Praise!!

This has been a great week! I've been practicing with the Tec team everyday this week and was able to go and watch them play last night and the dominated! We've been planning a social night for the team for next week. We were trying to figure out a way to get everyone together and have a good time but at the same time be purposeful in trying to know each other better. The captain and I were talking and she realized that she didn't know very much about a lot of her teammates so we decided to have do some kind of presentation of each person's basketball history. It could be from when they're little or just the last couple years of playing. It's going to be all kinds of ridiculous pictures and laughing. They also have the choice of sharing about some kind of Christmas tradition that they do with their family. It's important they know their teammates really well so I'm excited to see how it turns out.

I'm giving a team talk on Monday to the basketball team. The topic that I'm doing is "Valuing your teammates." It's about making your teammates better both on and off the court, learning about what they value, what they're good at and communicating to them how you recognize their strengths and vaules so it builds trust, and making yourself better so it ultimately will better your team. I'm a little bit nervous to give the talk because I'm not huge on public speaking (even if my audience is 12 people.) Please be praying for this since it's my first real talk with the teams and it's in Spanish.

I went to my first of the volleyball practices yesterday and got to meet the team and listened to my co-worker give the team talk. That's going to be a fun and challenging group of girls.

A big praise that happened yesterday... we had a dinner and movie night with the UDLAP soccer team over at our team leader's house. In Mexico, you never really know if anyone is going to show up to events (even if they say they will), or if they're going to bring other people, you just never know so we didn't know what to expect. The time came yesterday when we were supposed to have our team night and 4 girls had shown up. A little while later, about 10 more show. So now we have almost the whole team and we start eating dinner. Part way through dinner we start talking about movies and then Passion of the Christ comes up. I told them we should watch it sometime as a team because I've never seen it. Some of them said, "yes" and some said, "no." That led to talking about the Bible (especially Revelation, which, without fail, brings up a lot of questions). The girls were asking questions about Genesis, the parables, Icthus fish, and the metaphores in the Bible. About 5 of them talked about how they've read it before but don't really understand it or just like the stories in it but nothing else. Some said they've never read it before... with that, I asked them if they want to go through it together. All of them that I was talking to (about 5 girls) said they want to!!! There might be a Bible study starting with the soccer team!! Praise Jesus!!! At the beginning of the night we didn't even know if anyone was coming... by the end of the night, we have a potential Bible study started and were able to play X-Box Kinect dance battles. It was a great night!!

My friend Katie got here safe and sound :) She'll be working with UDLAP soccer and UMAD basketball and I'm REALLY excited that she's here!

My most recent prayer request for myself has been that I don't want to live the stereotypical "Christian life" that everyone has in their minds as boring, sheltered, secure. I'm praying that God helps me live the life that He wants me to live that He designed full of adventure, unknown, trials, faith, and mystery. I would love for you to pray that with me. I don't know if my mom wants you to because that might mean a heartattack for her because she's a worrier, but you can pray for her too.

I hope you're all GREAT! Thank you again for all the support and prayers!