minnesota updates

I’m sitting in the church office, minding my own business, not doing a whole lot of anything. I really miss my little sister. At least I got to see my parents and Karen in June. I won’t get to see Amanda for another three weeks! She will be in Colorado and then North Dakota for a week. Lucky girl. I’ve always wanted to go to Colorado. She’ll be in Denver, within eyeshot of the Rockies. LUCKY. It is boiling up in this church. Hot as hell. Isn’t that an ironic description for the heat of a church building? I do believe so. Josh and Sam were here, but they had to run to Arts in the Park to pick up some stuff for Larry, so I’m just doing my own thing here. Minding my own business. Not doing a whole lot of anything. Learning Greek has been going pretty well. I’ve translated John 1.1-5, which is pretty cool. I’ve always been good at languages. I didn’t study once in my two Spanish classes in high school and scored at the top of the class both years. Actually, only one year. The second year I became extremely apathetic and didn’t do any homework. I knew it all, but I still got a pretty bad grade. I would have been at the top of the class if I had turned in my homework. Boy, I’m egotistical. Karen and I have been talking about marriage for a while. I called my ex-roommate John Thomason and we talked for a bit. He’s been married for about two years and has an eight-month baby girl named Kira. He is a stay-at-home dad and is loving every minute of it. I always knew he would be a good roommate. My roommate Sophomore year, Caleb, is in Basic Training right now. He joined the Army right after graduating college. It’s a dream of his, and I’m glad he’s pursuing it. Boy, it’s hot. I keep wiping sweat from my brow. I thought Minnesota would be cool all the time, since it’s far north. But we’ve been having scorching heat, exhausting humidity, tons of mosquitoes—“The national bird,” Nancy tells me—and storms nearly every day. Tornadoes have just missed Forest Lake three times this summer, and I drove through Hugo a few weeks ago and it still looks like a nightmare. The little girl who was hurt really bad is in horrible shape: she’s still in critical condition, and her brain function is just enough to keep her organs alive. The parents are okay, but they already lost their two-year-old boy due to drowning during the tornado, and now they have this to face. Sometimes life is cruel. I got a CD player for my car. That’s pretty exciting. I burned my sermons onto CD so I can listen to myself—not because I like my own voice (I don’t) but because it will help me critique myself. I only have one more sermon until I leave, and Larry wants me to come back full-time next summer. He has to run it by the elders. Okay. That’s enough rambling. Hope my loyal reader is doing well.