"Bro's Life"-Your in there... just keep readin=)

Bro's Life

Hannibal the horrible, what can I say about the man? He was the brightest general I had ever seen. There is no doubt in my mind where he got all that from, it was most obviously his father. His father, Hamilcar Barca, was the commander of the Carthaginians. Now let us take a minute to talk about his name. As we were growing up I always heard people call Hamilcar, "Thunderbolt" which was an honor. Thunderbolt, represents the last name, the heritage of the last name comes from the root of the word Barca, or thunderbolt. Now this name was important because it was something that people would not call you unless you were considered to be of great power. Hannibal would always tell me as a little child how much he wanted to bare the name "Thunderbolt" or even "Thunderbolt Jr." Hannibal always wanted to be great.
Some of my first fun memories with Hannibal where in our home town, Carthage in Tunisia. We went to school there, and one particular winter day I remember Hannibal asking me if it would be fun to have a snowball fight. Of course I was always up for a good snow ball fight, but I saw something mischievous in the eye of my friend. See you have to understand that no one liked Hanny, he was smart and his dad was rich so all the students looked down on him and made fun of his families name and made fun of him. There was this especially mean kid named Levi, and his brother Nathan and the both of them were relentless when it came to pokin fun at Hanny. And since they were the two most popular kids in school everyone else joined in and made fun of him to. So, it was pay back time, and I knew I had to help my friend so I asked him what we were going to do. He looked back at me and pulled a small piece of parchment from his trousers, as he unfolded it I saw a blue print of the entire castle and a master plan of how he was going to have the two of us beat 122 students with just 7 snow balls a piece! It was impossible I told him, but for the next ten minutes leading up to lunch recess he went over the perfectly crafted plan step by step until I had memorized, and recited it back to him.
We were in third grade at the time and Hanny, that was my nickname for him, and I stepped out knee deep in snow as recess began. Our professor Dan was leading the rest of the students out behind us. So we wasted no time, running over to the drift next to the buildings because Hanny said it would pack easier. We started packed seven perfect snowballs in each others nearly frozen wolf skinned jackets. Just as he packed the last snowball in my hood he gave me a thug hug with a snap back pound, that was the code, and I knew it was time. I started running just in time to see a snowball whiz by my face and smack Levi, the biggest, strongest sixth grader in the school, right in the beak. Within a split second blood was flowing from Levi's nose and he was off like a mad bull towards Hanny. Before I knew it we were back together and everyone was getting in on the snowball fight, and just like Hanny had planned all of them were taking sides with Levi and going against the two of us.
Hanny and I stuck to the plan, throwing only when planned and luring all 122 kids back into the dark alley between the gym and cafeteria. As we got into the back of the buildings I noticed that we were trapped, we had hit a dead end and my mind was drawing blanks not knowing what was going on. All I remember seeing was professor Dan, and 122 mad students with Levi's frozen and bloodied face leading the pack, with Nate following bloody mouthed behind him only 20 feet in front of us. I had used my last snowball to smack Nate, the twin brother of Levi, square in the mouth, so I was out of snowballs, and this was a foul moment to be out of ammo! Then I look over at Hanny and all he has is one left, but he is wearing a huge come on grin and I know something is about to shake down. Then it happened, Levi was nearing ten feet away when Hanny drew back and fastballed his final snowball aiming right for Levi's head. The ice ball seeds itself right on mark in the middle of his forehead, Levi wobbled a few more steps ahead and then like Goliath, the 250 pound, six and a half foot, chiselled out of granite sixth grader named Levi, dropped face down right in front of Hanny giving an earth shaking smash. The quake was felt by all and the second his face whipped into the frozen earth, the after shock trembled up the 20 foot building and hit the 3 foot drift of snow detaching it from the arms of the gym and cafeteria building walls in the alley way, releasing it all at once falling and landing like a prison of pillows around the entire 122 students! As the snowy powder finally settles you can see everyone’s tiny little snow packed heads popping out of the snow, gasping for breath wearing stunned and baffled faces. He had done it! With seven snowballs, two people, and a motive he had conquered the entire student body, even professor Dan got dumped on! As they sat unclenched by the snow, Hanny and I took the walk of glory back to the outside of the small alley way, walking on top of snow right next every single imprisoned body that was yelling and screaming curses at Hanny's name.
From that day forward no one ever gave Hanny any sort of problems again. The two giant brothers, Levi and Nathan, respected Hanny from now on and always gave us our distance. You can say that from this point on that Hanny was the most respected kid in school. I had always respected Hanny, but up until this point I had no idea how truly intelligent and strategically minded he was. I mean, he beat our entire school with me and him and 7 SNOWBALLS; this was only the beginning for Hannibal! Hanny and I laughed about this story for years. Hanny would always tell stories, that was his favourite thing to do.
As Hannibal and I got older and out of school, he kept asking me what I wanted to do with my life. I never really thought about it up until he asked me, but now that the question was presented I really didn't have an answer. I had always followed everything that Hanny had done, being his right hand man and best friend. By this time Hannibal knew what his life was going to be like. It was going to follow in the foot steps of his father being the leader of the Carthaginians. After his father died in battle his brother-in-law named Hasdrubal went to full commanding officer with the young Hannibal as an officer under him. Hasdrubal did not last for long though, after his assassination in 221BC, Hannibal was finally proclaimed commander-in-chief by the army and by the Carthaginian government. As Livy and I recall, it was like Hamilicar being brought back to all the men in flesh form. Hannibal was a spitting image of his pappy but we would soon find out who the better general really was! I was so proud of my buddy Hanny. Once he was in this position following his pappy's footsteps, he was asking me what I wanted to do with my life. Well, I told him, where you go I go, I will fight with you until the day death separates us. We gave the thug hug with the snap back pound and I knew I had just packed a life of adventure with my best buddy.
Shortly after this happened, I got the privilege of being the best man in Hanny's wedding to Imilce the gorgeous Iberian princess. But, the honeymoon would be cut short with the arrival of the Second Punic War in Italy which, if memory recalls, was from 218-203BC. This war was the beginning of a shining time for Hanny, it would test his valour, wit, bravery, mental and physical strength, and most of all his ability to lead and succeed! Some of the best memories we had together were at the beginning of Hanny's leading. During grade school there were tons of kids that really used to be good to us once we pummelled the twins Levi and Nathan. There was a man named Miles Fortner and he was the head of the archery and Rambo division in our new army. I chose him because back in grade school that boy could sneak up on a jack rabbit blindfolded. When he wasn’t sneaking up on them, he would let them loose, and then at 75 yards, mid-stride, with a heavy northeast wind he would stick them right through the heart with his hand made arrows and Indian carved bow. Then we had Jon, Charley and Bobby. These men were the head of the pump up speech division; every one of them stood about six feet and had biceps the size of your head; when they talked you listened! Then there was Bart and Scott. Bart is my father and Scott has been like a brother to me since I was little, he only lived a days walk away. These jugheads where at the head of the mechanics division, making sure all the catapults were oiled and functioning along with general up keep. Also, they each were high ranking officers with specialties in farming weaponry. Scott has been telling me that Bart and him were up to something big, they are calling it S & B Deere, I have no idea what it’s going to be like but it’s got to be good!
