More pictures for you to see... These ones are of the cafe, my new haircut, and a few more of my slightly more finished bedroom. Enjoy :)
New Dwelling and Locks

I wish there were words for those moments when God is so close it feels like you can feel the hair on His arm as it wraps around you and then all of a sudden He just pulls you in close and holds you so tight that you feel like you almost can't breathe but wouldn't want to be anywhere else. That is the moment when I feel like the rocks and trees... my every pore wants to cry out. I am crying out. If you could see an aura...

Even though, I don't have all that I miss and even though my heart is breaking for so many things and people and I am homesick beyond all belief... He is soooo close. It is so sweet.

It makes me desparate for them to know. Not to know with head knowledge... but to KNOW. How can that not be the purpose for everything I am doing here? For them to KNOW Him.

But I don't even know Him the way I should... the way I want to, the way I need to. O God... man... to Know you like that... Father, be that close, that intimate to my thoughts, my breath, my heart. I want to want you.

This weekend was beautiful. I will post a link to a few pictures later but for now, let me just tell you about it. We, we being the ladies of the church, went up north to Mitz's cabin (lodge) in the woods and mountains. We stayed there overnight Friday night and throughout the day on Saturday. We worked on some projects and just hung out. A lot of music - I won a Hillsong cd as a doorprize :), prayer, and listening. And a BUTTLOAD OF AMAZING FOOD. Like... wow. Cafe Rio made by Mitz. God didn't give me any new "wow" moments or epiphanies but He was there and He was amazing.

Church yesterday was great. Pastor Rodney was speaking out of 1 Peter 1:6-9 and used a TON of scriptures from other books to go along with it. I really enjoy sitting under his sermons.

Pray for my CSM (boss) who hopefully will be coming into the cafe today or tomorrow. Pray for the others who have been coming in... we just had one girl who left after a long conversation with two of our kids. Very cool. Last night I had the chance to just listen to a friend while they let out some stuff that they had been dealing with. This person really needed to talk and it was a good opportunity for me to learn to listen.

Learning to listen is not easy... I suck at it.

I figured you might like some pictures to look at so here ya go. These are from moving in, Salt Lake, a concert, and a bonfire/stargazing escapade on the mountain, dancing with my closest friends and my last adventures in Texas. Enjoy! There are four separate albums there, so take a few minutes to look at 'em. If you are already on facebook, then you can feel free to leave comments.

Mountain Pictures SLC Concert and Moving In The Last Dance TX adventures

We went up to the top of the mountain in the back of Chip's truck last night and just went stargazing, which was a little hard to do because the moon was HUGE and like a brillant spotlight in our faces, but beautiful nonetheless. We just hung out for awhile and shared some crazy stories. One thing that made me sad was that a lot of my stories were not shareable... but that's another story. Anyway, I loved the view. Amazing. And although I am feeling a little fragile today from all of the jarring around in the truck (I worked a full day before going up the mountain with everyone), I LOVED it. So much fun. Whenever any of you visit, we must go. :)

I can't even begin to express how much I miss you all during moments like that. Moments when things are hard or when they are just right. Those are the moments that I want to share with all of you and it is hard to do by just posting and phone calls and facebook and email and etc. Not nearly the same and that kills me.

Good news - one of the guys that I spoke of previously came in to the cafe yesterday and hung out with the guys for awhile. Just the guys. Which was very very good for him. :)

Today I am hoping to drop off my info and app for subbing and I also hope to hear something about whether or not someone can cover my shift for Saturday at Walmart so that I can attend the Ladies Retreat from church.

I love you all. Praying for everyone still without power.

Please pray for everyone in the path of the hurricane and know that we are praying for all of you.

Kate called me out on something and she was completely right. I need to learn to listen. Ministry here will be completely ineffective and remaining in touch with friends and family in Texas and Maine and Ohio and various other places is impossible unless I learn to listen. God and I had a long time this morning going over this. I finally asked Him to bind my tongue unless He was speaking and to help me to learn to listen. Please be patient with me. I am not going to be a wise sage with years of listening experience overnight, but maybe... just maybe He can teach me to hear the cries of hearts and the message of words without my own butting in and messing up the communication.

Praying for you all. I love you.

