I no longer keep up my blog here at blogger.com, visit themytchell.com to see my updated blog. I try to keep it up at least every couple of weeks. Have a super day!

Much has happened in these past two weeks, I've been quite busy. I loaded Windows onto my computer last week with Boot Camp, so I have a fully functional Windows operating system as well, I loaded my E-sword onto it and I'll probably load other stuff onto there as well. Last Monday for Christian Association class, we were partnered up, I got paired with Jeffer, a Swedish guy, and each group got an egg which we were to keep from breaking all week, it was our "baby" to take care of, I guess to help us learn what it would be like, I don't know. After last year's electronic babies that would cry all hours of the day and night, we'd have to change its diaper, feed it, rock it, burp it, and keep its neck from getting "injured." So this egg business was not too hard. We promptly wrapped it in ten paper towels and nestled it into a plastic cup and saran wrapped it. At the end of the week we dropped it several times to see if it would break inside, but it did not, it worked great. Yvette had her birthday, so we bought ice cream and had a little surprise birthday party for her. A new guest teacher couple came from America, they talked to us several days about pastoral abuse and how it is a problem, though many times you do not hear about it. Many of the principle they shared though could be applied in other areas. We learned a little bit about how to counsel people as well, so that was good. We continued to have our Christian Association, Agriculture, Revelation, How to Lead, Nehemiah Leadership, then also a lady who's been a missionary in India came and talked to us about the work going on there. I continue to work on the farm, most people have been assigned to different places, but I got reassigned to the farm again for this month. It's not all that bad, I enjoy learning about the farm, I don't think I would learn anything really working somewhere else like grounds or the kitchen. I've driven a couple of the tractors here with trailers, hauling stuff around, one of the tractors rear wheels was not driving so it was interesting driving a tractor with only one wheel moving it along! On the farm I've hauled lettuce, worked the soil, pulled many weeds, planted tomatoes, harvested some lettuce, and much more as well. I moved rooms so Leo, one of the Swedes we met in Sweden at Ambassadors for Christ could stay with one of us, so I moved out and got a new room and Leo is rooming with Matt. I now have taken up running in the morning, I have to get up at 3:30 or 3:45 so I can have Devotions before I run the five mile loop. I start running at 4:45 from the dorm and it loops back around and ends right near the dorm again, there are a couple of decent hills I have to run up, but it is good, then I shower and try to get a ride up to the school, if not, then I walk the mile there. I continue to play ping pong every once in a while, I enjoy playing that, I would like to get good at that again, but I'm not as good as I was my Junior year in high school when I played all the time, bummer. We have different groups in our class that put on the different Sabbath services and Friday night vespers and last weekend was ours. I had Scripture and prayer, and helped lead in a Sabbath School lesson. Our group has done a great job I think. That Sabbath, Robby, the 21 year old dean, asked me if I wanted to go on a hike that afternoon, so I went. Four of us went, Martina, one of the EBS students, Robby, Emily, and I. It took an hour to drive to the starting point, we ate on the way there. We hiked up this mountain, starting at a ski resort, then veered away. There was snow still in some places, and we had to walk through that, towards the end it started to rain, but we all had waterproof jackets on, so it was alright. We had a great time, I think we hiked somewhere around 20 kilometers or so. We got back and had some strawberry smoothies to top it all off, not to mention a little ping pong action. This week started off with Sunday classes, because May 17 is a Norwegian holiday and we would not be having school, they had it on Sunday. This past week for every class period we have had a guest teacher from Germany named Oliver Glanz, he is an Adventist philosopher, and his classes were quite good. He went over many things including how to reach certain groups of people, mostly how to converse with the academically minded people with much learning and what they think in regards to religion. We learned about the basics of philosophy and how it can be tied in with the Bible and its philosophy. I continued working on the farm and my supper clean up chores. On Thursday, the holiday, most of the students went to Oslo where there was almost a constant parade of young people with flags and marching bands in front of the king's palace. It was fun, I bought a little flag, and would walk a ways up then hop in with the parade and walk past some of my friends waving my flag, it was fun, I don't think anyone really noticed at all, there were thousands and thousands of people there. The parade wasn't super organized, but it was good. I saw an African man with a lanyard around his neck with the Adventist logo on it, so I went up to him and talked with him. He is here in Norway colportering during the summer and going back to Africa after that. His group of like twenty from Africa sold like $1 million US this last summer, that is a crazy amount, somehow they have an avenue to people that most don't. I talked with an Mormon missionary from Utah also, along with a couple from Chicago I had notice they were wearing a US/Norwegian flag pin, so I asked where they were from and stuff. It was a good day meeting people, watching the parade, taking pictures, hanging out, and walking around. Then we went to some Old Building Museum, they take apart old building and restore them in some area in Oslo, it was interesting to see. This last week I have also been working on our group project, we were assigned Farm as our topic, so we are making a video about farms, with EGW quotes, interviews, a picture slideshow, and music. I'm editing it, so I hope it turns out well. I spent two and a half hours working on it, then lost all my work unexpectedly when the program decided to shut down, I was dumb and didn't save it, so I had to start all over. Yesterday, I got a new roommate at 2am, I said hi asked a few questions, then rolled over and fell asleep again, only to wake up at 4am to work on our video project some more. Well, that is a much overdue update on what's happening with me. Continue to pray that all will continue to go well with our WFL group here!