We loved these guys and they loved us. Some nights would get pretty lonesome, but we knew if we waited around long enough, Hanny would tell us one of his famous tales of near death survivals. The men loved Hanny and he respect for all of them. So to say the least we had a whole crew of some of the best people we knew being lead under the GREATEST general the world had ever seen. We were a wrecking crew that dared to be messed with. The biggest trademark of any Carthaginian soldier was that he wore the mark of Hannibal. Hanny and I came up with the name, "Templers" and the symbol was a small Latin cross that was branded into the center-upper chest of every soldier. When this mark was revealed to any opposition they would shutter at the look of it, because they knew that cross meant power! Even the legendary Spartan respected and revered the Templers cross.
Hannibal had more men than hair. As he became leader he started to realize what a gigantic army he had control over, around 62,000 foot soldiers and 12,000 horsemen. What a number for one man, I always looked up to Hanny for taking such good care of us. The men followed every order that Hanny gave and followed him with total allegiance. But as we got going and as we started saying goodbye to many friends, in Garrison we left Scott and Bart behind along with their 11,000 men to take care of the newly conquered region. The next set of goodbyes happened at Pyrenees were we left Jon and Boyd and another 11,000 men. These were some ruff days, we both had to let go of some dear friends but we knew we had to keep moving onto Gaul, still with nearly 40,000 men and 12,000 horsemen.
As we entered Gaul and counted up our men Hanny took me aside with a face of concern. He told me that we had to go through the Pyrenees Mt. along with the Alps and many significant rivers. He told me to prepare for many of our good friends to die, when he said that I knew that he was talking about a nasty journey ahead. He had Nate Gurtler give the drum roll and the walk out in the spring of 218BC. Nate gave the marching out drum solo atop a plat formed drum set that his men carried from below, it was legit! Hanny made his way to the Rhone before the Romans could take any measures to bar his advance, so we made it there pretty easily! At this time we settled down and my beautiful mother Kathy, along with her sister Karen, and her parents Ken and Bonnie came and counted all the troops and such to give us a idea of how many people we had left. Grandma Bonnie gave us all a fantastic meal, while Grandpa Ken sat around and told us jokes and made us laugh. As the men settled in we had all the horsemen take their horses to the local stable which was famous for their beautiful stable workers. Since all the men had gone to war, only the wives remained to do the stable work. All the men came back spreading the word of all the beautiful women working that night. There was Kassy, Ruth, Steph, Layne, Katie, and Jessie and the men in the camp were all taken by their beauty, but sadly all of them had a man off at war that they were waiting for. The men were heart broken, so I told them to go to Brittany's Bakery to eat some home made world famous cup cakes, they were totally fine after that! My family finally counted all 38,000 infantry, 8,000 cavalry, and 37 war elephants that we bought from Gabriel’s Zoo. At the zoo we thought we would have some problems since we didn't speak the local language, but that was no problem. There was a woman named Inma and she was able to speak English, Spanish, and Arabic perfectly so we had no problem communicating with elephant sales man.
The next morning we had our cries and goodbyes and then set off over the Alps. Soon I found out why elephants were a bad idea. I thought they were smart, but as we were scaling the steep Alps the elephants would all hang onto each others tails, in a tail to trunk train. Just as we were turning a corner one elephant started slipping down a small steep grade to the edge of a cliff. It was a domino chain of one, two, three, four, five, six, and then finally on the eighth elephant loan behold, Levi and Nate are teaming up and holding the chain of 8 elephants that are now dangling off the cliff. As the elephants dropped off one by one the entire army stood still to watch these two Hulk like men try to save the last dangling elephant by slowly swinging him back and forth until they can get enough momentum to swing the one remaining elephant back up onto the ledge! Levi and Nate sat in exhaustion as me and Hanny could not believe what we just saw. We could not stop, but from that moment on Levi and Nate got back their respect in Hanny's eyes and the entire army heard of the twin’s unbelievable strength! This was only one of the tragedies that we encountered. At one point we encountered some rock fall that we couldn’t get over, so Hanny had the great idea of using vinegar and fire to break through it. When we finally got through he applauded his entire army and gave all his glory to his men and then said, “We will either find a way, or make one.” I told him that was a great one liner; he laughed and told me Jon had told him that the night before.
We lived like this for a long time. The men became tired and irritable, and times were starting to get ruff. We lost almost half our men and nearly all our dumb elephants; have to say that was a terrible idea! Hanny kept on leading us from one battle to the next, victory after victory. Finally we made it to the gates of Rome, after months of fighting we finally made it to our destination. We marched right up to the monstrous gates and they were locked shut. In turn, Hanny went up to the door knocked three authoritative times. No one answered. So he told us we would have to come back another day, but as he turned he saw the entire Roman army surrounding us. There were so many of them. I had no idea what to do. Hanny grabbed me at that instant and started to run to the only remaining elephant still living. Left and right I saw the arrows of the enemy taking the lives of my dear friends. Then I saw Nate beating some one with a drum stick, Levi and Nate each had a man by the ankles and were using then like grain bags to pummel other Roman soldiers. Then I saw Miles rear naked choking two dudes at once while putting another guy in a triangle. Those are Hanny's men, and my friends fighting till the death! In the rush of it all Hanny had managed to strap me to the bottom of the elephant with out me knowing. He gave me a thug hug with a snap back pound and then turned, hit the elephant, and I watched him battle to a sure death until I was out of sight.
All my friends lost their life that day, not only Hanny. Every one of them showed bravery and served Hanny till his very last moment. Hanny was a great man that sacrificed his life to keeping the freedom, and gave his life so I could live. He was a great man and I know we are all gathered here today to commemorate the loss of the greatest general the world has ever seen, living from 248-183BC. God rest his soul and all those who died with him. I pause for a moment of silence and mourning, then BOOM the back doors come crashing down and the light comes streaming in. And there he stood silhouetted in the beaming light, a bloodied and beaten Hanny surrounded my Levi, Nathan, Nate, Miles and all my lost friends! Tensions build as the place drops into complete silence and Hanny looked at me with a smile and said, “Man have I gotta story for you!”

