I get to lead a Bible Study!

Today myself and the rest of us going to Cheltenham all met up, I get to lead a Bible Study we do (I've never led a Bible Study before, should be fun). The Bible Study I'll be leading is titled "Love". Becca has organised it all and the subject it'll be on along with the Bible verses to use so that'll help me a lot, still, I'll have to read the verses in advance and make sure I understand them. Today I drew an interesting difference between Jonathan in Portsmouth and Jonathan in Wales and the way that they preach. Jon from Portsmouth is a lot more formal in his manner than Jon of Wales, he looks into the Bible verse a lot more and requires us to think more. Jon of Wales however is a lot more informal and preaches in a much easier to digest manner, or as I put it "Preaches as if to a group of slightly dim people". Jon from Wales found this funny. Overall my task for helping with the Youth was categorised as "Door Watch", we figured this translates as "Bouncer" much better. However, I'll be doing a few more things than that and it should all be good.

Should I take a career in teaching?

Friday morning I got up, I as per usual did some of that World of Arl stuff, played a little Warcraft 3 and generally relaxed. I then did some more World of Arl stuff and it was still before lunchtime! Then, my sister who is not even at Secondary School yet asks me a question. Cerys: Teifion, how do I make a website Me: You write out some stuff and the computer turns it into a webpage Cerys: Can you teach me? Me: Sure, it's really easy 11 Hours later Cerys was making websites, I think I'll make a set of free tutorials about learning Web Design. I did a quick hunt on iTunes and looked at the selection of pod-casts on HTML and it's pretty poor, looks like it's my time to shine! Today I mowed the lawn and yay, I found more wildlife. I found 2 toads and a frog, though I only bothered to catch the first toad, in retrospect I should have gotten at least the frog too and kept the very small toad I found.         Click for slightly larger versions For much larger pictures, click for Toad on Rocks and Toad on Hand.

Did I miss a chance?

I returned from Portsmouth and I think the exams went well, however I can't make that last an entire post and if I did, it'd likely be boring. What I can tell is a story of my manly charm, swashbuckling manner and downright awesomeness of myself. Yes, a most magnificent tale, I shall tell it. The Hackers had very kindly allowed me to stay with them and rejected any and all attempts at me to offer them money. Well, I wasn't going to let them win, a thank-you gift was clearly in order, left in the room just before I left so they couldn't try to return it. I wasn't sure what to get them, they are so content and happy with what God gives them, reminds me a lot of the way Paul writes in his letters, minus the whole imprisonment stuff. Anyhoo, I decided that if they wanted something, Argos would probably sell it and there's an Argos near the Tesco I was buying my lunches from, so I sauntered over to the Argos. At this point it must be noted that I was wearing trousers, I forget why, I think it had something to do with rain, must have been feeling ill from all that revision. Me: I would like to buy a gift voucher please Young Lady at till: We don't do gift vouchers any more, instead we have gift card things, it's the same result, just a different system Me: (confused as to why this would matter in the slightest) - Ummm, okay, I'll have one of those then Young Lady at till: Is it for a special person or occasion? Me: Not really, some very nice people have let me stay at their house for my resits and I wanted to thank them Young Lady at till: Oooh, well, feel free to stay at my house any time you like! Me: Really? Give me your number and I might call you sometime Young Lady at till: Here you go Me: (Leaves store smiling) - Now, lunch time! Okay, I didn't ask for her number and I'm glad I didn't (no matter how funny it'd be to look back on or how much it'd boost my self esteem if she gave me her number). I would never have called her, she probably wouldn't have expected a call (we're assuming that I actually got her number, it's quite possible she'd have said yes) but if she had then I'd have been a letdown, it'd be a cruel joke which she'd suffer for. No, I am a true gentleman (ignore any comments that Emma or Lorna post saying anything to the contrary) and draw a much better and longer lasting satisfaction from it. Anyway, I felt you'd like to hear that story ;)

