I Heart Juneau.

I got back yesterday from Juneau, and it was incredible! I have some exciting stories, so here, in order of occurence, I will share them with the world. Or rather, whoever visits my blog. Which I'm pretty sure is no one, so I have told no one about it. Whatever. Anyway.

Story Number One: The Cute Airport/Michigan Guys
So, Mom and Dad took me to the airport, where I signed in, and met with Glenda and Stephanie. A HUGE group of like a million kids (okay, not that many, but a whole bunch of them) were on their way to security, so we huried up and ended up getting right in the middle of their group. The two guys in front of us, one of them was wearing a Relient K shirt, and the both of the guys were very attractive. So Stephanie started talking about this obscure town in Michigan, and one of the guys truend around and was like, "Did you just say [insert name of town]? I live there!" So they started talking about that. Then there was an dakward silence, so I jumped in and said to the RK fan, "I like your shirt. They're like my favorite band ever." And he was like, "Really? Mine, too!" So I said, "What is your favorite song?" And he said, "It's too hard to choose" which is EXACLTY how I feel a lot of the time. Then the other guy said, "Failure to Excommunicate." Which is one of the best songs ever. Then the Failure to Excommunicate guy was like, "Do you like a lot of other emo bands?" And he started naming of all these bands I had NEVER heard of. So I told him I like Stellar Kart. They were the only other band I could think of. :) Then the RK shirt guy was like, "Are you guys going to Bethel?" And I said, "No, we're going to Juneau. Why are you going to Bethel?" And he said, "We're doing a mission trip there to teach at a basketball camp." And I got really excited about that. By then we were at the Security place, so we went through, and one of the guys had to be searched because his belt went off. But they were soo nice, and fans of Relient K, which was in itself incredible. After we said goodbye though, Stephanie was all, "Wow, Melissa. We haven't even left the airport and you've already met hot guys!" It was really hard, though. I had to pray A LOT for God to be my focus, not finding a cute guy. I really struggle with that sometimes.

Story Number Two: The Interpretive Dance
Part of going to Juneau, we had to do this interpretive hand movement thing to this song, and it turned out okay, but I felt a little dumb doing it. Yeah, there isn't really a story here, but I thought I should mention it.

Story Number Three: The Two Billy Goats At Mendenhall Glacier
Glenda, Stephanie, and I went to Mendenhall Glacier in Junea, and I really wanted to hike on it, but it didn't happen. So Stephanie and I climbed over the fence thing, and walked down to the water's edge, and it was SUPER cold... duh, because it was offrun from the glacier. But still. So, then, we had to climb back up, and we decided to climb on the rocks, so we took off, and we found a little lake/puddle/thing in the middle of all these rocks, and it was soo cool. We hung out up there for a while. And we watched a movie about the glacier, which was actually kind of cool, but it was projected onto this huge screen, and we sat in the front row, so Stephanie and I made shadow puppets on it, like sharks and people and stuff, and the sharks attacking the people, all the while singing the shark song. And I'm pretty sure that all these tourists were laughing at us. Then one of the workers came in in the midst of our puppet show, and she began to laugh also. It was really funny

Story Number Three: The Adventures Of "Down-Town" Juneau
To begin, Down Town Juneau is about the size of the block I live on. No joke. But we turn the corner, and all of a sudden... BAM!!!!! There is a Cruise ship, with bunches of people pouring out of it. It was soo surprising, and very cool. We found a fudge store (yum), and very cool toy store, and a shirt place that sells, well, shirts. But I got one that says "I <3 Juneau" Like the "I <3 NY" shirts. It's incredible. Really. We saw the Governer's Mansion, which is really pretty, but we had driven past it the day before without knowing what it was, which is soo funny.

Story Number Four: MISSIONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This Is The Best Story EVER!!!
Okay, so Tuesday night, after a huge, somewhat boring meeting, I went into the bookstore with Stephanie and Glenda, and began talking to Paul Reed with the International Mission Board through the Southern Baptist Convention. I told him I am going to be a missionary, hopefully in Ethiopia, teaching English. And he got soo excited and was like, "If you do that, you can go ANYWHERE, even countries with closed boarders to missionaries!" And then I got super excited!!! So we talked some more, and he told me about TESOL: Teaching English to Speaker of Other Languaged. Then he introduced me to Rick Wolfe, who got really excoted about the same thing I told Paul Reed about, and HE told me about the Journey Man program. So it is AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Like, I'm practically ON MY WAY to Ethiopia right now! How awesome!!!!!!!!! Okay, I know that a lot of exclamation points have been used in this story, but there are necessary. I'm PUMPED. Mom and Dad and all the Acteens were even excited. yay!!

Stores Number Five And Six: The Beach And The Flight Home
After story number four happened, we went to the beach with the North Carolina people, and some youth from Juneau. It was fun, but the cliques stuck together, and no one really talked to me. Meh. I flew home BY MYSELF Wedensday morning, and nothing cool happened. No hijackers (Thank goodness), no nothing. It was dumb, on the way back from Juneau, we had to make two stops: In Yakatat (a ridiculously small Native village) and Cordova (an awesome fishing village where Brad's friend Derek lives). We were delayed in Cordova, so we were very late getting to the airport in Anchorage, then the airport was SOO- packed! There were people everywhere. I'm pretty sure I talked to Mom non-stop during lunch and on the ride home. I was soo exhaisted, though.

So Crosswalk Alaska has begun, and I'm excited to see God moving and working through the youth in Alaska. I want Him to move, so no one can deny that He is real. Because He is.

As I've been typing this (again, in the copy room of my Mom's work), something wet keeps dripping on my hands and arms. I have no idea what it is. Weird.

So yeah, God is cool.

I have to call Hannah now about registration on Monday. Hey, guess what... I'm a SENIOR! woot, woot!