Raining day

Waking up knowing that Martha was out of town, she is Germany with the connexxion team there, so i turned on my laptop and listened to In the Darkest Night by Ben Stuart. It was a video Podcast that i got to watch this morning! What a great message! Talked about David after he killed Goliath and then all the fame he had. The how King Saul became very jealous and tryied to kill him and the like. Then out of that he gave the big point that David had grief and was angry with God and he was very honest about that, read Psalms 47, and then how God made him a leader of the poor and lonely, which ended up being his cabinet as king. So God used all of it.... and sure David was sad and was depressed but he didnt stay like that... he looked to the Lord and he trusted in him and God got him out of it! What a great message on how suffering can be used to strengthen you if you let it! Loved it!!!!

Today i was supposed to get together with Aberaham my best buddy but the weather ended up being a little nasty so we both stayed in our houses and relaxed. I found him on skype so we chatted for a bit then i caught up with some people on facebook. Got some stuff done for school now im watching, Xmen! Yeah=)

Nov 28... Uneventful day

Today i relaxed and did my devo and quite time then had a nice relaxing day doing some much needed catch up=)

Nov 27... Talkin and Dancing

First thing i did was listened to a sermon from Ben Stuart. Then i called my dad. We talked for a good 1 hour or so, before i called dad i spent about and hour and a half doing stuff online with skype to figure out my problem. But talked to dad and he was shopping with mom=) And didnt know what levi and nate were doing. Had a great talk with dad and then chilled out around home and got some stuff working with school and cleaned and updated stuff and the like.

Later on that day i got to talk to brittany and her family, miss them a lot!!! Then did some odd and end stuff and then went out that night and met with, Fatima(she organized the get together), Sierra, Jonny, Jose Maria, His friend, Carmen, Abraham, Megan, Inma, and Gabriel for just a bit. We ended up going to a nice little place around 130 that had some life music and we boogie woogied our shoes off there until about 4 or so then we went home. Had a sweet time with friends i had not seen in a long time!!!! Thanks Fatima for hookin us up with a sweet night=)

NOV 26 Second Thanksgiving Dinner with ISA

Thanksgiving Dinner at Hotel Bequer

Today was an exciting because everyone kept telling me how good the dinner with ISA was going to be! School flew by and i was just anticipating the night! I spent most of the night after a very eventful day at school chatting with my mama and hermanita.

In school i had a test in my Elemental Espanol course. Now a little history behind this course. I got into the class about 2 weeks after everyone else did because i needed to have a class that moved a little slower than what my other one did! So i joined this one late, and did not really pay attention in my other class, so i missed a TON of the fundamentals of spanish! AND......... i had it in my mind that i was going to come to spain and the whole language thing would just happen, like spain would be some sort of language "pixie dust" if you will, and i would just come and so would spanish ! I HONESTLY THOUGHT THAT.... not sure why but had that stuck in my head. So thinking this was just going to happen... i did not study really at all.... a big clue that the "pixie dust effect" was not happening could have been that nothing in school was making sense. BUT instead of studying i just kept waiting for the pixie dust to take effect! REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY RRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY! DUMB!!!!! I mean really dumb!

