Saturday, May 17, 2008
Day two started out with an adventure. I woke up late to begin with and today I was going to venture off and take my first drive by myself. I was suppose to go to Ben’s at noon, but I didn’t get up until 11:30am. I sat and talked with Bekah for a little while and then headed over to Ben’s. What I didn’t realize was that I was headed the wrong way. The night before, Ben drew me a map so that I could just follow that. He didn’t include any directions as to which freeway direction I was suppose to take, so as I’m approaching the freeway, I get on the first entrance ramp, I-80 North which takes me to the I-15 North, which is the opposite direction on Ben’s house. I then remember Ben saying something about passing OVER the first freeway. I end up driving all the way to Ogden, a city about an hour away. Although it was a nice drive and amazing landscaping to look at, Ben and I were suppose to unload the trailer, return it and make it to Evan’s track meet by 2—and it was already 12:45pm, and I’m sitting in Ogden. I end up meeting Ben and Paul off the side of the freeway and we drive with Paul to Evan’s track meet—which by the way was the State meet. We ended up coming home and unloading the trailer but not returning it because of lack of time. Ben had to be at church by 3:30pm and it was already pushing 4pm. When Ben left for church I decided to go exploring and went to a little shopping area and decided to eat at a little hamburger place called Astro Burger. It was a Greek fast food place and was UH-MAZE-ING. As I was sitting there enjoying my delicious astro burger, a heavier man with white hair and a smile that’s corners reached his ears is all of the sudden asking me from a couple tables over where I was from. I looked around, maybe he was talking to someone else, but no, he was looking directly at me. I answer, “California.” And he continues to say, “Oh my goodness! What part of California?! And what brings you to Utah?” I smile and invite myself to his table; I’m so excited! A new person! Thoughts start racing through my head like “I wonder if he’s Mormon? How do I answer why I’m here to a Mormon? What if he’s a creeper?” I just go for it. I tell him the last two reasons why I moved first, “Well, I support myself, and cost of living is so much cheaper here. My boyfriend also lives here; he was the impulse.” And then I awkwardly say, “But…the main reason why I’m here is because of the awesome opportunity God has given me…to do ministry…um…but…I’m not…LDS…?” and then there’s a pause.
Oh no.
Am I about to be spit on or something?
The old man looks at me and with an outburst says, “Oh Goodness! Those Mormons are CRAZY! It’s a cult you know? I’m Greek Orthodox, and let me tell you…those Mormons…Weeiirrdd.”
I take a breath and smile wanting to laugh, but I felt it rude in case any Mormons were looking or listening in. We start talking about Utah and Steve gets a napkin and starts doodling on it all the cool places to go to and “There’s a Christian bookstore on 2100 South and 3000 East…” and draws it on there. He would ask me a question and then wouldn’t let me answer it, interrupting me with another question. This guy was crazy! I love it! He told me that if I ever needed anything, help with anything, or need help finding a place that sales _____” to give him a call and he gave me his number and also invited me to the “biggest bbq this state has—bigger than the Utah state fair” at his church. I just might go.
After talking with Steve, I left and went into Michael’s Arts and Crafts, browsed for about half an hour and ended up buying an easy toilet shaped suduko book. I had about 30 minutes to still kill before I headed to church so I went into Ross and got a few things and then met Ben at Draper at South Mountain Community Church, which is the name of his dad’s church (SMCC). The service was about forgiveness and I really liked it. Just being at church, which is now my church, with Ben, blew my mind. It’s so nice to be able to worship with Ben. There’s something so intimate about surrendering to God with the person you love. They played the song “Be Glorifed” and as I’m in mid-worship I really start questioned if everything that I do glorifies God and what that looks like. After church Ben and I go for coffee and we just sat outside in the beautiful weather and talked. Talked about everything. Including the thought I had about glorifying God. Ben used the example that when he’s playing guitar—he LOVES it. He loves it and he’s good at it. And he gives that love for it and the gratitude and everything about it to God. That’s how God is glorified in that. After a while we ran into Ian and his friend and we talked for about another half hour before we parted and decided to go grocery shopping. As we were walking into Smith’s Market at 11pm, both Ben and I acknowledged that this was our first time grocery shopping together. I was so excited! I have to be honest, I am SO thrilled to experience the new things that we get to do together that’s suppose to be normal. We still hug like it’s the first time in a while, and I hope we don’t become desensitized over the little things like that. We browsed the store and decided we’d get one more box of Mac and cheese and make it back at Ben’s—even though it was already midnight. We ended up boiling water and falling asleep and waking up to a loud boil and just driving back non-Mac and cheesed. I walked in around 2 and tripped over myself so many times and dropped a bad of groceries while I was at it too. The bags were so loud, I was so nervous I was going to wake Bekah and Nate up. Before the move, one of my worries about a decision I had to make was what church I was going to go to on the first Sunday I was here. I thought about what was going to happen afterwards, and all this crazy stuff. Michelle is probably dying to know what I decided, she was the one I was gabbing all about this too. I decided on going to church in the morning with Beckah and Nate to their church, K2. I’m pretty excited to get to hang out with Bekah and Nate and go to their church. Hopefully we’ll get to return that damn trailer tomorrow.
Day Two: Good.