Weekend Update

On Friday we were invited over to a brother's apartment for pizza. It was a real good time and somehow both Rebekah and I managed to avoid eating the pizza, cookies, and cake. Hurray for will power! The association was good but I have such mixed feelings over it.. On the one hand it is great to be around moral people who don't use profanity and yet on the other hand I just wish that somehow our conversations could be more spiritually upbuilding. We talked about food and cars and sports and weather and work; but, outside of the prayer for the food, Jehovah or Jesus didn't get mentioned. I'm willing to share the blame because though I really enjoy speaking about spiritual things I'm always hesitant to bring it up.

Another cause for worry is the teenage boys in our hall are all into violent activities - first person shooter video games and airsoft weapons are their favourite things it seems. It's pretty sad to me when they get together and they all bring out their guns. So I've been kicking myself about figuring out how to help them. I can relate to them; afterall, it wasn't all that long ago that me and my friends were playing early multi-player shooters like Duke Nukem 3D. Yet at the same time that seems so much more innocent than what is going on now. You take a game like "Medal of Honor" were you are playing the role of US military squadron during WWII walking around realistically shooting Germans. Then I think about how back in the 40's our brothers on both sides suffered considerably for not getting involved in warfare but now in the 21st century it is a fun diversion. And I can't help but to speculate about if/when the draft comes how will these young men be able to claim Christian neutrality and opposition to war if they regularly engage in warefare on their X-Box's or in airsoft arenas. I've requested to give an upcoming talk at the meeting on "violent video games" and I pray that I'll be able to help them out without coming down too harshly or alienating them. I can still remember when me and my friends had to sit through a local needs on violent video games and how unpleasant it was for us at the time.

On Saturday Mina went and stayed overnight with her aunt and uncle. Rebekah and I enjoyed a night alone with a DVD and crispy pork tacos with guacamole along with some tasty chocolate covered strawberries. Then on Sunday we went to the meeting and enjoyed a talk by a brother who had just moved away from our hall. This elder was such an asset to our hall it was so incredibly sad for him to leave. He is one of the few that really seemed to get "it" and when he spoke you could tell that he meant every word and the holy spirit was present. We enjoyed taking his family out to eat along with some other in our hall.

At the present I'm still trucking along on a pretty deep study of Nimrod and Babel and I'm looking forward to sharing that information with you when I'm done. In the meantime you'll have to settle for the mundane little bits of my life. But hey - at least I'm giving you pictures!