So we will fast forward to about a week ago. A week ago from the 26 i was in spanish class, then my teacher says "Hey Jake i need to talk to you after class" in perfect english in front of everyone! I felt like i was in second grade again when the teacher says that, then the rest of class you try to figure out what you did wrong! Well class drags by and then everyone leaves and she just literally grabs my arm (very common thing all spanish people do when they are talking to you) and she says "Jake your Spanish is terrible" i agreed promptly.... "and Jake if you dont study before the exam next week, you are going to FAIL not only the exam but my class as well." I agreed 100% and told her so... i told her i was sick of not getting things but was frustrated because it wasn't like i didnt get just 2 or 3 things... I WAS NOT GETTING ANY of the grammatical structuring, not even the simple ones like how to conjugate ar-er-ir verbs ( in english this is equivalent to not knowing the difference between - I speak, you speak, he or she speaks, we speak..... ) REALLY BASIC STUFF. and i was just not getting it!

It was bad... so i went back to my books and the next morning i came in with all the books that i had and she pinned up all the stuff i had to do and wrote an email of the list of things we had to know for the next test! When i saw that email i honesty did not have one subject that she had posted nailed down in my mind, meaning i could not say i knew how to do any of them well! And.... i had a list of about 15 or 16 DIFFERENT subjects that were in that email. So..... what did i do... ill tell ya what i did! I studied for the next week for about 2 hours everyday! And MAN O MAN did things start to make sense. I finally started speaking with my family more and Angela my 19 year old sister started helping me out each day and we talked for prolly 2 hours a night sometimes working through this EASY stuff i should have know on like week one. To sum it up i made up about 2 months worth of spanish studying in about a week.... and it felt amazing!

I have always loved to talk spanish to anyone that will listen and try to understand... but you have to realize i have heard 2 and half year old kids speak better than me.... so im not easy to talk to, but most people get a kick out of watching me try.... like Inma and most of her friends (which i love, because they know im tryin and they help me and struggle with me and it is so awesome when i get done making a point and ALL OF THEM know what happened) such a rewarding feeling... but you also think to yourself... JEEZE that took me 20 minutes to say... and in english i LEGITIMATELY could have got that done in about 2 and half.

So little walls im climbing over=) And to get back to the story i went into school on Thursday and had gotten up for this 9 o clock class at about 6:15 and studied for the next 2 hours then got on the bus. Studied all the way to school then sat in the bathroom and in a big stall and studied the last 20 minutes before class.... said a quick "God give me the wisdom to remember all that i have studied" because i really couldn't afford a brain blank on this test!!! Then i went and sat down in class, the teacher looked at me, NOT in the nice good luck i know youll do great face.... BUT more along the, "I dont think you studied and this is a really hard exam and i bet your going to fail... face! " So now i had even more incentive... i wanted to prove her wrong!!!

As i went through the test i only found one thing i was unsure of.... WOW WHAT A PRAISE!!! And as i worked from subject to subject i had a clear vision of everything i had studied... had the wisdom and didnt forget anything!!! HONESTLY didnt forget one thing i had studied! So thank you God for giving me wisdom, thank you Angela for struggling with me all week to study, and Inma thank you for the late night skype call and helping me write out my daily routine in spanish but also helping me out every time we hang out=) I NAILED THE TEST!!! I think.... i will find out on Monday how i did... i think i got a 6 or a 7 out of ten.. i know that doesnt sound great but over here that is awesome!!!

So onto the turkey... got to hotel Bequer and everyone was looking formal and nice... and here i was in a button up shirt, my western jeans... tennis shoes, and of course my silver belt buckle. Was a little out of place, but we all got sat down and no one could see my bottom half anyway so i looked jazzin=) The head man named Qui Que got up and made a little speech and then told us sorry that we were not going to be getting sweet potatos this Thanksgiving because we told the chef to make them and he didnt know what they were so he make mashed potatos then put pineapple in them to make them sweet!!!hahaha so we all got a kick out of that.... Then the food came out and it was really really really.... not that fantastic. It was two pieces of huge turkey, mashed potatos, vegtable, and gravy... then a fruit jelly cream pumpkin pie thing for dessert. I mean i aint complaining but it was a little disappointing compared to last night at the Actons=)

After eating we i went to a disco till about 4 in the morning which was alright... then got home and did what i had been waiting to do all day! Call my family! I called them and they were all watching the Broncos game at my Grandparents house in Cheyenne=0) Talked to everyone for a sec except nate and levi because skype kept shutting down. Then later on that night i called nate gurtler and we got to chat for a good long time I loved that! Also got to talk to Devin and the Urmans and they were both great to get to talk to=) Devin was with her dad and all the Urmans were home=)

So it was an eventful day... woke up at 6:15am that morning had a test and then stayed up till about 5 oclock the next morning skyping people!=) What an awesome day... man i am a blessed dude... God is a GREAT God!

Thanksgiving with my Jesus Family!=) Dinner #1

Nov. 25 first Dinner at the Actons

Today i helped Martha prep some pecan pie and some corn pudding at her house before we got going to the Actons house for our 3:30pm dinner with all the Americans from here in Sevilla that are connected through Jesus.

