Monday, 21FEB2011 President's Day

In Iraq we don't take holidays. My President's day started at 0630 with personal Bible study. I am using www.youversion.com for my reading plan. I am reading their chronological plan which shows me some interesting things I wouldn't pick up on otherwise, such as today, I was reading about Jeroboam, the son of Solomon, and, at the end of the story in Kings it basically says there is more to the story in Chronicles, and at the end of the story in Chronicles it says there is additional information in another book, which isn't a part of our current Bible.

Bible study was followed by a team run at 0700. We ran 4.5 miles at a sub 10 minute mile pace. After the run I showered. It appears I may have sung the praises of the Pro Glide prematurely. I still like it but it does cause some discomfort, as all razors do for me. I think it may be because of my thick facial hair.

I Skype called my girlfriend while I was getting ready and we talked for ten minutes then I had to go. I went by my teammates' rooms but they weren't there so I left in the direction of the building I work out of and I saw my team leader not too far ahead of me so I ran to catch up with him and we walked to work together. We spent the morning getting ready for our mission and rolled out just after lunch. I work in personal security details, or PSD, so work involves driving in Humvees and escorting important people wherever they need to go. Everything went well. I got a chance to work out during the mission while waiting for our principle (the guy we were escorting) to get done with his meetings. I did five rounds of a fifty feet of walking lunges with a forty-five pound plate over my head with my arms locked out, followed by twenty-one burpees, which are an exercise where you squat down and put your hands on the floor and then kick your legs into the push up position while lowering yourself then you push up while returning your feet to the squat position and then jump as high as you can. It was difficult.

We got back from the mission at 1800, which made me excited because I wanted to go to Living By Faith Bible Study, which starts at 1900, but we didn't go straight into our AAR, which is where we discuss what we did well and what we need to improve on. We have to do it after every mission. So after we ate we did the AAR and I was able to get out of there by 1910 and I got to Bible study around 1930.

Bible study was awesome as always. For the part I was there for we discussed spiritual gifts. I could try to explain what we talked about but I think in the group setting and the spirit that was there enhanced the message. Afterwards I talked to the teacher, who was the minister I prayed with at Gospel church yesterday and he gave me a book about fighting the temptation I told him about yesterday. He told me not to return it so I told him I would pay it forward. I can think of at least three people who could benefit from it right now.

After Bible study I returned home and began writing this and now WWE Smackdown is on. It is the 600th episode so it started with a twelve man inter-brand tag-team match. At one point it was Rey Mysterio and Kane in the ring. That has to be one of the most mis-matched fights ever. There was an awesome series where all twelve went one by one doing their finishers on each other, culminating in Rey Mysterio doing a double 619. After the match Vickie Guerrero came out to inform Edge that he was not only stripped of his title, but that he was fired. It was a funny sound byte but you probably had to be there. Picture Vickie Guerrero screaming YOU'RE FIRED! and then Booker-T saying What the heck? and then no further dialog as they go to commercial. Yeah, you had to be there...Anyway...
Next up was a Diva's tag match. A year ago the TNA Knockouts where ten times better than the Divas but I think the Divas have ramped up the athleticism and are more entertaining now. This match wasn't too good though.
After that was Kofi Kingston against The Miz. Winner The Miz, assist by way of distraction, Alberto Del Rio.
There was a tag team championship match Slater and Gabriel of the Corre against Tag-Team Champions Vladamir Koslov and Santino Mirelle. Santino actually hit the Cobra to win and then The Corre started to beat him up but The Big Show came out and saved him.
After that Teddy Long made his return and Vicky sold out Dolph Ziegler to try to save her own job. Teddy made a match between Dolph Ziegler and the now rehired Edge for the championship.Edge hit a running spear to win by  pin-fall and got his title back.  After the match Teddy Long came out and fired Dolph Ziegler.

After that I called my girlfriend and laid down to relax before bed. 

Sunday, 20FEB2011

I love it when I get the Sabbath off. My morning started at 0735 when my girlfriend called to wake me up. I had wanted to wake up earlier than that but I forgot to turn on my alarm after setting it. I took a shower and used a Gillette Pro Glide razor for the first time. I had been using an electric shaver but the Pro Glide was the best shaving experience I've had in a long time. At 0830 I went in to meet with my bishop. I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS church) and I have been meeting with my bishop regularly to work on becoming a better follower of Christ. After my meeting with him I had some time so I helped set up for the LDS service and then sat down and read The Ensign, the official magazine of the LDS church. before I had participated in my first service I was already being fed by the Spirit. The LDS service was pretty good and then we had Sunday School. We studied the Sermon on the Mount. It was nice, I didn't really learn anything new but I was reminded of a lot of principles I already knew.


