Busy busy busy

Well, I just got home from my 3rd day of work, and it's definitely been a unique experience. After Day 1, I basically anticipated the next 2 months of work being absolutely miserable. My neck was strained and I had bruises on my stomach from the 50 pound tray being leveraged on to my stomach for a few hours. I went to bed sore and wasn't sure I would even be able to do vending for the whole summer. Basically it was a - sit around from a few minutes doing nothing, then prepare the drinks, popcorn, ice cream, churros, water bottles, and cotton candy. Then you find out what you will be vending. The guys normally get the heavy things, including the task I was assigned the entire day called "Tray 20". Tray 20 is not any normal tray. On the FIRST tray(on the bottom) you have 20 bottles of 24 oz. Aquafina water. On TOP of the first tray, you have another tray with 20 bags of popcorn. On your arms, you have 3 souvenir popcorn buckets, and on top of the 20 bags, you have 6 large bags of cinnamon kettle corn. This entire set-up is quite a scene and you get alot of funny looks and even some sympathy stares. Now, it sounds like all I'm doing is complaining, but it gets better.

After Day 3 of working, I feel much more optimistic about vending. I'm still sore, and I'm still bruised, but it's not nearly as bad, and I think I will definitely get completely used to it. Today I was perfect on my change and had the correct amount of money at the end of the day, which I was very pleased with. I did 3 shows back to back and although I was pretty mad at the time, I think it's preparing me for the worst, to make everything better.

I'm meeting alot of people at work and I think once I can get out of the new-worker-not-knowing-anything I'll be able to focus more on the ministry aspect of the job and start some great relationships and hopefully spiritual conversations.

Other than work, the project is still going great. Unfortunately, theft has become an issue, with yesterday my room being broken in to while we were at a meeting...we left the window open. One guy's laptop was stolen, another's ipod, and another's wallet. Thankfully nothing of mine was sitting out in the area that these things were on the counter and I lost nothing. Later that night, a bike was cut from a fence and stolen...so we're going to be much more careful now. Last year, over 40 bikes were stolen, so I guess it takes something like this to make us be more aware of what's going on. We have talked to the police and they'll be patrolling our area more and honestly I still feel completely safe and secure. I think we will be fine...just have to be smart about what we do.

Not much else to report at the moment...like I said, everything is going great. Still getting to know people on a deeper level and growing in many ways. If you have any more specific questions feel free to e-mail me...I'd love to hear from everyone.

Have a great day,
Albo