Highlights of this month: TJ and I had our 4th anniversary on the 11th of October… we went to a little restaurant and had a lovely meal together (with Penny 🙂 TJ got me a new set of Pearls which are my first pearl earrings ever… what a guy!

We have been going through our Foundational bible teaching classes.  Everyone in the class took one of the lessons and taught it to the class, TJ and I taught lesson 11 which was on the plagues in Egypt and talking about how God is never changing.  It was fun to hear everyone in the class teach in their different styles and also to sit under the Foundational teaching was so good.  One of the main themes that seemed to impact me throughout these practice teaching lessons was the fact that God is faithful and never changes.  He has been showing me that in different ways including through this class, and it is such a good reminder to me who God is and what he promises, and the fact that I can stand on those promises without any doubt he’s going to do what he says he’s going to do.  God has really encouraged us with promises of supporters for us that we totally didn’t expect, and are excited to have them on our support team.

For some reason I came to the training center not really thinking I would make any really close friends that I may keep for the rest of my life.  God has definitely provided me with one of those “gem” kind of friends.  Her name is Elise Hundertmark.  She often hangs out with TJ and I or just me, and there is never a dull moment, there is much laughter which is so fun and is much needed after a hard year.  She challenges me, spends time with me, confides in me, and probably gets annoyed with me.  I know there’s so much more to learn about a friend, but she is such a blessing to me, and I’m so thankful for her!  (She is the one pictured with Ava)  Ava LOVES Elise, random girls will come to the door needing something or other, and Ava will ask them “Where E-yeese?”  They say “What?”  And I just smile.

Penny just started going into the nursery in the morning, she takes a long nap, and seems to really like the nursery.  I’m doing better with putting her in (I didn’t want to at first, but I feel good about it now).  Penny is also sitting up crawling, laughing, and interacting with us so much.  She is so fun, and we love her so much!  Ava has been talking so well, and we love listening to her learn how to form sentences and put words in the right place.  She won’t go to bed without praying and if we forget, she yells “PRAYYYY!”  She prays to God “Thank you dear God. For heaven. My mommy.  My daddy.  My Penny.  my wa-Der (her water that she happens to look at sitting by her bed at that exact moment)!  Thank you dear God!”  We love to listen to her pray, it’s great!  She usually says those things, but also other things like she prays for her cousins, and often thanks God for her friend Shaddai.

We started getting raw milk this month as well which is so fun and delicious, I have great plans of things to do with it.  So far we’ve just been drinking it which is great!

We are loving our church here (Graceland).  TJ is involved with the music team and being the music leader on Sunday mornings, he is enjoying that and of course learning how to work with new people and new songs  :).  We are enjoying getting to know people from our church.  There is a couple that we are getting to know, they’ve come to our house a couple times, and we are looking forward to getting to know them better, and they also have 2 young children.

With being so busy we are having a hard time being good communicators with everyone that we know.  Please pray for us to make the effort to do that, and that we’ll remember how important those people are to what we’re doing. (maybe that’s you! 🙂