It's been a long time...

Wow. I almost forgot I even had this thing! So much has happened since my last post. I can't even believe I was flying just a few years ago. Time has went so fast, I am amazed I will be a senior in college this year! I'm so excited and so nervous all at the same time. As I look back over these last couple of years, a few words come to mind: growth, learning, trials, and dependence. The amount of personal growth since I have been at LeTourneau is enormous. The girl who came freshman year has been shaped and molded into many different things. I thought when I came here that I understood life. I thought I had things figured out: major, occupation, relationships with both sexes. Truth is, I was clueless. I felt like I ate so many of my words I had spoken in my high school days. My life was seriously turned for a loop in so many different ways. Lisa's death was hard on all our family. It was the first real loss I think we felt. It brought our families closer in some sense, though we miss her terribly. Sometimes I think about Lisa. God was probably so pleased with her. She understood something that I still don't get at times. She was sold out for God. She loved him with all her heart and everything she did and said reflected a desire to share the love of God. She understood the purpose as a daughter of Christ, to be filled with him, to pour out onto others, and to spread the word of God's excellencies. I hope that one day, I can truly understand that and live my life in the same sense as Lisa, as wanting nothing more than to be with her Savior.

Another large change in my life came from dating Dave. I never had a boyfriend until him, and it wasn't necessarily the easiest first one. Dave opened my eyes to many things. I have grown so much because of him; even if it meant some heart aches along the way, I would never trade one day of my relationship with him. He has helped me see my own beauty, both inside and out. He has shown me a different perspective of following Jesus that I had never been exposed to before and encouraged me to dig deeper. He has helped me become a stronger woman and fight against things that aren't good for my life, like drinking for example. He has also helped encourage me to stand up for myself. I have become more confident and more assertive with Dave's help (and most certainly God as well!).

When I went on spring break to South Padre Island, we had the chance to talk to people about life. This place was such a party scene, it was as if it was straight out of MTV. I have never seen so many drunk people in the same area in my life. I must admit that at first I had no idea why I was going on this trip. I thought to myself, I kind of want to be drinking, wearing my bikini, and dancing on the beach with those people. Boy did God change my thinking on that one! By the end of the week, I was so burdened for these college students. So many of them spent the entire week drunk. One girl said, "You avoid hangovers by getting drunk as soon as you wake up and feel somewhat sober. At the end of the week, you just lay in your room with all the lights off for awhile and eventually feel better." People were giving themselves away, women were getting raped because they were throwing themselves at guys and entering into wet t-shirt contests. Girls were flashing guys in cars and on the beach only to get a pair of 10 cent, plastic beads that will eventually be thrown away. Guys were waking up without their wallets because they were so high on ecstasy the night before, they lost everything, and people had no other goal other than to get completely wasted and party til they don't remember. It sickened me. We were up crazy hours giving people rides, telling them we loved them and God loved them. I got to talk to some girls about the responsibility we women have to be classy women and not make it so easy for a guy to take advantage of us. This girl had gotten raped right after her wet t-shirt contest and I know in my heart that she was not in the slightest innocent. Don't get me wrong, a man should never ever take something that doesn't belong to him, but if a girl is waving it in front of his face, how much more difficult is it for a guy to leave it alone. It saddened me so much because I know why that girl did what she did. She so craved being desired that she put herself on a stage to show off her body. If only she understood that her beauty and desirability didn't come from her body alone and that she will get attention without seducing a guy, she never would have gotten raped or even entered into the contest. God has really been stirring in my heart a passion for women. Sophomore year, I helped out at this event called The Cry. It was all about raising awareness for sex trafficking. I acted as a girl in a hostel and shared a testimony from a girl in the States. It was an extremely sad and gut wrenching story about a girl who was gang raped and sold on Craig's list for sex. This event started to spur me to help women out, but I don't want to put all the blame on the men. In some situations, like the girl who's testimony I gave, men just take advantage just to be sick perverts, but other situations, women flaunt themselves, wanting to be sought after sexually but then if the guy gets too close to actually doing something about it, they try to get out of it and "get raped." What would happen if all the women who really just wanted to be desired would choose other ways to do it? If girls stopped putting all their value in what they look like and what they think is sexy, guys would start desiring other traits. I just want to tell these girls that they won't go unnoticed! I hope God can use my heart for these women in some way.

