, things weren't all fine with my social security card and I'm now suspended from working until I get that second form of ID in or within a week they'll be sending me home. Not real worried, mom is mailing my birth certificate which will do the trick. It's pretty tempting thinking of going home though. I like it here, but I guess I'm a little homesick.
Today at lunch I sat down and the gal next to me introduced herself, turns out she'll be the new head chef where I work come next week so hopefully she'll keep me in mind. At dinner I sat with another older couple and turns out they're from Minnesota. They were really nice and they've been added to the list of "people-I-hope-to-run-into-sometime." It was funny I had told them how people keep telling me that I won't be doing dishes for long and that was when they asked for my name... they wanted to keep an eye out for when it gets to the top of the list as Head Chef, hahaha!
Couple more items on the table tonight. First off, I cut my right hand pinky finger. Cut it while trying to get a butterknife unstuck from a dishwashing cup. Kinda a pain, but at least it was my pinky, hasn't really affected work at all. Second, I got off work at about 10:30 and it was dark and drizzling. About an hour later I ran out to my car to get something and there's a half inch or more of snow on the ground... still coming down too haha.
So, 2 days off, I think on Sunday I'll drive up to Bozeman maybe try and get a haircut and just take a look around. This week we're not doing a church service, we're still waiting on a few other members to show and I think it would have been a bad idea anyway since we're still getting used to the place. Otherwise, I'll probably do some reading and hoping my pinky will heal up!
Today at lunch I sat down and the gal next to me introduced herself, turns out she'll be the new head chef where I work come next week so hopefully she'll keep me in mind. At dinner I sat with another older couple and turns out they're from Minnesota. They were really nice and they've been added to the list of "people-I-hope-to-run-into-sometime." It was funny I had told them how people keep telling me that I won't be doing dishes for long and that was when they asked for my name... they wanted to keep an eye out for when it gets to the top of the list as Head Chef, hahaha!
Couple more items on the table tonight. First off, I cut my right hand pinky finger. Cut it while trying to get a butterknife unstuck from a dishwashing cup. Kinda a pain, but at least it was my pinky, hasn't really affected work at all. Second, I got off work at about 10:30 and it was dark and drizzling. About an hour later I ran out to my car to get something and there's a half inch or more of snow on the ground... still coming down too haha.
So, 2 days off, I think on Sunday I'll drive up to Bozeman maybe try and get a haircut and just take a look around. This week we're not doing a church service, we're still waiting on a few other members to show and I think it would have been a bad idea anyway since we're still getting used to the place. Otherwise, I'll probably do some reading and hoping my pinky will heal up!
Thursday, May 20, 2010
First Day at Work
Wow. So, all the cool stuff that happened today actually begins before getting to work. I had a decent night's sleep, haven't done that in a while so that was very helpful. Made it to lunch and randomly sat with a couple older ladies, very sweet- I seem to enjoy hanging out with the older employees, they're awesome and not as weird as the younger ones. Anyway, I'll eventually get back to one of them, her name is Kathy. They shared some stories and I had to get movin to get ready for work. When I got to work, I clocked in, but had nowhere to go from there. I had a general idea where I was working but no clue who to report to, or what I was supposed to be doing. I ended up in a back office deep in the kitchen, and there was Kathy. She does database work and hops between buildings and just happened to be in the Old Faithful Lodge today. She wandered with me for a bit trying to find someone to dump me off on and finally settled with having me wait in the office. We got to talking a bit more and she asked how I ended up working in Yellowstone. (This has been my greatest chance to let people know I'm a Christian, I love that question!) When she found out that I was a Christian she shook my hand and said she was glad to meet "another one". She told me how hard it has been for some people here as Christians, in particular another guy she knows of who she wants to put in contact with our ACMNP group for support. She reminded me that this place is fairly full of darkness and that I'll have my share of rough times, and that our ACMNP group needs to be faithful in supporting each other. She also told me that she would definitely be praying for us. She reminded me that this is a mission field as much as any place overseas and that its not always going to be easy. As discouraging as that should have been, I wasn't discouraged in the least. Knowing that I have Kathy praying and supporting me, even that she is just there to talk with once in a while, was incredibly encouraging. I was also reminded of part of a Bible verse I memorized a few months ago. Looking back now I realized God put that on my heart for this very reason. The verse stood out to me when I read it and for some reason I wanted to memorize it. The end of Isaiah 7:9- "if you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all."
A couple minutes later, the lead manager, Frank, steps in (who Kathy described as an "impatient" man, very true, he seems to run a short temper and you can't really tell if he's joking or not-definitely best to just take him seriously) and he's a little put off that I hadn't been working for the past 10 minutes. I had met Frank the day before as well and kinda knew that I shouldn't be getting on his bad side. In addition, it was the lunchtime rush so he was a bit more impatient than usual I think. As he shows me to the dishwashing area he starts talking to me about moving up to a cook sometime soon, I didn't have to ask. Later on in the night he stops by again and tells me that I'll most likely be moved up in the next week or so since he had a couple open spaces. Very exciting! Especially since I didn't really ask for a different job. Thank you God!
Finally, things went really well at work. I definitely like the people that I'm working with, they're all very helpful. A couple notables, Rainy a girl from Thailand, I enjoyed talking with her, she's pretty awesome. Ye, a girl from China, trained me in for cleaning the larger pots and whatnot. John, totally reminds me of the Russian guy from Ironman2, they could be twins... anyway, I guess he was the supervisor, he showed me around a bit and showed me where to put things away etc.