I have fallen into the same routine. I get up, have devotions, take a shower walk up to the school, eat, have classes, eat, work, and go back to the dorm, then sleep. You know it sounds like fun! There is stuff in between as well, but I'd be writing in this about details you'd never care to hear. This last Tuesday was a Norwegian holiday, so we had the day off from school. We took two busloads of us and headed up to a lake about 45 minutes away. At first we came to a beach that was all trashy, so some took six canoes and headed over to a better spot. Evangeline, Emily, and I walked around on a trail part of the time, and making one of our own the rest of the time. We all ended up at the park, it was very much nicer than the dump we first went to which was all littered by trash and junk. We had a worship with singing then we spent our time canoeing in the lake, playing ultimate frisbee, soccer, eating, and hanging out. It was a lot of fun, I enjoyed going out in the canoe and cruising around. I learned how to throw a frisbee around, and how to do some soccer stuff, much fun! It has been pretty nice outside lately, pretty sunny. It might get a little weird weather-wise soon, so we'll see what happens. This last Sabbath was very nice, i took a walk on a nine kilometer loop near here, it felt good to get out. Some evenings people will play frisbee catch, so I've done that a bit and played a fair amount of ping pong as well in between studying different stuff. This next Sabbath I'm supposed to do the Scripture reading and prayer along with leading out in a Sabbath School lesson. I know I need to pop out of my comfort zone every now and then! We have another guest teacher now teaching about true education, its pretty interesting. Time has been flying, its hard to imagine that I'm half way done over here in Europe, almost done with Witness For Life!

I have continued to be busy lately. We have had classes on Nehemiah, Revelation, Leadership, Relationships, Communication, and Organic Agriculture. As we get guest teachers we will have different short term subjects. For practical education I have been working on the farm, specifically the greenhouses. I have learned how to plant many plants and all about different things like grafting tomatoes, keeping cucumber plants growing vertical, the properties of soil, and the one I'll use most in the future would have to be weeding. Yesterday I spent four scorching hours pulling weeds in a plastic covered greenhouse, but I had some good conversations with people, so it was good. We are starting to get into a groove here at EBS. I wake up at five or a little earlier, have devotions, take my shower, walk or sometimes get a ride up, have breakfast at 6:45am, small break then classes until lunch at 1pm, then practical education in the greenhouses, dinner at 6pm. People hang out for awhile then go to their dorms, sometimes I play ping pong, study, or go on a walk or something, and finally to bed at around 10pm. I have been doing my own personal study on the origin of the Bible canon, it has taken me quite a while and I'm still working on it. This last Sunday the EBS students took us WFLs to this forrest area where we played a game called "God's Smuggler." Basically it is like capture the flag or cops and robbers, one team would try to get the "Bibles" from one base to another. It was fun, a bit cold, but we warmed up quick. I tripped getting chased by a big muscular guy who works on the farm named Hans, quite appropriate I think; I tripped, and he tripped to and fell right on me. That evening they had a special program kind of for the WFLs, we had this mystery food thing where they had a list of weird things like monkey, iceberg, toe, sunshine, etc., and they were all some real food like olives, homemade ice cream, garlic cloves, salt, etc. I soon figured out what was the ice cream and got a bunch of that, it was healthy. So that has been the update...

It's been a week, I wanted to post a few days ago, but I was pretty busy. Since getting back from Sweden we have had our official classes. This last week we had Gayle and Bill Clark from Miracle Meadows School in West Virginia come and teach. They taught about active listening, being assertive when being pressed to do things morally wrong, conflict management, knowing God's will for our lives, how to have a balanced life, the power of thinking, and the four temperaments. I really enjoyed their classes. They would teach us about some of these and then we had to demonstrate how to use them effectively whether it be conflict management or how to be assertive. I worked in the greenhouses here at EBS with tomatoes and cucumbers. Getting the plants ready to plant, by putting stabilizing sticks with the plant and fastening them to it with a small ring, I did that for four hours straight a couple of days. I did some other stuff like hanging plastic twine to the tomato plants so they could grow up straight, supposedly they will get eight or ten feet tall, so they have to be stabilized that way. We found that there was a ping-pong table in the guys dorm, so it has been getting utilized. I got slaughtered by a Swedish guy, like 5-21, bad news. I have been staying busy going to classes meals, work, chores, and then getting back to the dorm at about 7:30 or 8:00, and I've been trying to keep up my own personal log of everything, a bit more detailed than this blog unfortunately, it would take forever to type! This weekend I ended up staying up till midnight or later and waking up at five, I'm kinda tired. On Sabbath a few of us took a walk and I thought I'd have a quick nap...