The idea of the party this year was for everyone to prep their own little "what they are thankful for speech" but instead of having it be usual Chanelle, Davids wife, decided since she was kinda setting up the dinner and it was at their house she wanted to do something different. So she gave everyone a issue that they could talk about that some how related back to being thankful or the history of the day or the like.

We got to the house and everything was perfect! They had the entire house set up and it smelt so good. Everyone was there... Andrea from the states had her mom and sister and they were just splendid! It was like a bunch of old friends getting together for a game ... everyone was just excited to get started! First we prayed and chatted then we hit the turkey! IT WAS HUGE AND COOKED TO BRONZE PERFECTION! I could not believe all the awesome food!

The food was all spectacular and when we finally got done it was time for everyone to talk about their topic. There was 19 of us i think... but im only going to give a few of the ones i remember. David talked about how he had a new found hero, and that was hard to beat because his old hero was Noah, but he said his new one was the Pillsbury Dough Boy! Hahaha he then justified by sayin "Ya know he knows that poke is coming EVERY TIME at the end of the commercial but he doesn't get made or throw a fit... everytime he does his cute little whooooowhooooooaaaaa!" And David said that he wished he could do that because as Christians we know the pokes are coming but every time he gets poked he does not have the same jolly response as his new found "hero." That was a good twist on a funny little fella!

Then my turn came and i shared how i was thankful for my new family! My host sister and mom and then my new Jesus family and all that they have done for me! They answered a prayer i prayed so long ago and even sitting where i was, was an answer to prayer and a total blessing! GOD I AM THANKFUL FOR THEM!

Then Chanelle went and her question was AWESOME, "If God were to take away everything right now that you had not thanked him for, what would you have left?" That was one of the best questions i had heard in a long time! Made me think of everything i have taken for granted and not told God i am thankful for!

Then we sang some songs and had some laughs and dessert and all went home to a nice little rain.

WHAT A WONDERFUL DAY! PRAISE THE LORD!

Once again.... CATCHIN UP!!!!=0)

UPDATE FROM NOVEMBER 2

Hey all, really sorry about not keeping up on this like i thought i was going to... turns out taking ten to 15 minutes out of my day to keep this up has been a little tuffer than what i planned on, but i know a lot of people back home really like reading my little tail of life in Sevilla so i will try my best to keep it up! I know i have said that but as you will read i have been getting a wee bit more organized since time seems to be getting shorter and shorter and the list of things i have to do/ or can do seems to be getting longer and longer. What im sayin is that im seeing the importance and practice of being disciplined!

YUMMY YUMMY IN MY DIABETIC TUMMY

Alrightee.... well the first cool thing to happen after Nov. 2, which was my last blog was that we had an awesome trip to a real life cookie factory in Estepa which is like a hour and a half from Sevilla! It was fantastic, one of the professors at UPO (Univeristy of Pablo De Olavide) grew up in Estepa working at his family cookie factory and every year he takes a bunch of students to go see it! When we finally got to the town like little village the first thing you smelt was cookies! Then once you got inside your mouth just watered and brought me back to the US sitting in front of my Aunt Karens TV set in Cheyenne watching "How its Made" It really was just like in the movies and tv....each person had their own little job and everyone had been working there for like EVER and seemed everyone was connected to the family some how! They were all happy chubby little people who looked like they enjoyed doin what they were doin! And it was really sweet how the professor just came in like he owned the place then gave his mom and pop two big kisses! The professors name was Enrique and he is an animated character like someone you would watch on tv or read in the sunday comics (just a real neat fella) he loved to agree with you and bob his whole top half back and forth in agreeance with pretty much all that ya said. Hahaha really a relaxed easy goin sort of a chum=) So that was an exciting weekend and got to have some meaningful convos with some new people and met a really awesome new christian who is going to try to come to our bible study!

WORK WORK WORK

For about the next week all i that i can see is work. Did a bunch of school work and little play. But on the other hand we had a great Bible study as always! Been havin those every Tuesday at 4:56 at the Starbucks in the middle of town at a place called Puerta de Jerez which literally means "Gate from the city" and it is where we meet till about 5:15 or so then we go sit on the lawn for some good Jesus talk! Man do we ever have some good Jesus talks... God has totally blessed our times together ever since our first one the 22 of Sep. Every week someone different leads it and i have lead it twice now. God has really blessed us with new kids just about every week now and is a great place for people who are here studying abroad to come and stay in fellowship with other believers and get a little Jesus for the week=)

MOVIN AND A GROOVIN SPANISH STYLE

Hahaha what a time. My best friend named Abraham over here is one of the best Salsa dancers that i have ever seen... period! He can keep time (something i can not do) and has more new moves that i am trying to learn to bring home! But anyway i really wanted to bring Martha out with us so we had a night where she could come out and a bunch of other people could to so it was... Martha, Abraham, Inma, Fatima & Sierra from bible study, Carmen from Connexxion and me. We all ended up at this fancy little place right next to Puerta de Jerez that had a live band that night. It was like 6 euros to get in but we had looked for awhile so we decided we would pay and go in! The place was lively and everyone inside was a quicksteppin to the funky Spanish music. The inside was white and was styled to put you back in like a royal dance parlor... pretty legit gonna have to say! But as we got in i realized that once again Jake has no style when it comes to this salsa dancin... I mean i can only handle about two beats then after that i get real lost real quick! To visualize what i was feelin... i felt like a three legged dog on a windy frozen lake tryin to catch a wet fish! Thats about what i looked like too.... AND THEN other people were askin me to show them how to dance and i was like YEAH RIGHT do you see what i look like! Cant imagine anyone wanted to learn how to look like i looked!=) Anyway, we had a good night and some big spanish dude kept hitting on Martha and so i had to lay down the law on that dude in my awesome spanish with Inmas help! hahaha it was good though he didnt mess with her agian=0) We all had a blast and everyone hit home at about 4 in the morning... so we had a full day!

