Since Sunday...

God continues to bless our time here. Sunday we attended a local church called "Capital" which Amy and Bethany attend. It had great worship and an awesome sermon that really applied to our goal here: being "Name-bearers." In the afternoon, 3 of us attended a local ward which we plan to keep attending the next 3 Sundays. It was held inside the Institute for Religion, where we will be taking our classes. We attended the Sacrament meeting, Sunday School, and Relief Society (class for women only). We met some really great gals and everyone was very welcoming. We listened a lot and learned some interesting things, although the focus was on Father's Day (a fairly uncontroversial topic) =). I even connected with a gal about my age who is in the master's program in speech pathology, which was fun. We hope to see these people again at other events, such as a sports night on Wed or a hike on Friday that we were invited to.
Monday was very full and probably my biggest "learning" day yet. We took the Bridges Course at Salt Lake Theological Seminary from 9-5, which is a newly developed course about how to have effective ministry with LDS. I learned tons, mostly about how apologetic-style evangelism is primarily not fruitful with most LDS and that it is much better to understand them as individuals and appeal to their hunger for Christ and His grace through relational evangelism. I learned that praying with Mormons can be a powerful testimony to them. I also want to work on sharing my testimony as I walk through Bible verses, because it is much easier to listen to verses when they are presented in a story-format than in a debate over intreptation. There was much more, but those are the highlights. In the evening, we heard from a friend of Brad's who had left the church in her teen years but still had much appreciation for her heritage and the culture. In fact, she actually felt like she knew Jesus before she even left the church (and that it is possible to know Christ while part of the LDS church). This is something I have wondered about a lot, and so her perspective was very interesting and informative.
Today we went to the Institute in the morning to do more interviews, which was a fascinating time. Unfortunately, we only had an hour, but my group (Bethany and myself) had a really neat conversation with an LDS guy who is part of the Interfaith Concil at the University and thought our approach (interview) was really great and appreciated our desire to learn from the LDS directly. Another interesting side note is about one of our interview questions: What is your favorite hymn? Well, the majority of the people we've asked so far have named traditional Christian hymns that have, at some point, made it into the LDS hymnal...such as How Great Thou Art, Come Thou Fount, or Rock of Ages. Interesting, huh?
In the afternoon, we drove up to Brighton, first stopping at a lodge for their famous Hot Chocolate and a chance to sit down and discuss goals, expectations, strategy, etc. (Which we have meant to do for a week but haven't had time). We wrote out some things that should help us evaluate the internship once it is over. Afterwards, we drove up the ski lodge and lake at the top of the mountain, called Silver Lake. Thus, the pictures below. We stopped for about an hour of R&R, until it started to rain on us. We drove home in the pouring rain, singing along with Watermark's first CD. It was lots of fun!
Thanks for your continuing prayers, phone calls, and emails. I am so blessed to have your support behind me and the other gals. May the Lord bless you this week as you seek Him first and abide in His word.