The character and nature of God.

We are learning about the character and nature of God this week. Our speaker is Larry Allen, who is also the school of the Bible teacher. He is amazing. When the class starts to get tired, he runs into walls. He gives us four breaks every session and talks like my dentist, Dr. Reynolds. His wife also made us cookies.

The first day we started talking about this, He stopped in the middle of teaching and just looked at me and smiled and asked me what my name was. After I told him, he said, "Julie, God just has such a wonderful plan for your life." and kept teaching.
This is like the third time someone has done this out of the blew here. It's kinda freaking me out a bit.

Anyways, it's been a really good week of learning, which is nice since I can't remember anything from last week. Here are some points that I picked up:
-We shouldn't just love God, but we should like Him too.
-Love is size independent.
-God has intellect and a will, and uses both for everything He does.
-To be emotionally in check in a relationship is to live in reality and not look to 25 years in the future with that person.
-It's better to walk in purity the first time around.
-Eph. 5:1-2
-The basis of choices we should make are not of emotions but the understanding of what is most valuable to do.
-Our will, the truth, and our intellect should drive and direct our emotions.
-When you choose an action, you also choose the consequence that is inseparably attached with the action.
-"God has grace, but not stupid grace."
-God judges the intention of the heart but the evaluation of love should be by commitment.
-God doesn't show partiality.
-The righeousness of God is the expression of the love of God. If God wasn't righteous, He would neither be loving.
-Jeremiah 31:3

So those are just the highlights of alot of good teaching we're receiving this week.

On a whole other scale, God is doing so much in alot of other areas as well.

Yesterday I got a vision during a short worship time. In my vision, I walked down an aisle and went into an elevator. When I started going up, I went past a vision i've had while being here(When I was dancing with Jesus.) and went to the next level. When we stopped there, everything was dull, faded, and gray. It looked kind of like a revolutionary war scene. Then God took my hand and we started to touch things, and when we did, color was restored to them. We started picking up dirt and ashes of the ground and forming them into things. In my vision, i wasn't crying, but very intently focused on what I was doing, and making sure I did it correctly.
-I feel like God is saying that He is going to give me the gift of making dull and lifeless things into something beautiful. But not just through cosmetology. I feel that He really will help me turn ashes into beauty.

God is also dealing with me in some other areas. Last night in dorm devotional, Allie Pile(one of my favorite people ever) gave a teaching on the romantic side of Jesus and the reason why we have a time of being single before we're ready to get married. It sucked hearing alot of what she had to say, but it was so good at the same time. She read something off the internet, and as soon as I get it i'll post the link here. Anyways, one of the reasons why we're supposed to be single now is to actually prepare ourselves for marriage. If we don't love ourselves, and don't love our Jesus, then how can we one day love a man? And if we aren't fufilled with Jesus now, when we get married, we will still be just as lonely as before.
I'm kind of rambling but so much was loaded into my brain that it's kind of hard to remember.

On a lighter note, I got my feathers for my peacock costume for the boo bash on Saturday night. Pretty excited.

I don't understand

why Nathan is singing I want a hippopotamus for Christmas.
He really likes it too. Gross.

Shelby and I went to the mall yesterday. It was pretty fun except all the girls here are tall and model skinny or scene girls. It was freaking me out.

My birthday dinner was pretty interesting. All the tables were split up so that sucked. And then some people left without paying, which wasn't very nice of them. But that's alright. It went by really really quickly.
But afterwards was nice. No wild boar hunting, because we don't have a gun. We talked to Wes about it at lunch and he said we need a gun.
I told my mom to send me a machete.

I'm probably going to sleep. Nathan's guitar playing is making me tired.

The teaching this week.

I haven't really updated on the teaching part of this week mostly because there wasn't much to update on.
There was a lady who spoke, who had alot of good things to say, but was kind of scatter brained so it was hard to understand. I didn't get much out of it just because I couldn't follow her.
But then yesterday, her 70 something year old father came and spoke. He was absolutely amazing. I love old people and he was just the best old man ever. He was really interesting. It was hard to kinda follow him because he thought we knew all this stuff from the other days but that's okay.
His daughter is the singer Twila Paris =]

Probably one of my favorite things that he talked about was that God doesn't test you over information you don't know. So he wont give you something you couldn't handle. I know that, but it's always good to hear it.

For fun things,
Shelby and Nathan discovered that yearbook site where you crop your face into old pictures. It was amazing.
Also, I got the entire class to make a mustache out of their pen like I always do. It was actually really amazing. I was doing it with K Money and Shelby and my leader is talking in the front. He completely stops talking about what he was and tells everyone to try to do the mustache thing, and then he attempts to do it. It was the best.

If you know me well, pray for patience. Some drama has been coming around lately. Not huge issues, but I guess everyone has finally gotten to know each other. Oh boy.

My wonderful 18th birthday.

My birthday was absolutely fantastic and way better then I had imagined it.

I woke up and didn't go to breakfast so that I could get ready. I ate breakfast on my bed in honor of traditions.
We had intercession at 8 which was really good. God spoke alot to our little group. And my one on one, Leah, bought me a balloon and flowers. It was super sweet.
So I get to class, and everyone sings me happy birthday and gives me hugs.
We do the teaching(Which I think ive gotten about two points out of, but that's another story). After we went on break, one of the leaders brings me a cupcake!
The whole class sings happy birthday again..then in Korean..then in Chinese..then in German..then in Portuguese..then in Spanish..
It was amazing. My school leader was dancing around in the front for me and everything.

