Alter Call

Ummm. I haven't heard of this until now. It shows how oblivious I am. My church doesn't do this. We have infant baptism and if you want to become a catholic as an adult you go through RCIA. I don't know exactly how I feel about alter calling. It is a very interesting concept. I like the idea of allowing people to come up and pray for salvation. It is a neat idea. I think it is a good oppurtunity to accept God into your heart. On the same note I am not sure if I like the public display of asking God into your heart. I think that it may be something that is better done in private or with a close group of family and friends to support you. This might cause some unsincere people to go up and the shy, scared, sincere ones to not. Is this implying that you have to go up to be forgiven or ask God into your heart? I don't know. To some people this may be intimidating and cause them not to go up or ask God into their heart. (Is that far fetched?) I like the way my church does it. The priest asks for God to hear the prayers of everyone in the church and to forgive them their sins. This is not just praying for the people who come up but for everyone. Everyone sins and everyone needs forgiveness. Your relationship with God is personal and I don't think it needs to be shown to the church. On the other hand this might be a good chance if you are feeling down in the dumps to have a support team and ask for Gods forgiveness. Like I said earlier, I don't know how I feel about this. Their are pros and cons.

Halloween.

"As with many of our traditions, it’s worth taking the time to look back and wonder, “Where did this come from?” Halloween is no exception. And, like many of our holidays, it can be misused, abused and downright non-Christian. But using the time to have some fun with friends and give kids some candy? That seems like a pretty Christian thing to do. Just don’t give the kids a tract instead of candy. That's just mean." - RELEVANT Magazine

I sincerely agree with this statement. Halloween is what you make of it. It is not wrong to consider its dark side but on the same note it is not wrong to use it as a fun time to hang out with friends and family. Or, how I used it this year, a time to study for Chemistry. I don't see anything wrong with walking around your neighborhood in a fun, innocent costume and having a blast with friends, not to mention getting some candy along the way. As long as you aren't doing scary bad things and throwing the candy at the cute little kids I think it is fine. It is a fun time, as long as you deal with it in a christian manner. That would be wearing an appropriate costume and spending quality time with friends and family. And if you are trick-or-treating, don't forget to say please and thank you.

:) KATIE TUTT

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Assignment #6: Special Olympics

     I really enjoyed helping the special olympics athletes bowl. They were very sweet and happy to be there and they bowled much better then I do. I am HORRIBLE at bowling and will never be good at it no matter how much I practice or hard I try. I am pretty sure that the lanes are raised in the middle so we loose. I was in lane 8. At first I felt very unuseful. The first guy was really good at it and his mom was with him and helped him the whole time. He didn't need my help at all. The second guy didn't like being around strangers so his helper helped him. During that time I attempted to help Regan. The third guy was severely handicapped so I helped him a lot. He had to press a button that released the ball down the ramp. The whole time he had a smile on his face and was very proud of himself. The fourth and final guy was very friendly. He liked to give high fives and fist pounds. He would count down then push it as hard as he could. He was extremely happy to be there and was having a fantastic time. He always had a smile on his face. All of the helpers were really friendly and helpful. I had a marvelous day. I realized today that I am such a whiner. I just complain and complain and complain. If my finger hurts a little I will whine about it. These olympians were having a blast and always kept a smile on their face despite their disability. Nothing could keep them from having a good day. I let the smallest things get in the way of my day and ruin my attitude. These people inspired me to appreciate every moment and let go of the small silly things. We don't know how long our lives will be or the obstacles we will face but we need to keep smiling no matter what. Today was a FANTASTIC day.

Assignment #5: The Speaker :)

     I greatly enjoyed spiritual emphasis week. I think that everything Andy had to say was what needed to be heard. My favorite day was Thursday when he spoke about how ideas have consequences. He showed the clips and played the songs and it helped me realize that even though a song may have a good beat it doesn't make it ok. I enjoy listening to music so it really helped me. On Monday he spoke about believing. He asked us a lot of questions such as… What is it to believe? Who is God? Who is God to you? How do you know that the sky isn’t green? All of these questions made me take a step back and look at the way I had been thinking and the way I should be thinking. It showed me that I need to be able to know who the true God is and what it is that I believe. It is especially important that I know what I believe not only because I am a Christian but because I am catholic and people question my beliefs a lot. Another good question was… Are you doing it right? This question REALLY made me think. What if I am not doing it right at all? What if Catholics are completely wrong? What if Christians are wrong? Spiritual emphasis week completely grounded my belief in the one true God. Before I had believed in him but that belief was not backed up. On Friday he talked about belonging. He asked questions like... What does it mean to belong to each other? What does it mean to belong to the world? What does it mean to belong to Christ? Something that resonated with me was "love one another". I try really hard to show "love" or be friendly and kind to people. I happen to fail a lot. I am one of those people who speak without thinking and just say what is on their mind. That is probably not a good thing. So lets just say I voice my opinion way to much, sometimes when I should not. Lets just say someone is ticking me off, well, I end up saying something I don't mean without thinking about how I probably have done the same thing before. Then after I feel like a horrible person and apologize a million times. Something I need to improve is definately thinking before I speak. If I had thought about how I had probably done or said the same thing to someone before then I probably would not have said anything mean and would have avoided that whole thing. To make a long story short: I need to show love to everyone no matter what they do. This made me think about how I am at fault in this area and have been working on it since then (even though it hasn't been very long). I am starting to improve as hard as it may be. What I saw a lot throughout the week is that you need to know what you believe. Not just say you believe it but know what you believe and why you believe it and how you can support that it is true. We need to live out what we believe, not be half in half out or one toe in, it is all or nothing really. If we truly believe it we need to show it in everything we do and try not to sin (although it is impossible). I think spiritual emphasis week had a great impact on my life and the way I think and look at the world. It has made me realize that I am not better then anyone. It has made me realize that I need to be all in and put my time in effort into my relationship with God which I don't think I have been doing very well at all. I need to love God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength. I need to live a life that would be pleasing to God and if I mess up I need to be accountable for it. I need to be conscious of the things I surround myself with because they affect the way I think and behave. In our 7th hour Bible class he showed us ways we can prove that the Bible is real. It really showed me that the Bible does comply with history and geography and etc. I will never forget spiritual emphasis week and how it strengthened my Belief in God.

