another week is over, and we only have 3 weeks left here in vegas until we leave for turkey!!! i dont even know where to start, maybe some pictures will help.

heres some pictures from camping last weekend.

we lit sparklers. i think they were supposed to be for kristens birthday, but she didnt end up coming so we lit them anyways.

for speaker hang out this week, we went to the venichian (a hotel on the strip) to just walk around and hang out. it was also our cooks, lucy's last night with us. so kevin dressed up in his elvis costume, and we all wore these yellow hats that came in a donation that we got. it was fun night, that ended up us following kevin around while people wanted their picture taken with him.

this weekend, some of us went swimming at one of the hotels/casions on fremont street. unfortunately i didnt take any pictures while we were there. its a sweet pool tho; with a water slide that goes through a shark tank. i did find a link to a site with a picture of the pool !
http://www.vegastodayandtomorrow.com/images/golden_nugget_pool_open.jpg

this week our speaker is our base director, on evangelism!! im excited for this week, because i love evangelism; doing things like free prayer, and whatnot. so it should be a good week.

this week we also met with a turkish couple that goes to UNLV here, and they taught us a little more about Turkey and answered any questions that we had. hopefully we'll be hanging out with them a little more before we leave.

not a whole lot else is new .. the weathers getting nicer, and ive been working on my tan. but its been realllly windy these past couple of days. i have yet to miss the snow !!

hope to hear from some of you soon before i leave!

week 8

another week is past. our speaker for the week was jodi austin; our first female speaker ! we were all really excited!! it was a great week; she was teaching on the holy spirit and the gifts of the holy spirit. it was a great week of learning, and a lot of new things to take in. for speaker hang out we went to red rock to watch the sun set, but we couldnt really see it because the sun was behind the mountains. it was still fun though! and then after we went out and bought stuff to have an ice cream sunday party!

on friday night, the boys had a little surprise for us. they helped make, set up, and serve us supper. although they did start a hour late, it was really cute, and tasted good. they had us all get dressed up, and their way of dressing up was putting a tie on themselves. i havent uploaded my pictures from the week yet, but i will later.

on saturday it was kristen's 21st birthday, so on sunday night we all went to applebee's for 1/2 off appetizers !

in order to get the 1/2 off ap's, you had to be in the bar. but not all of us are 21, so we couldnt all sit in the bar. so we had to have the other table order all our stuff for us, and then pass it to us. it was kinda confusing for the waiter, but in the end we all got really cheap food, and had fun!

this is me and zianna after apple bees. we've lately been going through a phase of listening to and singing spice girls, and some s club 7 .. how i missed those bands.

on saturday morning, 7 of us went camping for the night. we went to valley of fire to go camping. we did some 'sight seeing' there, hiking and some rock climbing. it was a bit windy and chilly at night, and where we were sleeping was in sand so not a great combonation .. especially when you arent in a tent. but it ended up being fun, and it was great to get away from the base and hang out. i dont have any pictures uploaded from then yet, but i will later! :)

it ended up being a great week of learning, and relationship building with everyone here. this week woo and heather also decided that they are going to go ahead and book their tickets to come with us to turkey !! we are all really excited because they both we planing on not going because of lack of finances. i cant believe we leave in 4 weeks !!! we're starting to get really excited, and we cant wait to see all that God has planned for us while in Turkey.

thats about all thats new here in vegas. i ll try and upload some newer pictures soon. in the mean time SEND ME A LETTER. you dont know how excited i get when i hear i have mail (and its not very often). ive only gotten letters from 2 people in canada; my parents, and gabrielle (THANK YOU GABBB!!). i promise i will write you back if you send me a freakin letter!

beth konrath
p o box 36606
las vegas nv
81933-6606
USA

please :) pretty please

yay

another update. (im still wondering if people are reading my blog or not, im not getting any comments)

this past week our speaker was marty meyer. he spoke on the father heart of God. it was a great week. on tuesday we climbed to the top of red rock and had our lectures there for the day. once we got up there it was kinda windy and uncomfortable to sit on the rocks, but i loved it! it was great to get out of the base and have lectures in a new fun place! and i loved climbing up there!