CARMONA

This is the next school trip we took. It was for my Spanish Art class and it was a pretty good time... really short though. We left at 930 in the morning and we were back at about 230 that day so it was short! But we learned how people in roman times were burried and how the size of the burial chamber signified how rich and awesome they were! Kinda weird if ya ask me but i wasnt diggin the graves! They always were cremated and put in a little 1 foot by 1 foot box of some sort... then they would have their whole family dead around them too. Learned some neat stuff and got a free trip to a semi sweet place=)

Connexxion Retreat

Got back from Carmona then that same day got packed for the trip to Cazella which is also about an hour and half away from Sevilla. People who went on the trip. Martha, Abraham, Carlos (friend of Marthas from Connexxion) same as Danny, and Leah... then the two American interns named Megan and Andrea and then Ruben and Sylvia were the speakers and worship leaders. Sylvia is song artist and man is she good! We hiked for like 10 miles total the one day or a little less and we got to see a water fall and a old school farmer guy with a small heard of goats and like 5 dogs... just a simple lookin guy livin his dream... and of course I HAD to get a picture with him=)! We had some awesome talks about Jesus and why people suffer at the place where we stayed, which was a camp like setting in the hills NOT MOUNTAINS of Cazella. This place was like no other though!!! Honestly i can say that it was legitly like going back in time! People doin their own thing, killin chickens makin cheese from goats milk just livin it! Can say that it was one of my favoritest spots=) Had some really fun times doin some walk beat boxing and had some really good talks with Andrea the intern from America and had a lot of laughs and i like laughs so i had a blast of a weekend!

Dinner with Teddy

So this past Saturday i was studying a ton for my spanish exam on this thursday and got a ring from my buddy Teddy... his real name is Jonny but i call him Teddy because he has huge paws and long hair and is HUGE plus he is like the nicest guy you would ever meet so Teddy just fits him really well. Along those lines he said he would call me bear so that we could combine and make a powerful fusion of TEDDY BEAR! Its a good fusion i think! so anyway got a call from him and so went over to his bach pad and got ready for a little dinner with the family! His sister and brother in law came over and their two cute little kids... the youngest of which has bright blue eyes and golden brown hair yet has two parents, both who have dark brown eyes with almost black-brown hair... such a rare cute little spanish kid! But we all had dinner along with his room mate Holiday! Was a great time speakin some spanish and getting to have some legit time with my buddy Teddy!=)

Dinner at Marthas- then the Flu

All day Sunday i spent with Martha going to church and helping her out. After church got out we went back to Marthas place and prepped some soup for lunch. Little potato cream goodness! Loved it and was really simple to make... then took a 3 hour nap cause i was feelin a little tired then had Abe over after i got done moppin the house down for Martha. Had some more soup then two big cups of coffee that was chocolate flavored... wow AMAZING! We then had a bible study and answered some questions like "Was Jesus a good looking man... which is no he was not look it up in Isaiah 53:2.... and other stuff that was random but on our hearts. Then came the fun stuff! Got home at about 130 and could not sleep... so listened to some podcast of a awesome guy named Ben Stuart then finally fell asleep at 5am..woke up at 10 feeling like some one had thrown me off a cliff then made me drink snakes for breakfast. Basically felt like everything on my inside wanted to be on the outside... so had a trip with the runs, vomiting and fever and went back to bed at about 12 when the Imodium kicked in! then woke up at 5 that night tried to do stuff for like 3 hours then fell asleep at 8 and got up the next day at 8:41am feeling like a million bucks WHICH IS NOW TODAY! So am much better now and getting some stuff done for school so i am feelin pretty rad=) AND FINALLY GOT UP TO DATE ON MY BLOG!!!!!!!! WHAAAAAWHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ending the Day with a bang!

Tonight was one of the best nights of spanish i have had yet. Sat down with the family and started eating and started asking about different things in spanish and different words and the like and we talked about a ton of different personal things for the first time since i have been here and got to show them how much i really care about them and hermanita... which is little sister who is 19 so it was great! Loved it... i understood about 90 percent and was able to say exactly what i wanted to say in a general direct form=) IT WAS FANTASTIC=)

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA just got a call from my friend SCOTTIE CATES! Finally had some time to talk we talked for like an hour and 3 minutes a new record! It was so funny because i just got done havin dinner with my family (WHICH IS A WHOLE NOTHER STORY) and then i came upstairs and saw scott calling so i talked to him. Started out talkin about just stuff like bible breakfast for him and work. He told me how he was workin on the coal mine and fuelin up these light trailers and stuff and how he me a mexican that is named Elmo and he calls scott "Essay" there were some funny stories behind that! So then he goes "jake is there anything i can send you" i said "yeah there is" so he got his little note pad out and started writing down everything i said. So i told him he needed to go to Home Depot and ask for a 3 foot by 2 foot by 6 foot tall box, then he needed to get one role of name brand "Duck Tape" it couldn't be an off brand i told him, then i said he needed to buy 3 one pound boxes of packing peanuts and then he needed to address it to Sevilla Spain. So after he had it all written down i told him to show me the paper to make sure he had it written down right... mind you im tryin my best not to laugh" and i say well that looks good man you have it all written down perfect. Then he goes "jake thats a really big box what am i supposed to put in it.......ME!?!?!?!?" then he finally got it and we had a good ol laugh. Then we chatted some more just about whatever and he was all smiles the whole time and it was so awesome to get to chat with my best buddy! He is doin good and just lovin the Lord and walkin with him like Scottie L always does... and it was just great to get to spend the last hours of my night with him!=) God be with my friend Scottie L... and thank you for blessing me with time with him tonight=) Amen!!!! And as Scottie always says "Thank the Lord"