There is so much else I'm seeking to know too, like how to tell the difference between the Spirit's prompting and my own thoughts, and what is truth? What is the right interpretation of the Bible? What is truth in situations? How do I take a situation and decipher through my opinions, the opinion of the other person I am arguing with, the opinions of a third party, and the truth/desires God has in store? I want to act in a way that is pleasing to the Lord and a way that reflects him. I don't mind that I won't necessarily be friends with everyone, but I want to be sure that I don't just disregard someone I should be helping get better in a spiritual sense. How do I choose between being close friends with someone and doing the right thing for her and me spiritually? I found that I didn't know all the deepness of hurts in my friend's life, and because of that, she ended up being on a different page than I was in certain areas. So, do I stay friends with her? My tendency is to pull away from the situation. It's hard. I don't want to step in and take over God's position of speaking into her life but I don't want to be negligent to someone I was really close with. What happens when she is disliked by my other friends? Like she doesn't treat some of them very well. Do you know how hard it is to be friends with people who hate each other? It is a constant battle of who I am going to hang out with, when all I really wanted was to be with both. I'm struggling with girl friends in college...that's never been a struggle for me in the past, but for some reason, I haven't maintained a close friend. Maybe it's me and I think too much. Maybe it's just bad luck. Maybe I have terrible judgement. Maybe God is just using this time to get to me and make me depend on him. I don't really know but I sure do want to figure it all out.

Anyway, I am rambling now..I will be done for tonight. Pray for me, whoever reads this, that I can hear the Holy Spirit God has promised us and that I know what God wants me to do in my difficult situations. Pray I do what is right and not what I feel. Pray that I'll love and forgive and that the people I love would be able to as well. It's almost two now, so I'm going to leave. Goodnight world. Thank you, God, for having new mercies every morning. I'm very much looking forward to them tomorrow. :)

FLYING!!

Guess what?! I went flying on Saturday! I have flight blocks scheduled for every week on Wednesdays and Saturdays and last Wednesday I wasn't able to go up in the plane. But on Saturday, I got the chance to go up! It was really cool...my instructor and I got in the plane and he told me how to do everything. Then he let me taxi out to the runway which was really weird at first because in planes you steer with your feet, so it took a little to get used to. But it was still alot of fun! Then it was time for takeoff and he showed me how to do everything and took off in the plane. Pretty much right after we got off the ground, he gave the controls over to me! I was really nervous before but once we were actually up there and I got the feel for it, it wasn't bad at all! So we get up to about 2500 feet and I got to do straight and level flight, turns, climbs, and descents; it was so much fun! But, the weather was cloudy and windy on Saturday and boy did I feel every gust of wind :) It was really turbulent and the plane was bouncing around like crazy! Towards the end of the flight, I was feeling a little queezy, but so was my instructor! But the clouds looked so cool! There was one point where I was flying right above a cloud and through layers of clouds and it was SO beautiful! It was so cool to fly over those..I can't even describe it to you! We also landed at another airport and my instructor did the landing. But after we landed, he had me taxi to the end of the runway and gave me the choice of whether or not I wanted to take off. I was all over that! :) So, I pushed the throttle to full power and we started to roll down the runway and all of a sudden we were off the ground and climbing! I took off and was flying the plane! It was an awesome feeling! I couldn't believe while I was up in the sky that I was flying a plane! It was a great experience and definitely made me more excited to learn how to fly!

So, with that, I just want to say thank you to all of you, for praying and supporting me! I love you all so so so much and I wouldn't be able to do any of this without ya'll! I love you and soon I will be able to take you guys up in a plane!! :) Love you!!!!!!!

Guess what?!?! I'm posting another one and it hasn't even been a full week:) haha I just wanted to fill ya'll in on more that has been going on here (and yes, I will come home saying ya'll..I can't help it :p) On Holloween, Morgan and I bought tshirts that glow in the dark with pumpkin faces on them and we wore them all day! It was awesome matching my roomie! lol we had lots of fun taking pictures and turning off the lights to watch our shirts glow..haha! We also went to a concert at the Belcher center (which is where we have chapel on MWF) and it was really fun! At first it was kind of boring because everyone was just sitting in their seats, but then me, Abby, Karis, and Moe decided to run down in front of the stage and start jumpin around....lots of other students followed us then and were jumping around! It made the concert a lot better;) Except for this one moment when some guys were "moshing" and I got slammed into the stage...but other than that, it was great!! Also, on Tuesday night, intramurals for soccer started; we had our first game and we lost 4-0, but the team we played had nine and we only had seven, so it wasn't that bad....plus our floor has very few athletic girls so it's kinda difficult to win:) haha I think that's what makes it so much fun! But anyway, I was running a lot and playing as hard as I could and by halftime, I was SO tired! lol I seriously couldn't move. Today, I am pretty sore from playing.....I think I need to work out more often :p but it's a lot of fun and I'm glad I'm playing!