So yeah, God's really been helping me to be more outgoing and open for conversations. Be praying that He would continue to bless those friendships and that I'll continue to stand strong as a Christian and that I can live as an example of Christ.
A couple minutes later, the lead manager, Frank, steps in (who Kathy described as an "impatient" man, very true, he seems to run a short temper and you can't really tell if he's joking or not-definitely best to just take him seriously) and he's a little put off that I hadn't been working for the past 10 minutes. I had met Frank the day before as well and kinda knew that I shouldn't be getting on his bad side. In addition, it was the lunchtime rush so he was a bit more impatient than usual I think. As he shows me to the dishwashing area he starts talking to me about moving up to a cook sometime soon, I didn't have to ask. Later on in the night he stops by again and tells me that I'll most likely be moved up in the next week or so since he had a couple open spaces. Very exciting! Especially since I didn't really ask for a different job. Thank you God!
Finally, things went really well at work. I definitely like the people that I'm working with, they're all very helpful. A couple notables, Rainy a girl from Thailand, I enjoyed talking with her, she's pretty awesome. Ye, a girl from China, trained me in for cleaning the larger pots and whatnot. John, totally reminds me of the Russian guy from Ironman2, they could be twins... anyway, I guess he was the supervisor, he showed me around a bit and showed me where to put things away etc.
So yeah, God's really been helping me to be more outgoing and open for conversations. Be praying that He would continue to bless those friendships and that I'll continue to stand strong as a Christian and that I can live as an example of Christ.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
First Day
Whirlwind! Slept in my car got about 3-4 hours of sleep and got headed over to start up registration. Some paper work, photo for ID card which I will use for everything (including discounts!), and my uniform, chef's hat included! After that I had a little time before lunch and got to explore Mammoth Springs a little. Totally could have smacked an elk, but she had friends nearby and I didn't want to make a scene in the middle of the parking lot...
I was able to find our employee dining room(EDR) without too much hassle and actually without asking for directions... that only happened once. After that we had another training session, more like information on Xanterra, the company I work for, and Yellowstone National Park. 1 Hour drive from Mammoth Springs to Old Faithful and I had to figure out where to register. Xanterra is so thoughtful for their guests I think they forget about their employees, no signs or anything and they hide the important stuff in random places. I'm just complaining, but after "registering" at the wrong building and driving around the whole Old Faithful area twice, and then asking for directions...again, found it. My room is about the size of my bedroom at school. Except now I have to fit in 2 other roomates AND all of our stuff. Not to mention, 6 hours after checking in I have yet to meet them so I'm hardly settled in.
Ha, so for dinner I start wandering, I have a general idea where the EDR is and I end up following a couple guys who looked like they knew where they were going. Circled the outside of the building once. Front desk and asked for directions... circled the INSIDE of the building once. Finally, I end up in a gift shop and I ask one of the clerks there where the EDR is. Really nice older guy named Rick offered to show me, he had to go on break anyway. Turns out they hid this EDR in the basement of the building I crawled all over and around. Food was ok, but Rick was good company. Later I went over to the gift shop in the building I will be working in and met his wife, whom he told me to find. Nice people, I hope to see them around. Wandered around some more after dinner trying to find things before I needed to know where they were.
So far, it's been really hard for me to begin conversations with people but I've found that once that is started it's easy to be friendly. There are a lot more employees than I realized, and I know this isn't going to be easy on me at all. But God is still in control, I got nothin' to lose, and He HAS to have a reason for sending me here, cuz there is no way I would do this on my own.
I was able to find our employee dining room(EDR) without too much hassle and actually without asking for directions... that only happened once. After that we had another training session, more like information on Xanterra, the company I work for, and Yellowstone National Park. 1 Hour drive from Mammoth Springs to Old Faithful and I had to figure out where to register. Xanterra is so thoughtful for their guests I think they forget about their employees, no signs or anything and they hide the important stuff in random places. I'm just complaining, but after "registering" at the wrong building and driving around the whole Old Faithful area twice, and then asking for directions...again, found it. My room is about the size of my bedroom at school. Except now I have to fit in 2 other roomates AND all of our stuff. Not to mention, 6 hours after checking in I have yet to meet them so I'm hardly settled in.
Ha, so for dinner I start wandering, I have a general idea where the EDR is and I end up following a couple guys who looked like they knew where they were going. Circled the outside of the building once. Front desk and asked for directions... circled the INSIDE of the building once. Finally, I end up in a gift shop and I ask one of the clerks there where the EDR is. Really nice older guy named Rick offered to show me, he had to go on break anyway. Turns out they hid this EDR in the basement of the building I crawled all over and around. Food was ok, but Rick was good company. Later I went over to the gift shop in the building I will be working in and met his wife, whom he told me to find. Nice people, I hope to see them around. Wandered around some more after dinner trying to find things before I needed to know where they were.
So far, it's been really hard for me to begin conversations with people but I've found that once that is started it's easy to be friendly. There are a lot more employees than I realized, and I know this isn't going to be easy on me at all. But God is still in control, I got nothin' to lose, and He HAS to have a reason for sending me here, cuz there is no way I would do this on my own.
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