PLEASE TAKE MY POLL

There is a poll at the bottom of the page please do it=)

Chill day just catchin up and havin a day with Jesus=0)

Got up at about 1 and went down and made myself some breakfast and then got to have a legit hour just talking with the Lord and prayin and just really reflecting on the word. I got to finish up some much needed business on skype and on Facebook and got to have an awesome devo so i had a pretty rad day.

And i got to talk to Jon for like and hour or so then skype went bad on us but we had a great talk and man was it AWESOME to hear what the Lord is doin in my friends life! So proud of Jon... livin for the Lord in Casper Wyoming... what a guy!

Now just spendin the rest of the day getting caught up and hopefully talkin with Levi or Nate or Dad... who i have tried calling 2 times=) Pray he can get a sick deal on a truck!

November 1 Chillin out with Martha and the gang=)

Woke up at around 1 and then was really tired so napped until about 3 after that. NOT A GOOD DEAL. Let my self down, i had an awesome saturday night with friends and then didnt follow the rule of going to church the next morning so i was pretty bummed with myself! But then i got an awesome message from an awesome friend that asked if i wanted to do a bible study at her house at around 7. OF COURSE i did! and yes the message was from Martha! So i did some stuff around the house for a few hours wrote on my blog a bit and then rode my bike over to her house which is only like ten minutes from my house 15 including everything maybe 20. Got to her house and saw Carmen and Danny both really awesome people that i have come to be friends with through Martha!

We all sat down and had a bible study about the heart and being giving God your whole heart! And then we discussed reasons to why people only give half their hearts to anything that they do. Then Abraham showed up and we finished the bible study. Wow was it a good one... it was a wake up call to me because i have been debating on weather to go on this trip with Martha and the gang to go hiking and have a good followship weekend or weather i should go to Morocco with ISA on a international weekend that you had to apply for to go. I wrote a 15 line essay as to why i wanted to go to Morocco and i am waiting to hear back from them but it is on the same weekend as marthas fellowship weekend so i really need to make a choice. Tonight was just a reminder as to why i am here... am i here more for the expierence or am i here because of God and for God?!!?!? Was just a good lesson that i needed to hear=) Thanks Martha!

Then Martha cooked us some pasta and tomato sauce and i made some meat sauce and she made some tomato sauce without meat because Danny is a vegitarian=) Dinner was great we chatted for a bit then i ran out of insulin so Martha took me home and i got some more then we came back and Carmen left and shortly after Danny and Abraham did. But then me and Martha got talkin about the ranch because i called mom and she was talkin about workin with the calves. Then we just talked for the next 2 hours or more and it was about 3 in the morning so Martha called it a night and i was just chattin away so it was time to get to bed!=) But wow was it just refreshing to get to spend the night talkin with such an awesome woman of God! Martha never ceases to amaze me with her love and devotion to Christ!

Father God thank you for Martha and thank you for putting her in my life, bless her Lord and give her strength in everything she does. Amen.

OCTOBER 31...Rock Climbing and getting robbed!

Well today started off really sweet because today i was getting to hang out with my BF Aberaham=) He told me to meet him at Prado at 10 because we were going to go rock climbing with some of his biology friends.... friends that study with him. So we went to where we were supposed to meet Megan and Andrea and then got a call sayin they would be an hour late so.... we went to his friends Pacos house and said hi and came back and met Megan at the bus station. Biked to the spot where rock climbing was and then found that it was under the 8 lane highway at the end of a bridge. What they did for the rock wall was they went to the end of this archway bridge and they screwed in rock wall hand holds all the way under this bridge stretching all the way from one archway the next it was nuts=) BUT SAFE! (gotta clarify for family) Did that with about 15 of Abrahams buddies for about an hour or 2 then went to the park for lunch.

Played some football at the park took a nap then called Jose Maria and we talked for a bit then decided we needed to get Megan home so she could change and then catch the last bus back into town to hang out with us later that night. So got her home then we all split and went home and were planning on meeting back up that night at 10. I called Inma and i showed up to here house at about 930 totally decked out in my cowboy outfit since it was HALLOWEEN!!!! I had my hat on, boots with spurs, grandpas old belt with my silver and gold belt buckle, long sleeve country shirt with suspenders that i went and bought at the Chino shop next to my house... the only NON LEGIT thing i had on... but it fit so i threw it on=) So i show up to Inmas house on what i like to call "J&K Taxi" which is my sevici bike that i rent all the time and i can carry a person (most of the time Inma) and i take them with me=) So i got to her house took some pictures till my camera died and then went to meet up with Megan at Plaza de Armaz. I put Norbit Jr. in the front of the bike in the little basket for the ride over (Norbit Jr. is my fanny pack) this becomes significant shortly. We ride all the way over and then i get to the sevici station and i put the bike away and go to grab another one rent it and then take it over to the girls which are about 30 yards away around a corner... test out the bike see it is bad so go put it back and walk back over... THEN instantly remember i left Norbit Jr. in the bike basket! =( Ran back to go get it and saw it was gone... WOW YA WANNA TALK ABOUT A KNIFE IN THE BUTT! I had a Samurai sword cut me in half! Contents in Norbit Jr...... 150 dollars cash, 2 credit cards, MY BRAND NEW CAMERA 35o dollars, memory card 30 dollars, two batteries for the camera 100 dollars, a diabetic tester with 10 more strips 50 dollars, student id card 20 dollars, and the thing that burned me the most was that they stole my SKITTLES=PRICELESS!!! They didn't even leave a few on the handle bars for me.. just took the whole bag... i tell you what they got a good little bag that is for sure=0) BUT....... it was my fault for leavin it in such an awesome position!