A good reason

I decided that I'd blog one more time before going to Portsmouth and possibly being without an internet connection for a week. Today at Church Jon talked about opposition when spreading the word of God. Normally any service on evangelism will focus on the good things and try to encourage you. Jon did encourage us, he just spent 95% of the time telling us about all the opposition you can face telling people about the word of God. He did reference the Bible well and explain how the Lord will stand with us, he also read a bit of a book I think was called "Fox's Christian Martyrs", I probably have the name wrong. Later today I then cycled to and from Ammanford to drop off a form to Becca for the Cheltenham Bible Festival which I'd managed to forget several times. Speaking of Becca, she was a bit disappointed to hear I would not be attending the Mission week/fortnight thing the Church is running, still, she tried to provide me with a good reason. You'll understand it better if you're familiar with the "why I joined the Christian Union" part of my testimony. Below is the exact reason that Becca thinks I should go to the mission. There will be lots of nice ladies there, maybe you could find a Girlfriend Granted, it's almost certainly not word for word, and yes, I have noticed that Christian events and settings tend to have a much fairer Lady to Guy ratio than my lectures (about 1 - 200 or more). I responded by informing Becca that though I at some point would like to meet a lady that likes me enough to date me, I've yet to find someone like that. I suggested that maybe if they were a little geeky it'd help, I then suggested asking them if they know the Fibonacci sequence or indeed, what it actually is, that's a good start. I'd write about how Becca then managed to embarrass Emma but I don't think Emma would appreciate it, suffice to say that Becca might not have thought it through completely.

Long Journey

I've completely forgotten to blog for the last week! On Wednesday I went to see my Dad affirmed as a probational police officer. Friday afternoon I found when my Referrals are, Tuesday, Monday and Tuesday. Yes, there's a week gap between the 1st and 2nd. However, the Hackers have very kindly said that I can stay at their house (thus solving the biggest problem of accommodation). So, the odds of me blogging over the next week and a half are very low as I'm going to be trying to revise a lot.

Structure and Organisation

Yesterday I didn't go to Church! I went to the Sunday School instead to help. In Portsmouth the children leave mid-way through the service, just before the main talk. The children in Portsmouth that I help with are a few years older than the ones in Wales and there was a marked difference. For a start, we're in a different building so the Children run around a lot and make as much noise as they please. Secondly, because they were younger and were allowed to run around a lot, they were quite chaotic. There was a very vague structure to it, we watched a DVD thing where some (admittedly fairly good) music was played along with dancing. At first I thought "Oh great, it's another rubbishy music thing with cheesy songs that hurt my ears with their sheer lack of quality". The first song was quite good, the second not very good and the third okay so I was surprised. After that there was a story from the Bible, Becca explained the story of Solomon and his many wives. Then there was a quiz and colouring in. In addition, Becca and I helped ourselves to some of the sweets used as prizes for the quiz. It was good. Filling out a form to be a helper at the Cheltenham Bible Festival I found something quite funny. Section 5: Emergency Contact Details Next of Kin: Address of Above person: Contact Details: Okay, I know why it's needed, however, I laughed a lot and thought you might too. In the evening my extended family came round and we had a big dinner. It was lots of fun and really nice (

Blogger isn't letting me put a proper title on this post...

Today I mowed out the front of the house again. First off, I found a hedgehog. It made something crossed between a grunt, a sniffle, a snore and a snort. I sprinted back to the house (it was a good 100 - 150m away) and returned with a Camera and Cycling Gloves (you'd be surprised how thick they are). Suffice to say he was a prickly customer and even through the gloves it was quite possible to feel the spines! I got some nice pictures of him. All the pictures are larger than my screen so there's a chance they're larger than yours. The best way to get them is to right click on them and select "save image as" or "download image as" depending on what browser you use. Normally I'd put up thumbnails but there's a lot of pictures and the thumbnails tend to take up a lot of space on the blog. As such I've got a list. - When I found it - Close up, just before it curls into a ball - Distance shot of it sitting in grass - In a ball after being rolled onto it's back - Sniffing gingerly at the plate on which we put some cat-food - Closer up version of the previous - It's thinking about making a break for it after deciding cat-food wasn't good enough A bit later I found a frog. It took be about two minutes to actually catch the thing and then it leapt out my hands again, I managed to get it slightly faster the 2nd time and then got my Dad to take some pictures. Warning, they're pretty big pictures. Also, someone that studied physics fancies themselves as a wildlife expert and reckons it's a toad. On general principles I will both disagree and compromise with them. - Me holding the Tog - Close up of the Froad My Sister managed to find a Newt so we got some pictures of that. - Good overall picture of it in my sister's hands - It makes a break for freedom - What you'd think is a shot taken just before the last - Newt on the palm of my sister's hand - Close up of the Newt's head - Close up of the whole newt - Newt crawling over my finger - Closeup Newt in the palm of my hand - Newt in a (muddy) white bucket thing with water, again, it's first response was to try to escape We released all the animals into their preferred environment after taking the pictures.