After Sunday School was the Victory Gospel Experience. If you've never visited a Gospel church I highly recommend it. The first time I went when I first walked in I felt very white, because the congregation is mainly black, then they got to the part of the service where we greet each other, and it's not just shake hands with the people around you like in the Catholic church, we go out into the aisles and walk up and down hugging everybody. I went in feeling different but at that point I had never felt more accepted anywhere in my life. It was awesome. If you are used to a conservative church you may feel out of place but if you remember what David said in the Old Testament "I will celebrate before the LORD. I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes," (2Sam 6:21-22 NIV) you will realize that sometimes you just have to not care what people think about you and just praise God. It is very loud, fast paced, and spiritual. I feel the spirit there at least as much as the other services, sometimes more. Today the sermon was on why we need to pray. I feel the spirit more from music than from sermons and we sang a song called Run to You (I think) and I had a personal spiritual experience. At the end of the service they have what they call an "Altar Call" where ministers stand up front and will pray for anyone who needs prayer. I have been feeling for a few weeks that I should go up and pray with them for strength to overcome some temptations which have been as a thorn in my side for quite some time but I never had until today. I went up to the minister who teaches the Bible study because God has been working in my heart and making me feel close to him. I feel as though we're friends even though we've never really talked outside of the Bible study. When I spoke with him today he expressed gratitude to God at me being led to speak to him because he has overcome the same temptations in his life so he prayed with me and then gave me some tips and we're going to talk more tomorrow at Bible study. I hope I'm not on mission at that time.


Next was Episcopal/Lutheran liturgical service. I enjoy going and seeing the liturgy but I have never had a profound spiritual experience at the liturgical service. We had Communion today which is always nice because it is good to remember the sacrifice of God's Son in that way.


After that I went and got lunch and took it to my Compact Housing Unit (CHU) and ate while reading the book of Jonah. I enjoy that story because it shows God's grace in saving the town of Nineveh even after they rejected him so many times, he still gave them another chance. 


After lunch I went to the Church of Christ service. I like that one because there are only 3 members that come every week so I get to help out a lot. Today I was the scripture reader. I also set up and helped take down. 


After that I went to practice for the evening Protestant service, where I am a member of the praise team. The service was good, I think. The songs sounded good and the sermon was on gratitude. I was impressed that I should try to be grateful for my current situation, even if I'm not always happy with the people I have to work with. God's ways are not our ways so we should just praise Him for what he does, even though it's uncomfortable now. 


After church I went to dinner with the praise team and the Chaplains. It was so nice to be with a group of people who I actually wanted to be around. That hasn't happened with a big group like that since I was ripped away from Cinco. Even when I got to be with Cinco for a day I felt like an outsider but there I felt like a member of a family, or of one body, the Body of Christ.


After that I came here and wrote this.

Welcome to my blog

 I tried starting another blog and maybe I will still post on it from time to time but this one won't take nearly as much work because it is just going to be a journal. Potential readers would be those who are interested in my life and also those who are interested in viewing what God is doing in my life as I am away from loved ones and growing closer with God out of necessity because I don't have family or lifelong friends here.

The name of my blog comes from an interesting series of events. When I was training for my deployment I was in fifth squad (AKA CINCO!). First squad always acted like they were better than everyone else so we started sarcastically calling them hero squad. When we got to Baghdad, cinco was put on a different task but they didn't need the whole squad so my team leader and I were transferred to, where else, hero squad. Once there we did the only thing we could do, we owned it. We took the hero thing to the next level and my team leader started to refer to himself as phat hero and then we decided to give everyone hero names. About the time I arrived in Baghdad I was going through a personal renaissance and I was, and still am, spending as much time in Bible study, prayer, praise, and church attendance as possible. So, naturally, my hero name became church hero. I didn't want Jesus hero because to me it is sacrilegious and borderline blasphemous.

I hope you will enjoy seeing what the current situation in Iraq is like and will email me and comment on my blog often. Also, if you have a background image that would fit better than this one, please email it to me. This is just one I found quickly.