spring conferenxe..

So I just noticed that I typoed conference, but I thought it was funny so I left it. Anyways, this last weekend I spent up in Boulder at CU at Inter Varsity Christian Fellowship's Sprin Conference. I have had a couple people ask me how it was, and I am really not sure how to respond.

When we were getting ready to leave, Ryan was talking about what we could do with what we learned. And he said that when we go home and were asked how the conference was, we could say "oh it was good" or we could say "it was life changing". And that is really grinding on me. I would like to say that it was life changing, and I have no doubt that it could be, but it comes down to me. I feel very not ready to do the things that Jesus is asking me to do.

I could go ahead and talk about all the things I learned while we were there, but I don't think it would make much difference unless I continue to practice what it is that I learned. In order for it to truly be life changing, I have to decide to say yes to what I feel I am being called to. And that is a scary thing. I know what I want to do, but part of me is holding back and I know that these are not things that I can do half-heartedly.

So once again my faith comes down to my choice whether or not to follow Christ. I think the decision is pretty obvious, but that doesn't make it easy.

Those are my thoughts so far on Spring Conference. Little different than I was thinking they would be when I started typing them, but I think that pretty much defines what my weekend has left me with.

guitar...

Ok so there are alot of things I have to say today, and I was hainvg alot of trouble deciding which should go first so I decided that they should go chronologically.

On Friday I picked up my gorgeous new Ibanez Acoustic Electric guitar. It has to be the prettiest guitar I think I have ever seen. I would say this feeling is a very dimmed reflection of how parents always think their kids are the cutest, but if you thought my guitar wasn't pretty you would just be wrong. Ergo why it is a dimmed reflection. So off to the right you will see a picture of my guitar. The picture truly doesn't do it justice. It is far more pretty, particularly the sides and the back (which are a very cool blend of the colors you see on the head of the guitar (blackish and orangeish)). So I am very excited and if I hadn't been gone all weekend (see next blog) I would probably have blisters on every single one of my fingers on my left had and possibly on the right hand as well (from picking).

Cookies..

So I have been trying to not post too much because I have all these ideas for stuff I could blog on, and in an effort to not blog like 2 times a day I realized that I haven't blogged at all lol. So anyways, tonight (in like 20 mins) I am gonig to go pass out cookies to the Freshmen in the dorms. We are going to be doing it weekly from now on, and it is a blast.

The first time we went I was very hesitant about doing it because I had so much to do and was just generally not enthusiastic about going. I am not exactly what you might call a gifted evangelist. So I have a fear of going out and evangelizing because I don't think I am good at it. Well I can say now that I don't think I will miss it again unless I absolutely have to.

I think another thing I will say about it is that is has totally shattered my previous thoughts about outreach and evangelism. I think most of my old visions and thoughts on evangelism were centered around walking up to someone and saying "Hey do you know about Jesus?". Well fortunately for me that is not what it is always supposed to be like. Obviously that has its place, but to me it is so much more powerful to just love people with no strings attached.

Another thing I have envountered that I did not expect was a good response from people. I also had a vision in my head of just being flat out rejected and door slammed in face when doing outreach stuff. So it was completely foreign to me when people were actually enthusiastic about getting a cookie. And the thing that totally blew me away was that last week one of the guys we gave a cookie to said "Dude christians are awesome! You take out trash (FCA goes around and takes peoples trash out every week) and bring cookies!" That just amazed me since it seems so ingrained in me that people should be hating us and reacting negatively to what we are doing.

I think that taking cookies around has honestly had as much of an effect on me as it has on the freshmen we bring cookies to. It far more life giving to me to give cookies to people than I ever thought it could be.

I could probably go on for another page or so about cookie night, but I actually have to get going now so that I am not late to cookie night =D

something different...

So I just got back from worship =D There a few folks here at Mines that have decided that they really want to focus on unity between the christian groups on campus. So they have organized several inter-group worship/prayer nights. The first one was called this, the second one was called that, and this one was called something different. Hows that for creativity. I have been to all three so far, and they have all been slightly different, but all happened to be exactly what I needed at the time.

Tonight I think I just need to be at peace in God's presence. All of the loads of school are starting to pile up and I am beginning to become overwhelmed with all of the things that I have to do. I mean I could go on for about 5 minutes about all the different things I have to do in the next two weeks and it is really starting to weigh heavily on me.

So I think that tonight was just really essential for me to simply rest in the arms of my creator. I feel now that I can trust that he will get me through the next few months when all my eyes can see is heavy burdens and little sleep.

Moviegoing...

So I am at work with nothing to do. I tried writing this particular blog yesterday, but I forgot to save before I went to look at something else really quick and deleted my post. *sigh* oh well. I will just have to write it again.

Anyways, the reason for this post is to hopefully help you avoid seeing a movie that is not worth seeing. Couple weeks ago I went and saw Underworld Evolution with some friends. Afterwards I wrote a review on christiananswers.com This is how it went...

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Let me say up front (so that you don't have to read my whole review to get this) that I am old enough to be living out of the house and seeing whatever movies I want. For those of you who still live with your parents and have to fight to see R-rated movies, save your breath. If you ever get exceptions (your parents let you watch R-rated movies) save those exceptions for much better movies. This one isn't worth it. <-- I'm guessing none of you have this problem, but I thought it was kinda a funny thought anyways

About the movie, let me first say that I loved Underworld. That movie had action and a good plot in a very classy way. Unfortunately, that tradition was not continued it its sequel. Underworld: Evolution was grossly overdone. There were two very gratuitous sex scenes. And I'm talking gratiutous. For those of you who have seen Matrix: Reloaded - one of the scenes was much like that except that the camera wasn't zoomed out. The other scene in Underworld: Evolution had pretty much full nudity and was just kinda sickening.

But wait there's more. The gore in this movie was just excessive. Up until last night I could say with pretty solid confidence that Passion of the Christ was the goriest movie I had seen. I can still say that, but not with as much confidence. I think that the thing that bugged me the most about all the sex and gore was that it was completely unecessary. There are movies that I have seen that need gore and sex to get the story across - Passion needs gore to get its point across; and Troy kinda needs one sex scene (only one mind) to create the problems with Helen of Troy. Underword: Evolution, however, did not need them. It could have been extremely well done like its predecessor, and done just as well without the gore and sex.

I think the only reason I stayed through the whole movie was so that I could with certainty say that I had watched the whole movie, and also say with certainty that there wasn't much at the end that redeemed the gore and sex. I had high expectations of this movie, and I am sorry to say none of them were met. Avoid this one and go rent Underworld.

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I would also like to add to that what one of the other reviews said: "It is a cheap, degrading, tacky, predictable, and poorly-made sequel to a much better movie."

Hopefully this will help you stay away from a not so good movie. Anyways, that's all for now.