the other night for local outreach we went to the street where most of the homeless people sleep. we went around 8 and everyone was already lined up on the side walks with their tents or their sleeping bags ready for the night. we took garbage bags and picked up all the garbage (the street was covered), and just made simple conversation with the people. i think that a lot of them are just waiting for someone to actually care about them, and have a sincere conversation with them. i always find it intersting when you ask the person how they ended up on the streets of las vegas. a lot of them are there because they gambled their way to the streets. but a lot of them are just out of jobs. many of them are great workers, with university degrees and everything. the economy just sucks for a lot of them, and many of them came to vegas thinking that they could find work. its also interesting to talk to the people; a lot of them are content with the position that they are in .. which is really great to hear; and that they try and see the more positive things of it. like these 2 guys me and kristen were talking to; they think that as homeless people they have it better as some of their other homeless people. they were thankful that they have clothes and other things in storage, unlike a lot of the others. they also just saw it as a temporary thing. it also breaks my heart when i try and talk to people that are so cracked out and so messed up. it boggles my mind as to how they got that far .. what could i possibly do to help them? im not even sure if they understand what i say to them when they talk, and if they even know what theyre saying to me.

we have the weekends off, today it was sooo nice out. i went back to red rock with peter, sam and rich. it was so great. we went all out. heres some pictures of us climbing. since being here in vegas, ive fallen in love with climbing !! ahh, so awesome. i love the adventurous aspect of it, and the danger thrill !!

me samuel, and peter
me climbing ! if only you could see how far to the ground it is ...

heres a pic that should have been with the last post (i hadnt uploaded them by them). this is peter, me and sam with all the toys that we won at the circus circus last weekend.

and lastly; a picture of noemie (shes a volunteer here for 3 months; shes leaving at the end of march) jackie, me, zianna & kristen (dts mates). this is at the graduation that we had on friday for the dts that just got back from outreach in afghanistan. theyre all leaving this weekend (the 4 of them) and jackies one of them. we're all sad to see them done there dts, and for them to be leaving !

check again soon for another update!! :)

1/2 way

The end of last week marked the half way point of the lecture phase here in Vegas.
We had a group of 35 freshmen come last week, and we led them out in Mission Adventures. It was a great week, and super tiring. It was weird to go from about 15 of us YWAMers here at the base, to about 50 people. I haven't uploaded any pictures yet, but im sure theres tons of them on facebook that the kids already tagged me in. I was sad to see them go, but glad at the same time to have a long nap. I think we're going to go to Scottsdale AZ in a couple of weeks to check up on them, and hang out with them; which is super exciting!
After the kids left, it was nice to go out and not have any worries. Me and a couple of the guys went to the Circus Circus on the strip and just played games and won tons of stuffed animals !! it was great to get away from the base, and get away from huge groups of people. i needed that !
this week our speaker is marty meyer from the ywam base in idaho. yesterday we hiked to the top of red rock for lecture. it took us about a hour to get to the top. it was super nice out, but breezy. a lot of people got sun burns (dont worry mom, i wore sunscreen!!). it was a great work out, but now we're all sore! it was fun to not be in the classroom for lectures and just get to sit outside in God's creation! we also did quiet time and intercession while we were there.
right now im just sitting in the admin office waiting to let guests in for our wednesday community dinner. for the past couple of weeks we've had it at the park, but we're having it at the base tonight. its basically a dinner where anyone can show up, and we'll feed them !
last week we had a bbq at the park accross the street from us, and all the MA kids went out and invited tons of people. Once we unpacked all the stuff, we saw a swat crew with about 10 officers hanging off the side of the van, and some k9 units drive by. it pulled up to a house by the park and then all of a sudden there was 4 louuddd bangs with big puffs of smokes. so we told the kids to all go back to the base, while we all packed up. heather, kevin and i were the last people to leave the park in the van so we decided to drive by the house! we got to the street beside us and a cop stopped us and told us we had to turn around and go the other way because they have a search warrent and just blew up a house ..
Other than that, not a whole lot of exciting things are going on. We just booked our tickets to Turkey as well; leaving the middle of April and coming back to Vegas in the middle of June. We then stay here in Vegas for another week of debriefing, and then i think i ll be staying here to staff/volunteer with Mission Adventures for the summer. and then we'll see what else God has in store for the year.
im still waiting on getting mail !! i get sad every time when my dts mates get mail, and i dont :( :( (do you feel bad now?! :) )
hopefully i ll post some more pictures soon, and maybe a more indepth write up of the past week with the MA kids.
beth