Good evening from Finland! It is 10 PM and I am absolutely exhausted. The first week of classes was absolutely insane! We have Ty Gibson and Justin Lawman as our speakers this week and next. They are both really, really good. I have been enjoying Justin over Ty though. Ty is going through the story of the bible, we are currently at the fall, and while he is an objectively good speaker, I keep getting bored. I think it is because I basically agree with pretty much everything he says. Almost none of it is new information for me. The disagreements I do have really aren’t big enough to bring up, and these are lecture-style classes. If it were a discussion style, I think I’d have a better time. What can you do though? I’ve been making bracelets for my class and that has definitely helped. Whether I’m listening or bored, it helps a lot to have something to do with my hands.

Justin’s classes have been excellent. He’s very funny, engaging, and he asks for questions a lot more. His class is called “Bible Bootcamp” and it’s all about how to give a bible study to someone who knows nothing about the bible. I have been finding it incredibly enjoyable, informative, and enlightening. Fairly close to the beginning of these classes, I realized I had never had anyone do a bible study with me, which kinda made me sad, actually. I have since had a couple of people offer to do one with me, and I think I am going to take them up on that. Alls to say I really have no frame of reference for the way he says to give and find someone for a bible study. It all makes sense, though, and I am looking forward to this next week.

We have chores now to do while we are here. We were split up into duty groups, and this week my duty group had one of the hardest duties to have. We did dishwashing. The kitchen has an industrial dishwasher, but it’s still somewhere around 50 people’s worth of dishes we have to wash and put away twice a day. Next week my duty group is on food prep and I am not looking forward to it I’ll be honest

I have made some of my classmates into actual friends instead of just classmates or housemates! Lo’i (Pronounced Lot-ee) and Amalie, who are both my housemates and a boy named Sage. Sage and I have just been walking around and talking, it’s been very enjoyable. He is also autistic, and his way of communicating is very similar to mine. I am not sure a nerotypical person could keep up with our conversations, and it’s great, it makes me feel at home to have someone like that.

Lo’i and Amalie are roommates on top of being my housemates, and they are hilarious together. Lo’i and I had a really good talk the other day, and I learned she was also in the LGBT community for a number of years. It feels really great to know someone else who is a Christian and understands the community even if we strongly disagree with it. I have always felt very lonely in that, and I cannot explain how happy it made me to find someone else in the same position.

Amalie and I are less close, but I think we are getting there. She is deaf and wears hearing aids, so sometimes she misses stuff in conversation. English is also not her first language, which doesn’t help in that regard. She is very funny, though, and when Lo’i is around, it gets worse. They just seem to set each other off, and it’s great to watch. Amalie is also very direct, and I really appreciate that. She either asks questions to your face or doesn’t say anything. We also have some similar anxieties that I feel we bonded over a bit.

Between the three of them I feel like I got my chaos back and I’m feeling much more settled. I can’t wait to see what next week holds!