G, C, E, D and other things that hurt your fingers

Learning to play the guitar can be a painful experience for the first month or so. I have been learning all these new chords to play, each increasingly painful on the fingers! It is so worth it though! Still, unable to play any one song well, I know four now. My roommates are probably getting tired of hearing the same songs over and over again as I ruthlessly strum away at odd hours of the day; though they are maintaining composure well.

We went to Van Lake last night as a family core (the guys in my core and the ladies from our sister cores) to have a bonfire, eat burnt marshmallows and have a time of worship under the stars. It was pretty amazing (it was the night I learned my fourth song). The fire was nice and hot, adding to the already intense heat of Texas in July. I was sweating profusely just gathering the wood before the fire was even started...it didn't make sense to me.

As the night went on and two thirds of the people left, there were six of us who wanted to extend the evening just hanging out and admiring the beautiful night sky. I fell asleep on a sleeping back for a few minutes when I woke up to my roommate David with a guitar in hand, beating away at the thing without mercy (he doesn't know how to play). So as we sat there he proceeded to write us songs and sing them too us as he wrote them. That was interesting.

It was 12am, and David was wrapping up his song writing, and we all decided that swimming in the lake sounded like a fun thing to do. So there you have it, we all just walked into the lake and spent the next half hour swimming in a muddy lake; talking and blinding each other with near fatal splashes.

It was a fun ride home, sitting on sleeping bags and six wet people in a small car. A memorable night indeed!