That never gets old.
It's been a while since we've posted an update, so we thought we'd go for it.
Life has been pretty busy, Emily started her new job working at Rubios Coporate Headquarters. About a week after moving out here, some co-workers introduced me to this place. Ever since then I've been slightly...addicted...to their fish tacos. So it works out pretty well that she got a job at the corp. headquarters...especially the $10 gift cards that we're hoping she gets on a weekly basis. We'll keep you updated. But overall she's enjoying the new job, making friends with her new coworkers. We're thankful for the opportunity that jobs open up for new relationships. It's worked out pretty well because only having one car, her office is about a mile around the corner from mine, which allows us to carpool. And both of our jobs are only about 5 miles away from our apartment which frees us up for longer mornings of surfing, biking, reading and coffee.
We've really been enjoying making new friends and learning to build new relationships out here as well. We've been talking about what it looks like to develop new friendships with people who we have no history with, and how to find contentment in them. What is it that we want out of our friendships? What is it we want to give to our friendships? Being more analytical than Em, I approach everything with a little more difficulty than she does typically. It's been fun learning about each other and how we approach life, and learning how to approach life together. We're definitely learning how to be thankful and content when our expectations aren't met. Especially when our expectations aren't realistic or even right in the first place.
“We pray for the big things and forget to give thanks for the ordinary, small (and yet really not small) gifts.” - Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together
It's pretty easy to be provided for on so many levels, only to strive after the things you don't have. We're learning how to fight for thankfulness. This is where all of our friends say, "You are in California, you have jobs, you have a good church, why are you struggling with thankfulness?!" This has been a lesson for us that we are still in desperate need of Jesus to change our hearts, to mold and shape us into good followers.
Enter Veronica. Veronica has been attending The Fields with her husband, Tom, since January. Tom is a retired Navy Seal and Veronica works at a company called Life Technologies here in Carlsbad. We've had a little bit of time to get to know them since we moved out here, as they are in our community group. Veronica recently decided that she wanted to become a follower of Christ, and she wanted to be baptized. So at the beginning of one of our beach nights, she was baptized in the pacific ocean, teaching us the very meaning of being a disciple of Jesus. Lives and hearts changed by the person of Christ, through a church full of broken and imperfect people. Sounds simple, and we've all heard it. But when I sit back and realize my propensity toward discontentment, God is faithful in opening my eyes to the important things.
On a lighter note, things have been going really well for us! We bought Emily a bike and enjoyed a couple of fun rides exploring the coastal communities until she blew a tire and we had to walk a couple miles back to our apartment. Good times!
We took some time to explore Balboa Park a few weeks ago for the first time. We had a good time walking around and admiring the architecture and people watching.
[ Balboa Museum of Art ]
[ in front of the Japanese Zen Gardens ]
[ that's a nice tree in the background ]
We also had the chance to hang out with some friends friends of mine in Santa Monica this past weekend. Pablo is from Tulsa, OK and he was out visiting his girlfiend near LA, this made for a great evening! Pablo also experienced his first Wahoo's! fish tacos...
I'm sure there's more, but it been a while since our last update and I can't remember everything! Tomorrow we're heading to Hollywood for a Josh Garrels concert we're pretty stoked about. We're going to head out after church and spend the day in Hollywood hanging out.
On another note, the weather out here is great. We're still enjoying sunshine and blue skies with highs in the low 80's. Though people have been talking of chances of thunderstorms tomorrow...
... only to find out ...
... there's a 10% chance.
#SoCalProblems
We love and miss our friends back home(s)! We'll keep you updated on our back to Knoxville trip planning.