Time for an update. Things are going well at the moment. I have had the opportunity to talk to one particular guy a couple of times now and carefully steering the conversation away from me and toward Christ. (He was slightly more interested in the first topic at first but later warmed up to talking more about Christ.)I got to learn a lot of cool things about him; which helped to open doors to communicate even more about Christ.
We have also had another guy come by and speak to us several times while we have been out on campus this week and we ran into him again last night. Pray that God will continue to cause him to be intrigued by us and desire to talk. Pray that he has the boldness to come into the cafe.
The general rule of thumb is that we don't bring anything up about faith at the cafe. It is up to the customers, which surprisingly enough, usually does not take long. Most people if they are brave enough to come into the cafe are also willing to discuss their faith and beliefs and to ask questions.
There has been a new "campaign" that we started for club rush (somewhat like LU's STOMP on the mall) where all of the clubs have a booth and info about their clubs and sign up sheets. Well for our table, we had a sign that Gareth painted that said "Questions ROK" - with a double meaning going on since ROK can mean "are ok" and can also spell out "ROK" for "Rock" - Solid Rock... we gave out free coupons for either 50cents off a food or drink item or a free small italian creme soda. On the back of each coupon I put questions that asked people to think about what they believe about life and God. Very cool. There have been a TON of new people coming in this week because of that, so we were pretty excited.
Also pray for one girl who has hung out with us quite a bit. She is amazing. :)
God is doing some great stuff with the people. I find myself not getting quite as homesick as long as I have people to talk to about Him. It is when I am alone at night at bedtime or those really slow times during the day that I hurt because I miss all of you so much. I never realized that moving away from my best friend and "TX family" would be so hard. Well, maybe I did expect it but I didn't realize how much it would hurt.
Anyway, work is going alright and I should be able to have something solid for subbing as of next week. Monday we are going to drop off my application and have my background test completed and then I already have two different teachers who are vying for my help. That is pretty exciting! Walmart is interesting. Ask me about the belt buckle that I saw yesterday. ;)
OHH... I almost forgot: LINDSAY UPDATE: Praise God for all of your prayers because He has been so amazingly faithful for her healing. So much so that she is getting out of the hospital today and headed to the Ronald McDonald House still there in NY and will be headed back to Maine "HOPEFULLY" by next Tuesday. She will be out of school for about 12 weeks and has to have physical therapy twice a week for six weeks. She will probably have a tutor to help her stay caught up in her classes so she can graduate on time this spring. Thank you sooooo much for your prayers. Please continue to pray for her and my family. So very very needed. Continue to check out the website that I linked previously and to sign her guestbook if you can. She reads those messages twice a day and from what she has said, they really really help with encouragement. Leave lots of verses. Once again, the link is: Lindsay's Website

Dios Te Bendiga.

Good news! The surgery went well and Lindsay is in recovery. Dad said that she is semi-concious. If you would like to send her a card, email me and I'll give you the address. My parents are staying at the Ronald McDonald house there in town where the hospital is so that they can be close by. All mail would go to the RDH and then from there mis padres will take it to Linds. Thank you so much for your prayers. Please continue to pray, she still needs it. (felizalba@gmail.com)

As for things here, they are going alright. I am LOVING my bedroom. (pictures to come eventually) :) And church was pretty cool yesterday. I will have to give you an abbreviated version of my notes from the sermon. I started working at the local Walmart and found a couple of Christians - I was VERY excited about that. Spent a lot of time working in the coffee shop and around the college house. We had the board of directors from the ministry here this past weekend so that was pretty exciting. I got a lot of cafe (coffee shop) hours in while everyone else was busy preparing - so I covered their shifts. Very cool.

I haven't really had much opportunity yet to talk to anyone but I am not worried - I am here for the long-haul, no matter how homesick for Tecsas I get/am. There will be plenty of time to talk.

Keep praying!!!!!! If you would like more detailed updates then email me and I will try to put together a specific prayer/support email to send out monthly or maybe bimonthly for you to check out. There are some things that I won't be able to talk about in the blog posts just because it is a public communication, but I can send a letter/email with more detail that is a bit more private. And for the record, more often than not, unless it is a member of the ministry here or someone that would be known to most of my readers, I will use fake names just to keep it safer for everyone. (felizalba@gmail.com)