First day in Austin

So for today I'm back to writing, as I have no pictures or video to share from today. But I thought an update on my first 24 hours here would be good. :)

First off, thank you for all of the prayers, phone calls, text messages--everything. I love them. Don't be afraid to call, write, text, whatnot. I love hearing from you all!

So, this morning Sarah and I went to church with Cameron. Hyde Park Baptist Church. It's a great big building, which has nearly every type of service you could ever want. I want to try out the contemporary service and see what I think of it. But today we went to the blended service, which is the one Cameron normally goes to. It is a great church, I don't know yet if it is the one for me or not. But there was a huge choir which was very good, and an orchestra! The music that way was very cool (but also very baptist...) lol. No offense meant to anyone who is baptist. Although I have a great appreciation for the music I saw this morning, it isn't quite what I'm looking for. Which is why I'd like to try the contemporary service there sometime too.

Afterwards we went out to lunch with a few of the people in the singles group. I guess usually a lot more people show up, but there were only like 7 people there, including Cameron, Sarah and I.

Then Sarah and I took a trip to Super Target to go grocery shopping. Very exciting to do grocery shopping in Target...lol.

Then we came back home (Cameron had gone back to his home) and I spent the afternoon unpacking, settling in, putting my clothes away, etc. I pretty much have it all done now, and it feels so good to have my things in places. I have my own bedroom and bathroom, with a huge walk in closet with tons of space. I am very thankful for this place to live. I haven't yet met Darlene (whose house this is) since she is in Oklahoma with her daughter who just had a baby. She'll be home on Sunday. I'm looking forward to meeting her. Based on her furnishings, decorations, etc I think she is a really fun lady. I'm pretty sure we're going to hit it off great.

Once I got myself settled in a bit, Sarah and I went to have dinner with two of my girlfriends who I met in July. Andrea and Kristin. You can see them in this post from my trip here last year. They mentioned that they had gone to The Austin Stone that morning as they normally do and that the sermon was amazing and that Todd Agnew had led worship! So I quickly decided I wanted to go too. He's a pretty famous worship leader if you don't know.

It was very cool to be back at The Austin Stone (or 'The Stone' as it is called locally) I really do love this church, and I have a feeling I might end up here. At least for a time. Sarah said to me when the service ended "you need to go to this church" The music is incredible, and the preaching is really solid, and it is just so real! It has always reminded me of my church at home. I visited it each time I visited Austin. So I think at least for a while I might go there.

Plus, it was very cool to have Todd Agnew leading worship tonight. People pay big bucks for his concerts, and we just got to have him lead worship in church--just like any other Sunday. It's pretty cool. So I'm going to see if there are any small groups up near me (since I live about 30 minutes from the church) and see if I can start to get connected. Plus I'm exploring getting on the worship team. I very badly want to be on a worship team, and where the opportunities are, is going to heavily dictate where I end up at a church. So we'll see. But Andrea told me last summer that I should talk to them about it since they had just lost their regular female vocalist. And she said to me tonight that they still haven't found a regular replacement for her. So, perhaps the opportunity is here! We'll see.

Tomorrow morning I have an active teaching interview at The Little Gym. I basically have the job, but we just have to make sure we all feel comfortable with each other, and that I like the gym and that sort of thing. So if you read this message early enough, I'm heading over there 9am central time and would appreciate prayer about that. The rest of the day will be spent outdoors in the 80 degree sunshine with Sarah, showing her the city and soaking up the sun. It'll finally be warm! (today it did get up to 60 but it was cloudy still most of the day, and 60 is still fairly chilly!)