...at PTP.

One of my favorite places in the U.S.A is The Great Smokey Mountains! I don't know the exact reason, it may be because I have such found childhood memories here, or perhaps the fun I had here at CYC in my "youth group" days, or perhaps it is the general beauty of God's creation here. What ever the reasons, I love it here. This weekend I got the chance to come to my favorite U.S. location for one of my favorite events: PTP (Polishing the Pulpit)! This seminar goes for a whole week, however it has a sort of "kick-off" weekend. Alisha and I got the chance to go this year and it has been wonderful! It is full of so many wonderful lessons, and you often find yourself in the predicament of wanting to go to more than one that are going on at the same time. That's when you have to remember that the lessons are begin recorded and you can go and buy them on a individual basis or order the whole set (which is a little bit pricey for a college student), however luckily for me our elder-ship purchases the whole set for our congregation library. So I can always go back and listen to the lessons that i did not go to (as long as someone else is not borrowing it). All in all it is a wonderful weekend that I believe every member of the Church would enjoy. 

     An additional bonus of this weekend is the fellowship! You get to see people you normally don't get to see, it is sometimes hard to find them, but is so great when you do. You meet new people, and learn about events going on in other congregations around the country. It is a sweet reminder that we are not alone in this world! For me PTP can be described by Acts 2:42 ~And they devoted themselves to the apostle's teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.(ESV)~ The context of this verse is the the day of Pentecost after the 3,000 souls were saved. For those of the Body who have experienced this event, does this verse not fit perfectly! It is Christians coming together to devote themselves to listening to lessons about God's word, spending time with each other (both at the convention center and around the town) and sharing time in worship the LORD God with one another (which we will get to do in the morning). I hope to get the chance to come back and experience this Acts 2 weekend next year, and get the opportunity to experience other Acts 2 weekends in the near future!

****I got the picture from Google.com and I do not claim ownership of it. There is no copy write infringement was intended. If you would like more information about Polishing the Pulpit please go to www.polishingthepulpit.com

...and Nancy Drew.

Today, Alisha and I went to the library. I wanted to go to find The Hunger Games, but they did not have it. So I began looking around and found my way to the Nancy Drew section. Now I am sure that you are expecting some tale of early childhood reading, but alas that is not the case. I actually hated reading when I was a kid. I only grew to like it when i was in Jr. High, so I have no childhood story about my favorite Nancy Drew story. However in the recent years i have been on a mission to collect the original stories. At the Library they have the 75th anniversary printing of some of the stories. When reading the back of the books i noticed they talked about "She's back to her original self" (or something to that effect). and i became curious about what that meant about my collection on yellow books. Turns out that the "famous" yellow spines are not the original texts. The original stories were published in the 1930's and were revamped in 1959 to be more relative to the new generation. I found this information on the website linked on this blog. I particularly want ya'll to read the part about Carolyn Keene. It's fascinating! :-)
http://www.nancydrewsleuth.com/history.html