Another thing that is starting is me and my RA are accountability partners and we are going to meet once a week and go through the Bible. I'm really excited to do that because I love Angela(RA)! She is tons of fun and it will be good to have an upperclassman to talk with! So, if you could just keep us in your prayers that would be great!!

Well, that's all for today! I love you all and hope you are having fabulous days and weeks!
Love,
Mo

Hey everyone....I know, I know..it's been way too long! I have had multiple people tell me to post on here so here you go!!! I will try and keep this more updated I promise:) These past couple of weeks have been crazy. Some weeks are long and others seem to fly by! I have caught up completely on my homework that I missed which is great, but school is pretty overwhelming right now. Most of my classes are giving lots of homework and there are so many things I would rather do than homework:) So, if you think about it, prayer would be good for me!

Things with the girls on my floor are going great! I have had so much fun getting to know the girls! We have done a lot of random fun things like making pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, going to the Longview High School football game, bowling, staying up all night, and lots of other fun stuff! :) They are all really great! Me and Morgan decided to change our room around again and it is so awesome! I think this will be the last time we move it around because we love it so much! We put both our beds on lofts and put them next to each other. It's like we have one big bed and it's awesome! Underneath our beds we put our desks and chair and we hung sheets around the two sides so it's like our own little fort!! :) It is pretty sweet and all the other girls are jealous haha...I know there's lots more I want to tell you, but that would require me to write a book and I'm not feelin up to that this afternoon! lol but I hope you all are happy that I finally wrote on here!

I just want you all to know how desperately I love and miss each one of you. It was such a blessing in disguise to come home because the situation was horrible but I got to see all of you and hug you. You all have been so wonderful to me and I love you very much. I could not have been blessed with better family and friends...you are incredible!

Well, thats all for now. I have to go do some homework so I will hopefully get on here again soon! I love you all and thanks for all your prayers and emails and cards! It means so much to me. I love you!
~Mo

Here Comes a Long One! :)

Hey everybody~
I realize that I haven't written on here in about two weeks so I apologize! So much has happened these past couple of weeks that I'm sure this post is going to be long:) Lets see....where to start?..
Well, first of all, classes are still going really well for me. I'm keeping my grades up in almost all of them and so far have been comprehending a lot! The flight lab I'm in is going ok. It's probably my hardest and most important class right now. I am needing lots of prayer for that! Especially the conviction to go and practice (which my parents have already talked with me bout that haha). I had my first big test in my flight science class and was pretty nervous BUT I got an 82% on the test! I was really excited because one of my friends, Jessie, told me that I scored higher than other kids who already have their license! That made me feel pretty good, I'm not gonna lie:) So, yea, school work is going pretty good so far!!

Intramural football has started up and our floor is participating...it is so much fun! We play flag football and currently my position is wide receiver! lol it's very entertaining to watch some of these girls play because half of them have no idea what they are doing! We have had two games so far and unfortunately lost them both, but we're having a great time playing! It's also been a great way for me to get to know some of the girls on my floor better. Because of how our floor is set up, it's hard to get to know the girls in some of the other suites because I don't see them as often. But now that football has started up, we have been practicing and playing together which is so much fun! Oh! And I scored a touchdown:) hehe it was great

This week has been really great in that I am getting to know the girls in my suite a lot better! One girl, Amanda, and I had a long talk last night and just shared alot about eachother and I'm so happy we did because I finally have gotten to see more of who she is! Also, we as a suite have done a lot more with each other. Last week we went out and took some pictures and we all dressed alike and took some fun pics! I'll post some of them up so you can see them. It was a lot of fun!

This past weekend, my cornerstones group went on a little retreat for a night to a campground in Arkansas. We camped out for the night and just relaxed! It was a nice break from school! There is this river that goes through the campground so on Saturday we went swimming....it was SO COLD! The water was freezing and after awhile you got numb so you couldn't really feel it. haha you looked around and everyone in our group was just sitting still and shivering! It was really funny:) We had a good time but I was glad to come back to campus the next night!

