I Have a Friend!

Well I actually have more then one friend in life, but this is my first real Stayton friend. For the past couple of Sabbaths I have been church hopping. I have to say that some potlucks have been better then others. My favorite ones are when they let the visitors "me" cut to the front of the line. Some churches were more friendly then others, but all missing the "homie vibe" not like gangster "homie" I just didn't feel totally comfortable and at home. Then I went to the Stayton Seventh-Day Adventist church. Go figure that it would be the church that is literally 5 minutes from my house that I would completely fall in love with. Well I now know it's 5 minutes from my house, I got lost the first time and it took me 15 minutes because I refuse to use my GPS around Stayton so I can get to know the town better. Thank goodness there are about 3 ways to get anywhere in this small town. The people at the bank already know me by name (freaky). 

Anyway back to church. It is one of the smallest churches I've seen except for maybe one or two churches in Maine we sang at in high school. I met Chelsea in the lobby. She was swaying back and forth with her blond haired blue eyed boy, Malachi, in her arms. Chelsea asked me if I had been here before and I gave her the whole "new in town" speech which I seem to give to everybody and really need to switch up because I'm starting to bore myself. Can't imagine what others think. After that, I don't really remember many details, I just remember talking a lot (shocker). I sat with Chelsea and her husband Sean at potluck. I met various Elders, Deacons, and Sabbath School leaders. Each one was equally nice and eager to hear where I was from and why I didn't have a Massachusetts accent. By the end of lunch I had given 3 ladies my number and address, had a church directory and adult Sabbath School quarterly in my hand, and somehow signed up to do special music this Sabbath. I just remember hearing a lady ask me "do you sing?"..."OK, next Sabbath."

Since Sabbath I've hung out with Chelsea and Malachi everyday. We have started to walk around the nearby High School track every morning. We both live about the same walking distance away from the track, except my route takes me past the same bus stop as all the neighbor hood kids walk to everyday at 7:15. I've started taking my ipod along and put my earphones in so I can look like a legit walker. This is because the first couple days I walked the same way with 5 kids and I felt like a perv, I'm dressed like them in a sweatshirt and causal pants, but with the minor detail of that I'm not going to Middle School. It's really weird. I even jogged past them today to establish that I was on a hard core mission and to confirm that I was at "workout" status. Speaking of hardcore working out, Chelsea and I are going to do a 5k (3.1 miles) in December up near Portland. I'm pretty excited and motivated to "get my walk on" even more.

I have tomorrow off, so hopefully I will be able to blog about more of my adventures. This past week as just been crazy because we have been trying to get the camp newsletter out that sums up this past summer. My parents will be getting a copy so you can harass them for the details on that. At first I was going to try to sneak a couple of "my people's" address' on the mailing list, but I knew I would be found out if they all of a sudden saw a large amount of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Tennessee address' and zip codes going out. I thought better not press my luck, we already had the unfortunate incident of a campers last name entered in the database as "Turtle" when it was "Tuttle" ....oops, everyone laugh though.