January 31, 2009

MP: New Life

Mallory writes:

Hey y'all,
I had a great Christmas!!! My favorite thing about it was probably being able to be around my family and friends. After Christmas we went to OneThing in Kansas City, and this year's OneThing I believe was the most impacting or influential one that I have ever been to.

So this year the leaders decided to change up how they did most of the conference. At one point of each day we had always broken up and gone into little teaching groups but this year we never broke up into those small groups things. Instead we all stayed put and Mike Bickle taught.During this time he taught on eschatology, which means end times. Personally I thought that it was all very helpful because now I understand the end times much better than I ever did or thought that I would for a long time. I had thought that I was too young to be able to figure out what he was talking about. But when he said that he knew 8 year old kids that knew about eschatology I thought to myself well it will be very helpful if I know what will happen in the end times. So knowing that people younger than me could do it, I had faith that I would be able to understand what Mr. Mike said. And actually I did end up understanding almost everything he said and what I did not understand my parents were able to help me with. And then we had about 17,000 people singing some of Misty Edwards songs to bring in the New Year. It was absolutely awesome!!!!!

Thanks to the help of many beloved family and friends we were able to get out here 2 days before our Intro course began. I would list everyone that we had helping us but that would be way too hard as we had so much wonderful help.

To move on!?! Well,right now we have a very busy schedule so it is hard to pinpoint just one thing!!! OOOOOOHHHHH I almost
forgot on Friday I have youth and on the first night I went(that was 3 Friday's ago) I met a girl named Caitlyn. She made me feel like I truly did fit into this youth group!!!!! She is so kind and right now she is the person that I am hanging with so that I can meet other people as well. I am really excited to be here right now.

Let's go on a bunny trail. Today is my daddy's birthday!!! Is that not exciting? I think it is I guess because I had his gift wrapped up 3 days ahead of time.

In our small group we have Samuel and Allison Mosley as our main leaders. They have Ms. Christina and her son, Tyler, and Mr. Cory and Mrs. Paige and their brand new baby, Macy Nicole Wilson as the associate leaders. Baby Macy was born on Jan. 19. From what I hear she is absolutely adorable!!!!!

Mallory(for the Price's)

(P.S. Sorry if some of this was already written by others)








January 30, 2009

AP: Hello All!!!!!

Ashton writes:

Hey everyone!

How are y'all doing? I hope everyone is well! It has certainly been a long time since I wrote last and I apologize for not writing like I said I would. Now that the pace of life has changed I am hoping that I will be able to write weekly updates. I am also going to start sending out weekly emails telling some stuff I have been learning in the prayer room and in class. So if you would like to be on the weekly email list, email me at my old email address or my mom's email address and I will be sure to add you to the list. However I will be posting these on this blog.

Okay, so quick update on how we are. As most of you probably know, our house sold 12 days after we put it on the market. We got full asking price, we didn't have to pay all of the closing costs, we got to keep our new fridge we like, and we got to live there from Dec. 19th to Jan. 8th rent free. God is so good. He ALWAYS takes care of his children.

Then we were worried how we were going to be able to do Christmas, OneThing, my birthday, and move all before Jan. 8th. But again God provided. After Christmas we went to the OneThing conference out in Kansas City. It was fabulous. God showed himself and moved in powerful ways. The couple of days after the conference my parents stayed to look for housing. (They had taken us during lunch one day to see the outsides of 3 different houses but they went to see the insides) Because we were new to the area and didn't really know where we wanted to live, they decided to rent a house 0.4 miles from the prayer room. It is a great house. So when they got back to Georgia we had 3 days to pack EVERYTHING. And I mean everything. But thankfully we had the help of some fabulous people. Thank you so much to everyone who helped us pack and load the Uhaul. We couldn't have done it without you. In fact, we might still be there packing if we didn't have any help! You guys were so helpful. Thank you for sacrificing your time to help us prepare to move. We thought that we were going to get everything in the biggest Uhaul and a trailer but we were wrong. Even though we had gone through and gotten rid of a lot of things we needed a second of the biggest Uhauls. God surprises us in many ways.

We drove on Friday, January 9th, my birthday. But thankfully I have a great family who made the day very special for me even though I was in a car the whole day. We had stopped in the McDonald's parking lot in Cartersville to regroup and take a bathroom break before the trip. I decided to go in and ask a worker if I could get anything for free because it was my 17th birthday and I was moving to Missouri. She gave me a sample special coffee drink! I thought that was very funny. When we got to Missouri on Saturday, Daddy called Jules Tompkins, a great friend we know from church, to get some of his friends in Kansas City to help us get the large pieces of furniture into the new house. About 6 of his friends came over after church to help carry the furniture. That was a huge blessing because by that day we had been carrying things for 3 days and my arms were beginning to give out.

We started Intro on Monday the 12th so we really didn't get time to unpack. But the next Monday we had off so we unpacked a lot of boxes! My room actually looks like a real room now! YEAH! This is our schedule: On Tues-Fri we go to a class in the morning and the prayer room in the afternoon. We have cell group on Wednesday night. It is so much fun! Then on Fri and Sat nights we go to the prayer room during the day and to the EGS (Encountering God Services-you can watch these online for free at www.ihop.org) On Sun we go to serve with the 2-4 yeare olds, go to church, and spend the afternoons in the prayer room. We get Mondays off as our day of Sabbath. This is our day of rest. If you want to call us, we will be available all day Monday. You can get us during the week but it is a little more tricky to reach us.

It has also snowed 3 times! The snow never really goes away. It just clumps into huge, dirty, ice blobs on the side of the road and in the yards. But the first time it snowed it Mallory and I got to play in it but not for long. It was -5 degrees and -19 degrees with the windchill! It was soooooo...... cold! Now it is in the 20s when we get up and in the 30s for a high. It is strange but I am beginning to think that it is warm! I never thought that I would say the 20s were warm!

Well, we've been here 3 weeks. It is so hard to believe that much time has gone by. It seems like it has only been a week or so. So many good things have happened to us. But I will write about what I've learned in my next post so you will come back to read more. :) If you would like to send us letters, email us and we will send you our address. We hope to be sending out a news letter soon which will have our address on it as well. We will put pictures on the blog as soon as we figure out how. It will probably be within the next couple of weeks. Well, I guess I will write another entry later. Talk to you soon!

Love ya!

His forever,
Ashton :)