Monday, October 28, 2013

This community is awesome!

I love Montana. Sometimes simple statements are all I can come up with but I think you get the picture. I've been calling this year 'my year of firsts' and I am so thankful and excited that there are so many people here that are excited and willing to share this things with me. In case you hadn't heard, I shot some guns a couple of weeks ago, because you know, that's what people do here, or so I am told. I am terrible at it and quite frankly it was quite alarming but I am glad to have been able to experience it. Before I shot this gun, I had never ever touched a gun before, this was a fact very hard for people here to believe. I had to convince them that I honestly didn't ever know where to get one if I wanted one at home.
I saw this snake while walking down the road the other day. That was certainly a first. While I have seen snakes before, I can't say I have ever seen one on the side of a road. He was just chilling there sunning himself on the side of the road so we just said hey to each other and moved about our days.
People in town kept telling me I was on the front page of the paper and I was super confused because no one would tell me why, but kept making a big deal of it. I finally see the paper and determine it was a group picture of me with some of the kids from the youth group I help with, after we collected food for the food pantry. I'm still not sure why everyone in town kept acting like I was the only one on the front page but I guess they were just excited they knew someone on the front page. I am also so proud of the kids as they collected 900 lbs of food for the food pantry where I volunteer. It was a huge help and made big change to the shelves that were getting pretty empty with the upcoming holidays and government issues.

This past weekend we went to the Lutheran church to worship. After worship we helped clean up the church yard a bit followed by a potluck. I have never been to so many potlucks in my life. That is apparently a thing here. Pretty much any and every gathering ends up being a potluck. It is always delicious and a wonderful time of fellowship. This potluck however was followed by a hay ride through town, pulled by two horses!
This was an incredible way to end the afternoon. These were the kids we were on the hay ride with and I'm not sure who was more excited, them or me, but for the record, some adults went on it too.
The weather was very nice to gently break me in to this winter with temperatures in the 20s and just a dusting of snow.
So as the first snow falls and gently swirls and blankets the ground, it seems to have muffled all the sounds and thoughts swirly though my head. I have a deep sense of peace and calm. Those feeling always comes with the first snow for me, it's pretty, it's novel, it's changed the scenery and it changes me a bit too.

Life is good, love is strong. That's where I'm at and I hope you're there with me.

Sending you peace that passes understanding.


No comments:

Post a Comment