Colorado Springs and Salt Lake City

Wow I'm way behind, so I'll start with Co Springs...

We were on post, Fort Carson, an Army post. We were there supporting the army families, and the CI was all Stand for Peace in the schools on post. The show went really well, and on Sunday I got to go to the New Life Church, which has an awesome praise and worship service. If you're ever in Co Springs I definitely recommend going to check it out.

We went from CS to Salt Lake City, Utah. When we got here it was really cold, it had snowed the day before! but as the week progressed it has gotten warmer. We got to visit Temple Square (the headquarters of the Jesus Christ Church of Latter Day Saints or Mormons) on Tuesday. It was really interesting to learn more about their faith. On Wednesday I had school project, and did Stand for Peace in three classes in one day, which was really exhausting. Also Wednesday was the Religion workshop, which I helped lead, we focused on the similarities instead of the differences in religion, and brainstormed on how all religions could coexist. On Thursday I was on promotions, which isn't my favorite, but was ok. Thursday night I went to a "Unity Feast" with my host mom, who is Baha'i. Baha'i is a really new religion, only 150 years old and believes in the unity of all religions, its a really interesting religion, and if you don't know about it you should check it out, their beliefs are very unique. Today I was working at the YWCA, cleaning the walls of the apartments there and playing with the children of the women who were there to escape domestic violence. It was really fun and I'm extremely glad that we have programs like that, even as sad as it is that we need them. Tomorrow is show day, and we're performing at Murray HS, where HSM(High School Musical) was filmed and the school that David Archuleta(runner up American Idol) went to school. I'm loving the cold and can't wait to see what exciting things will happen next.

On a more somber note, two months from today I will be home and done with UWP. Can you believe that? I know I can't, only two more months left before I return to the real world(UWP doesn't exactly seem like the real world). So yeah, I'll update soon, and before we all know it I'll be home...

Balloon Fiesta

This week we had a really weird schedule for show day... we had the usual long show day, but we didn't get picked up by our host family afterwards, what our schedule said we were doing was volunteering at the local landfill for some kind of trash awareness day. What we were actually doing was volunteering at the Abq Balloon Fiesta!

This meant that we ended show day (at 1 AM) went to the Event Palace (our temporary home for UWP in Abq) for a "sleep over" then left the event palace at 3:30 AM to go to the Balloon Fiesta. When we arrived the Fiesta was just getting cranked up, I was on the "Clutch Crew" or the balloon chase crew with my host mom Nancy. We Were to be chasing Hssss too, Jim's balloon. Instead I actually got to ride in Hsss too! I had an amazing time, here are just some of the pictures I took...




















































This is after we landed. Since it was my first time in a balloon, they have a traditional "initiation" into ballooning. There were two other guys who it was their first time in a balloon as well. After listening to the history of ballooning, we had to drink a glass of white grape juice without using our hands, unbeknownst to us, while we were drinking the juice without our hands, a bottle of ice cold water was poured on us from behind. None of us dropped our cups, but my teeth started chattering, which made drinking the juice exponentially harder. Afterwards we all went to breakfast at Golden Corral, then we went home. I had so much fun yesterday at the Balloon Fiesta, and we were supposed to go again today, but the weather is not cooperating. Hopefully by tonight it will have cleared up so that the "Balloon Glow" can still happen.

Acoma, Sky City

This week our regional learning day was a trip out to a local indian Pueblo, we went to Acoma, Sky City. While we were there we had a tour of the city, which was built on top of a mesa, and got to tour the church, when the tour was done some of us opted to climb down from the mesa, so here are some pictures of that...