A New Week Begins

Hello again,

Well, it is now Monday again.  It's hard to imagine that two weeks ago today I arrived in this foreign land.  The weeks are truly flying by, so everyday I have to focus and make sure that I'm not wasting my time here.  This past Saturday was such a fun day, because our team got to travel to the ancient city of Ephesus!  The destination made leaving our neighborhood at five in the morning a little more bearable.  We took a short plane ride to get to  the city, and arrived in the area at about 8 o'clock.  We then proceeded to pile into a van that included a tour guide for the day.  We went to was is said to be the place and house where Mary, the mother of Jesus, spent her last days.  Then, we arrived at Ephesus.  I was a little overwhelmed when we got to Ephesus.  In one sense, the entire area is just a simple collection of rocks.  However, in another sense, the the area is a breathtaking piece of history that blew me away.  I can't wait to show all of you the pictures that I have.  The entire event was very sobering and humbling.  We went to a nice little restaurant (which included a buffet) for lunch, and then went to see ruins where John, who wrote one of the four Gospels, apparently attended church and was buried.  The day was packed full of history, excitement, and more.  Needless to say, we were all extremely exhausted that night, so a few of us watched the championship soccer game between FC Barcelona and Manchester United and then called it a night.  Sunday night, our team had a going away party with some of the workers here for two guys that left for America tonight, so that was both fun and sad.  We just hung out and had some snacks and talked with one another.

Today, we got to sleep in because our schedules have finally become slightly less structured, and we didn't have anything specific planned for today.  I was able to sleep until about 9:30 and then enjoyed some time to read.  We met up with a couple of other guys from our team and had some pizza type food, called pide, for lunch, and so that was cool.  Afterwards, two of the guys got their hair cut at a barbershop that has become somewhat of a hangout for us.  We visit there often, though the barber speaks no English at all, and he is amazingly generous.  We really hope to get to know him much better as the weeks go on.  The haircuts were very nice, though, and the guys now look very European.  Later we met up with some friends we met last week to place some more soccer.  That was a lot of fun, but I am hoping to play some basketball sometime soon.  I'm really in the mood for it, considering my favorite basketball team, the Miami Heat, are playing in the NBA Championship!  But I digress...

Thanks again for reading and for all of the encouragement you constantly pour out, and I can't wait to tell you in person about everything that's going on here.