Every Sunday night we have this thing called Prayer and Praise. Students go into this smaller chapel and we basically sing and pray and it is one of my favorite parts of the week! I cannot express to you how incredible it is to be surrounded by so many who share the same faith as you. I know we experience this in church, but its so encouraging to have all these kids my age truly seeking the Lord. It's been great too, to break off into groups for prayer time because we can all just share what is going on with each other and sometimes we don't even know the people in our group but since we all share Christ in common, it doesn't matter. We can just put everything out there and it's ok. I absolutely love it and just wanted to share that with you all! :) God is good and I know this is where he wants me right now. I really enjoy this school! But don't worry because I'm not gonna live in Texas:) When I say I like the school, the state is not implied lol and therefore you won't have to worry about me liking it so much here that after school I will live here...thats definately not the case! haha

So there are definately some cultural differences here in Texas that I've noticed. For example, Texans call pop "Cokes"...it's really weird and I can't figure out how they know when they are talking about a coca-cola or pop because its the same word! Strange! Also, they call shopping carts buggies! I told Morgan..."that's what the amish drive!" :) haha Oh and..you know how Florida doesn't have good grass? Well Texas' grass is just like Floridas! I'm still trying to figure out why Texans like their state so much:) Oh and I was driving somewhere the other day and saw a sign along the road that said "Don't mess with Texas." This sign kind of looked like a speed limit sign with the white background, black letters kind of thing...I mean did the gov. people of Longview decide to put that up or what?! Crazy Texans! haha Well I love you all and hope things are going well for you! Miss you and I will try not to wait two weeks til the next post! :)

LOVE YOU!

Flight:)

By the way...today I had my flight sims lab and I got a 92.5% on my work for this week! I was feeling a lot more comfortable and confident. Thanks for your prayers! Love you.

Redecorating!

So this week went really great and really fast! I couldn't believe it was the weekend already! Classes so far have been pretty good...nothing too awful and so far my grades are still doing good! The flight simulators are difficult but slowly getting easier which is good. I've been much more encouraged about them but I still need lots of prayers because none of the manuevers are getting any easier! :)
This week we had some Extended Orientation activities which were really fun. I only participated on Friday night because I had homework the rest of the week but we played capture the flag with our brother floor (2A) and teams were freshman vs. upperclassmen. The freshman won! We had a great time! After the game ended, we went to this hill at the center of campus to find the "Berm Beast." None of the freshman had any clue what this was but we went up the hill anyway...then, some of the boys pushed this huge tire up to the top of the hill (I was still confused by this point). When they got it up and started pulling out padding from the middle and handed someone a helmet, I realized that the Berm Beast was the tire and you got in it to ride down the hill! It was the funnest thing ever! When I got in I thought, "this is going to be crazy..." then they pushed me down and it felt like I was rolling forever and it was so much fun! When they stopped me at the end of the hill, I got out and was so dizzy! haha I had to hold on to some people til i got my balance back but it was really fun!
2A had to do a lot more EO stuff than us girls did and one of the boys had to come in and sing to me. The song Fall for You by Secondhand Serenade...yea it was awkward! He told me later that my face was really red...I didn't know what to do with myself when he was singing...it didn't help that there were lots of other people crowded in my room and I was sitting on top of my bed as he looked up to sing to me. It was funny and awkward!
Another EO activity involved our brother floor pushing a truck with a trailer full of G1 girls on the back...it was a nice ride around campus for the girls but I felt bad for the guys who were pushing the truck! :) After that we went up in the mushroom building to play some games. One of the games we played was "I have never." One person has to stand in the middle, say something they have never done, and everyone else has to get up and find an open seat...well it got pretty intense and people were running into each other to find chairs and one time I got up to run across and I ran directly into someone! I hit my head pretty hard but luckily neither one of us was hurt too bad;)
Me and Morgan went to another girls room last night and got some really great ideas of how to decorate/design our room...so, after we left we went to our room and completely rearranged everything! We bought wrapping paper and put it on one of our walls and then we got some frames and put those up and lights and pictures and of course my michael phelps poster :) and we got a $1 shower curtain and are using it as a curtain for our window! It looks so cool and i love it!! :) The pics are of our NEW & IMPROVED room so you can all see how awesome our room is:) ha we love it!
Prayer Requests for this week:
-my parents are headed to Africa this week so safe travels for them!
-continuous prayer for my schooling and flight simulators
-that our floor would continue to get closer together
-and that I wouldn't miss home too bad and these next few weeks go fast so I can come home for Thanksgiving:)
Love you all!
Oh yea! I almost forgot! On Thursday night we came into our room and there were termites on our printer and floor! It was so gross...then, Friday night, we found a few roaches!!!!!! We were too scared to sleep in our room that night so we moved our mattresses out into our suites lounge and slept there for the night! The next morning we went to Target and found some bug spray so we better not find any more of those in our room!!! :)