After lunch some of the staff took me to dairy queen and bought me ice cream.
Then I opened all my presents in the nursery with my close friends. I got so many amazing gifts, especially my cheetah snuggie. It's the best thing I've ever seen.

We had more class time, and my other friend bought me another snuggie, which is pretty fabulous. Then dinner and work were pretty normal.
I got many phonecalls from friends which was nice.
We had dorm devo's, or dorm divas(which is what I call them). We talked about the power of the tounge. Each of us was instructed to bring an object from our rooms. Ofcourse I brought my snuggie.
Then we had to create a story about taming the tounge. I made this whole story about how my roomate smelled like a wild cheetah and helping her smell better with lotion and plugging my own nose with a close pin. It was amazing.
And after that I went outside and it started raining. It was just perfect.

Everyone made me feel so special. It was wonderful.

Looking back.

Today is my last day of being a "Kid". It's really weird for me to think about. I'm not freaking out as much as I thought I would, but nevertheless, I still am freaking out. I think everyone on the whole base knows it's my birthday tomorrow.
On Saturday, the girls want to take me on some hike thing. I told them I don't do hikes but if they wanted me to I would. I think we decided to go wild boar hunting at night instead. You might think I'm joking, but I'm not.

So I decided to write some of my favorite memories of my 17th year.
-My 17th birthday: I looked like a flapper.
-No pants Jane and running down her street at midnight.
-My trip to San Diego: The night I went with Suzanne and Jimmy to Amy's house.
-December 26th: The snow in front of this guy John's house.
-New Years Eve: Prancing around and doing fire dances with Sarah.
-The reactions I got my dying my hair brown.
-Cow tipping attempts with Ren and Nicole.
-Ren and I sneaking in and attacking Jonathan and Zach inside Jonathan's house.
-Ana's 18th birthday: Dancing with all my friends.
-Graduation.
-Fourth of July: Being so hyper with Kristin and Ana. FIREPOWER!
-The resort in the Philippines.
-Twilight princess nights with Justin and talking about ridiculous things.
-Last night: Running from Landon the boar and star tripping.

Probably there are a million more but those are my favorites.

I should probably explain why last night was one of the best night's I've ever had. Pretty much star tripping is this game where you look at a star, spin around 10 times, and then someone shines a flashlight in your face. When this happens, you automatically fall over. This game was super fun until Johannes, our fellow German teammate, told us about the stick game..
The stick game is where you hold up a stick and look at the very top of it. Then you spin around for 15 seconds, and after you do that you throw the stick on the ground and try to jump over it.
Shelby was the first person to do it. However instead of falling over or something like people usually do, she sprung forward on all fours and dove straight into the grass. I literally almost peed in my pants because I was laughing so hard.
Oh man. I'm laughing just thinking about it. I definitely have new games when I get home.

Oh and I'm a spider smasher because I killed what we think was a brown recluse in the girls bathroom this morning. Beastlyyyy.

Hey gurl.

So I lied, my birthday is on wednesday.
We'll be eating at Nick's on saturday night,
and Shelby is making me a cheesecake.

Last Saturday night we went to Bella's.
Or you could say we took a big trip to "Walmart".
Anyways, we watched the Proposal,
but Nathan, Hannah, Zach Apple, and I decided to leave like an hour earlier then everyone else. Somehow we got really lost in Tyler Texas and got back half an hour later then everyone else. Whoops..

Yesterday I had a really long talk with Shelby about life. I love that girl so much and she has helped me through alot these days. She is such an interesting person.
We both decided that we're scared to run at night because wild boars might chase us. Let me tell you, they are alive and well and WILL chase you around the base. I thought this was all a joke but it really isn't.

The weather is freezing again. Fanfreakingtastic.

We start a new topic today. But I don't know what it is.

Pretty much it's really hot.

This weather is possessed. More then El Paso.

The past two days have been pretty uneventful.
Yesterday was all base work day and I cleaned out gutters for five hours.
It wasn't that bad, just climbing on roofs and getting mud thrown on your face.
Half of my DTS had to actually get in the water and go "Cat tailing" where they get out all the bushes and plants growing in the lakes.
20 people+ freezing weather + Machetes = scary.

I got really homesick yesterday and a little today. I think it's just starting
to hit me that I'll be here for a long time.

We watched Kung Fu Panda and Reign of Fire last night.
Reign of fire was awful because I kept falling asleep and Nathan would tap me
and i would wake up to Dragons blowing fire on people. It wasn't so fun.

Today has been pretty relaxing honestly. I hate saturdays though because they have
brunch at ten, and by lunch time I'm already really hungry. It sucks.
Tonight we're going to this chic Bella's house I think.. Should be nice to get off the base.

I'm pretty excited about my birthday on Sunday.

Now I'm just sitting at the Sub, no one is here, and I'm in
awe of Chris's espresso making skills.
I wonder if I smell like coffee and popcorn everyday because of this. Thank
goodness for Marc Jacob's Daisy coming in!