LOVE KATIE

(Mr. Mendenhall, I thought that this had posted last night. I went home to check it and see if I had writted everything that I wanted to and it made sense and it was not there. I am really sorry.)

FRIENDS :)

Assignment #4



     There are a boatload of qualities that I desire in a friend. Funny, nice, talkative, energetic, positive, easy to talk to, CHRISTIAN, caring, responsible, respectful, friendly (of course!), honest, humble, etc. There are so many that I can't think of them all but you get the general idea. All of these qualities are important to me because...



   Funny- I have to have friends that can laugh and make me laugh. Laughter is a neccesity.
   Nice- They can't be mean, their supposed to be your friend!
   Talkative- I LOVE to talk! They need to be able to talk back and start conversations. I can't talk to myself
   Energetic- I can not stand it when people are negative and are tired and in a bad mood all the time. Energy
                    is a must
   Positive- They have to have a good attitude and outlook. I like to be optimistic and don't like it when 
                  people are negative. It ruins your day and your good mood.
   Easy to talk to- This goes hand in hand with talkative. I can't feel like I am talking to a brick wall. It's just
                            not fun.
   CHRISTIAN- Well I LOVE God and it is important to me that I have friends who will pray with me and
                           help me grow in faith.
   Caring- They have to care about me to be my friend.
   Responsible- If I let them borrow something I expect to have it back when I ask. When I am meeting them
                        somewhere or they are coming over I expect them to be there.
   Respectful- Your friends should treat you well.
   Friendly- Well, you wouldn't be friends with them if they weren't friendly.
   Honest- I want them to tell me the truth. Like if I am being annoying I want them to tell me the truth.
   Humble- not bragging all the time.
  
"Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends" John 15:13


     I think that it is important that you really care about your friends.  If you don't care about each other you aren't really friends.
     Of course a GLEEK would be a good quality because GLEE is awesome. Something else that goes along with that, RANDOMLY BURSTING INTO SONG, is extremely neccesary.


     I am by no means a model of a good friend. I can be a complete jerk. I sometimes get cranky and whine about being tired or bored or whatever. I try to be nice but sometimes I fail. One thing that i'm good at is being honest with my friends. I think that if they are my friends they will like me even if I am honest with them. I am extremely talkative and can get BEYOND annoying. I am very energetic which can also be annoying. I try to be considerate and helpful but of course I fail sometimes. I think that I could definately work on patience and listening. Because I am talkative I sometimes talk way too much and don't listen to what others have to say. I am also very unpatient. I like things to be done fast and the way I want them to be done, in other words I like to be in control. That is definately something I need to work on. I am really bad about that.


     I have a lot of friends from other places. One of them is Sophie Tyson. I was Best Friends with her when I lived in England. She is very honest and easy to talk to. I visited her about 2 years ago after not seeing her for 4 or 5 years and we went right back to the way we used to be. We said hi, it was a little awkward, but then we just went up to her room and talked and did each others nails and hair and watched a chick flick and had a BLAST. I attempted to talk in a British accent but she told me not to because I sounded stupid. I thought maybe I could pick it back up again but I guess not. We went on a 22 mile tandum bike ride around a lake and had a fantastic time even though we couldn't walk afterwards. She is just one of those friends that you can get along with really easily no matter where you are. Oh, she is British her father was in the RAF (Royal Air Force) with my dad. They still live in England just a different part. 


Yep, that's it. I love all of my friends!


KATIE TUTT
  

Assignment #3

     I did not like this song at all. I thought it was really sad and depressing. I typically listen to songs with a happy message.  I think that this is a song that should only be listened to sometimes because it is not good to always feel sad but it isn't neccesarily good to be happy all the time either. A balance of both is very important. I think that it elicits sadness. It can be interpreted different ways and is therefore something you can think about for a long time. It is good to think about how if love isn't real it can fall apart. It is not good to dwell on that subject and not think about the good things in life. I think that as christians we are responsible for really thinking about the world and the good and bad that happens in it. So despite the fact that I don't like sad songs, I think that this is a good song to listen to that will evoke  healthy emotion and contemplation.

September 2

School is going by way too fast. Today at swim team we played freeze tag where you swim under peoples legs to free them. Naturally, I got chosen to be it. I am loving school! So excited to be going to Montana on Saturday-Wednesday! I am going to the football game tommorrow. Well I have to go and study for a Human Anatomy test and memorize my Bible verse. Bye!!!