The big city of LA

Alex and I are now officially in the LA area. I find it to be very over-crowed and too big. It's such a large area that its is hard to find some thing to do. I know that sounds weird, right? Well, after leaving Santa Barbara we went to Ventura, but decided not to stay because it didn't look like that great of a town. We found a 24hr fitness in Oxnard. Have you ever heard of it? I had never heard of it, but it has a population of over 100,000 people and that's a lot of people. We worked out for a bit. It was basically a stopping point before going to Malibu/Santa Monica. We stayed over night at a fairly decent part of town, so it seemed. The houses looked nice, the shopping center was well taken care of, but then I used a bathroom at the Subway Sandwich store and there was a ton of vandalism. I thought, "Wow, I wouldn't have expected the bathroom to look like this in such a nice looking shopping complex."  Then later that day I used the bathroom at a Vons store in the same lot and it was even more vandalized than the Subway store bathroom. Graffiti all over the walls and the mirror entirely scratched up, the toilet paper dispenser completely torn off the wall, and the toilet seat cover dispenser burned in some places. I almost took a picture.  It looked so out of place compared to the very well kept shopping center.

Malibu

We drove through Malibu and tried to find a place to park along the beach, but the entire beach front in Malibu is privately owned. So basically no access to the public. We then decided to go straight onto Santa Monica. We rode our bikes along the Santa Monica beach strip and spotted some dolphins playing the water. I was hoping to see a celebrity, but no luck there. I think I might have seen Germaine from the T.V show Flight of the Conchords, but I can't say for sure. I'm like 50% sure. Who knows. Alex suggested we stay at a hotel for the night and I was all for that. We found a Best Western in town and Alex has Best Western points from staying at the hotels while traveling with his old job, so we got to stay at the hotel for free. It was so nice to sleep in a normal bed again and watch T.V. We saw the movie Black Swan that night and it was really good. I don't want to give any of the movie away, but I loved the symbolism. It keeps you thinking after the movie is over and I always like that when a movie is made like that. Anyways, if you don't mind violence and sex then go see it.

Santa Monica

Taking a break from our bike ride

Universal City Christmas Tree

Then the rain began. Southern Cal hardly ever gets rain and the rain had to come while we were down here. We still wanted to venture out in the Hollywood and Beverly Hills area even if it was sprinkling. We spontaneously drove to Universal Studios and paid fifteen bucks for parking only to find out that the actual park was going to be $150 for the both of us. Yeah, that's a little too much to be spending. So, we didn't go and I was sad about that. We did take a few pics of Universal City and Hollywood.

Universal Studios Globe

Universal City

In Hollywood baby!

Can you see the Hollywood sign?

It's really all a blur of what we did after Santa Monica because we haven't really done much. It's been raining for the last four days and most of our time has been spent in our bus or at a coffee shop.

Today we are in Huntington and this morning I googled "church" and found the church Calvary Baptist. It was close by to where we were staying and decided to go. It was definitely a good choice. It is a bigger church so I didn't think we would get noticed, but I was wrong. People welcomed us and noticed we were visiting. We met a very friendly couple, Jake and Rachel, and Jake invited us to his house for lunch. We had lunch and chatted for a long while. In the afternoon we went to a church service with Jake and some people from the church. It was in Riverside and we took the church bus over. The church was called Harvest Church. The pastor brought a really good Christmas Story message and I loved the way he told it. The title of his message was "A (messed up) Christmas Story." He started off talking about the genealogy of Jesus and pointed out that Jesus came from a pretty messed up family lineage; full of liars, murderers, prostitutes, and whores. God still blessed those people and sent Jesus to save us from our sins. It was a great message and very biblical. A ton of people accepted Christ into their hearts at the service, too. I was blessed.

Harvest Church Sanctuary

On the way back to Huntington a woman from Calvary Baptist started talking to us and we found out her husband used to be Mormon. Mormonism has all kinds of secret stuff, so of course we had to ask her about it. She actually knew a couple who used to be Mormon that worked in the Mormon Temple and before they announced to the church that they no longer believed in the religion they hid microphones in the temple and recorded some of the Mormon ceremonies. She told us about the marriage ceremony and it sounds pretty bizarre, but supposedly the different ceremonies are originally Masonic. Joseph Smith took the Free Mason ceremonies and started using them in his new found religion and the Free Masons didn't like that very much. They then sought out to kill Joseph Smith. The Free Masons have a phrase they call out when they need a fellow "brother" to help them,"My God , My Lord." As Joseph Smith was being shot at by some Masons he called out "My God, My Lord." Interesting, right?

The woman then began to tell us about her husband's conversion story to Christianity. It was an amazing story. Her husband had grown up in the Mormon Church, but she had grown up in a Christian home. His mother had tried converting her, but she wasn't having it. After about three months of marriage he came home upset and depressed. Mormons believe they know the "whole truth" while all other religions only know a smidgin of the truth. He looks at his wife and says, "How come I feel so empty and sad when I'm supposed to know the whole truth and you are always so happy and you only know a little bit of truth?" She looks at him and says, "You just need to ask Jesus into your heart." He looks at her and sarcastically says, "Oh yeah, and how do I do that?" Mormons believe they have more of Jesus in them than any other person. So, her response to him seemed very silly. She was 18 years old at that time and had never led someone to Christ before. She wasn't really sure what say. So, she ran next door to get a neighbor that went to her church to lead her husband in the "sinners prayer." The neighbor tells her husband to repeat the "sinners prayer" after her. As the neighbor starts praying the husband's facial expression gets really weird and he can't repeat any of the words she is saying. His body is thrown to the floor and his wife and the neighbor had no idea what was going on. The wife had grown up in a Penecostal church, so she thought maybe her husband was demon possessed. He had felt like something very dark had come over him and it was pulling him to the ground making it so that he couldn't speak or even breathe. At that point he knew he deserved to go to hell and that God was a just God if he did go to hell. His wife was so scared and she yelled out "Help us Jesus!" Then the husband was able to get out the words, "Jesus save me." At that moment he came out this agonizing physical state of darkness and pain. He ran to his room and started ripping all the pages out of his Mormon bible while laughing. He was a "free" man. Mormonism no longer had a hold over him. He had finally found real truth. From that point on he has been a man who is constantly studying the word of God and that was 30 years ago. After hearing that story both Alex and I were amazed and said, "Wow, that is such an awesome story!" She replied, "Oh, that's actually a common experience for most Mormons who convert to Christianity."

The couple we met earlier invited us to stay at their place for the night. They are so hospitable and it is such a blessing. God has been very good to us today despite the bad weather. We have truly enjoyed good company, good conversation and good food. There is so much more I could write about today, but I'm going to end it here. 

Enjoying dinner with some new friends