It's so hard...

...to keep up with everything!!  Yesterday was a super nice day.  Nice weather, not too busy, and a lot of fun.  In the morning I had some discipleship time and then went with a couple other girls on an adventure to Target to get some random necessities and a bunch of food.  Nearby, we discovered pretty much the best frozen yogurt place ever.  It was way cute, and super tasty ans unique!  They gave out awesome spoons and I even had a conversation with some nice policemen about the unique flavor options.  It was so exciting that we thought it necessary to document with a few pictures :)

THEN, last night was the annual "scavenger hunt."  I was expecting a list with a bunch of random assignments all over Santa Monica, but we instead got into groups and received a list with the names of all of the staff people on it.  Our task was to find each person (who could be in a few various very busy places and in any type of disguise.)  It was surprisingly really difficult, but fun, and although my group didn't win we had a lot of fun and had quite a lot of exercise trying to run back to the church on time.   While the hunt was meant as a fun game it also had a message that the staff conveyed at the end.  There were many instances when we students walked past the staff without even noticing them, or had to do a double take and go back to them during our  hunt.  The staff explained how we kind of do that in life.  We pass by so many people without even noticing them, or thinking that they might want to hear the gospel.  We categorize people and have a hard time approaching a 'type' of people that we think will be non-receptive.  The staff explained the correlation much better than I can now, but it was definitely a really cool lesson.

Today after church we had some more evangelism training where we learned to use a tool called "perspective cards."  They are a deck of cards that deal with different categories such as 'Human Nature,' 'Who Jesus is,' and 'God's Nature' and each card has different opinions on each category.  We use them as a sort of multiple choice survey to get an idea of what people believe and where there heart is at.  After going through them for a little while we were sent out to practice using them.  My partner and I headed down near the ocean and got to go through some of the questions with a couple people.  The first person we talked to was an older man who was sitting on a bench waiting for his wife.  He turned out to be Jewish (non-messianic) but was open to answering some of the questions.  We didn't get to talk for long but we did find out that he is currently taking a class at the college that is going through the book of Genesis which we thought was really cool.  Hopefully we sparked some thought and he will continue searching.  His wife was much less receptive and they left shortly after she returned.  Next, we had quite and long and super interesting conversation with a Muslim couple from South Africa.  Most of the conversation we spent just listening to their answers to the questions and learning more about Muslim beliefs with which I'm not very familiar.  We discovered that they believed almost exactly like we do with one flaw: They don't believe that Jesus and God are one, or that Jesus is the sacrifice for our sins.  They relayed that they didn't think it was possible to be certain of an eternity in heaven, because it is determined by good acts rather than grace and they could only to their best by trying to act correctly.  Pretty much their motivation for doing good works is a fear of God and for their eternity.  That totally broke me, because grace is the best, most amazing and powerful part of the gospel.  We were actually able to kind of share the gospel with them, explain human's sinful nature and how the only way we can be saved is through Christ.  We told them about entrance to Heaven by God's love rather than our own works.  They listened to everything we said, but were still fairly steadfast in their beliefs.  I was really thankful just to have the opportunity to talk to them and hopefully our conversation will cause them to long for the certainty in their eternity that we have.

Dinner Time! :)

Tonight we don't really have an solid plans yet, but I'm hoping to get to bed pretty early, because my first day of real work with the kids starts tomorrow!