So keep Norbit Jr. in your prayers that he would come home safe with all his buddies inside! So i lost the last few days of pictures.. the Cookie factory, and rock climbing and all the rest of the night...........

After i got everything taken i we all went to a dancing spot that was SUPPOSED to be Salsa but they were playin Flamanco music... which barely any Spanish people can dance to SO...... that means JACOB KISSACK does not have a chance!!!!!!!!!!!!! So we sat down i bummed out for a total of 2 minutes then just grabbed Inma.... cowboy outfit still present=)..... and started dancin country to Flamanco! O buddy it was sick! We had a blast and then Abraham started dancing with Megan and teachin her how to do the whole salsa thing and i started teachin Jose Maria how to dance country so it was a good time EVERYONE got to have fun! Danced for about an hour and then went to a bowling spot!

At the bowling spot we had 2 games which included a drink and shoes for 13 dollars...everyone got their stuff and we started playin... turns out everyone in the place was wearing the same costumes... Halloween is a pretty new concept for Spanish people and they still have not gotten the idea that they can be ANYTHING! I saw about 1,000 Drakula's and a million witches! THEY ALL DRESSED IN THE SAME COSTUMES!!!! hahaha they will catch on... someday=0) Well we had our fun and everyone got a strike! Then i took Inma home on the J&K taxi sevici bike and we all went home and i got to my house at about 430, with no keys so Jesus the man at the door to the complex had to let me in and then my host mom left some keys in the mail box... just another reminder of how big of a boo boo i made tonight. That mistake can take up the biggest spot on the "IDIOT WALL OF FAME" that i have.... it is pretty full of dumb things i have done and costly things i have lost BUT THIS ONE BEATS THEM ALL. Jesus please bring Norbit Jr. home safe to me... and thank you for such awesome friends!!!!=0)

OCTOBER 30 COOKIE FACTORY!!!

So today got up at 8:03am by the awesome feeling that i had to go to the bathroom.... then realized that i forgot to set my alarm and that i was leaving for a cookie factory today at 9:30 so i was really excited that i woke up. Got on the bus at Prado(a real centrally located place) then had the 1 and 15 minute bus ride to Estepa/Osuna. We were going on the trip with my university and it was for to just simply visit these two places and in Estepa there was a cookie factory that a teacher at the university family owns so every year he takes students to go see this family cookie factory... Pretty sweet deal i would say!!!=) Got to Estepa and it was great! There were more olive trees then i could ever count... fitting as though this region is #2 in the world for producing olive oil=)

Got inside the factory and had a walking tour of how this place worked and how it produces all the awesome cookies. The first thing we were told is that this place could not sell its products in the US because of the content of fat!!! HAHAHAHA they are made with sugar, flour and FAT(and some other stuff but those are the top 3). So we moved along and the mother and father of the professor were both working and it was neat to have the family together workin=) Made me miss home and the ranch and my momma and pap=) Along the way we were always overwhelmed with the awesome smell of fresh cookies! The entire town smelled like a fresh baked cookie, IT WAS GREAT! And along the way we also got fresh cookies right after they were packaged!! it was so fantastic, they were so so so SO SO SO good, chocolate, sugar, fat....... INCREDIBLE!!!=)

After the walking tour we went to a sweet old castle and chilled out there and we climbed up into a tour that had a sweet view of the entire city... beautiful! We then went down to a little pub to have some lunch and the owner of the place was really old and way cool. He busted out a dollar bill (spanish of course) that was like 200 YEARS OLD! I got a picture of all this but read tomorrows blog to see why i don't have any pictures.. (SAD DAY). But this guy had coins from when they used gold and silver as currency! Then we went to Osuna and looked at an old school and i got to talk to a friend named Mez all the time there and home and that was great... we talked about a ton of stuff and i gained a new view on some parts of life because of what she told me about hers=)

Got home and grabbed a bike and biked over to Martha's house to get a ride to Burmujos with her and my BF Abraham=) We rode over to Darby Pushic, a Jesus friend of our, who is here for 2 years, her house for dinner and a birthday party! Wow was it great everyone was there. David Acton, Johnny, Abraham, Jose Maria, Megan, Darby, Blackstons, Megan, Andrea, Christy and just all the people i love hangin out with=) AND there was MEXICAN FOOD nothing better in Spain than American made Mexican food... wow it was AWESOME thanks to everyone who pitched in=)

Darby was turning 24 and we sang happy birthday and had brownies and a cake and a pinata and apple bobbing and the Blackstons sang the song "No more Bacon" that was a riot=) Then we just hung out and chilled all night playin spoons and poppin balloons=)