The OOBS by CC Raz (most motivational books .TXT) 📕

6/16

And... here's that AWESOME fairy tale that I promised you. :) It's not made with crayon, because I coudn't find them. But... I do have marker, which I used to color the story. And... here it is. :)

Pretty cool, huh? And it actually sparkles! It sparkles way more in person, but it still sorta showed up in the picture. :) I gotta go now. It's late and I have to get up realy in the morning. But I LOVE YOU!

Stil praying, still staying strong.
Love,
CC Raz

6/17

So, apparently Forever 21 is a "Christian business." The founder said that God told her to start a store, and she'd be successful. And on the bottom of all the bags, it says "John 3:16". Somehow, that still doesn't seem like that makes it a Christian business. Just because the owner is Christian doesn't mean that the business is. A Christian business would be one that promotes bible principles by not selling immodest clothes. Printin a bible verse on the bottom of the bag means nothing. Not all the clothes are bad. But some of them are... definitely not something that you would sell if you were truly a Christian store. I'm not saying that the owner isn't a Christian. But it bugs me that they're saying that the store is a Christian business.

Heeey, baby I was hopin'
Maybe you'd feel like takin' a drive
'Cause I an take you on a trip to heaven
And have you back by tonight.
  I like that song. :) It's a good one. :)

 So, Diana and Gema are pretty cool. They're awesome. :)  And they both asked about you. Did you know that Diana's dad's side of the family is JW? Her dad isn't, but like the rest of the family is. I thought that was interesting. And her aunt left that church (not disfellowshipped or disassociated, just left), and now the whole family just doesn't talk to her at all.
    When she said that... I dunno. It just kinda irritated me. That's not how God told us to be. He said to stay away from bad examples. But that doesn't mean you shun your family. Why can't they just admit that she's a good person? She might not be JW anymore, but her morals haven't changed. She didn't just become a bad person over night. That's not how things work.
    And I know that it's not all JW that do that. I know that the actions of one family don't always reflect the beliefs and values of what the religion teach. I know that there are times when people from all religions do things like that that don't reflect the church teachings (before my mom became Catholic, my grandma told her that if you have an abortion, you're going to Hell. And my mom didn't agree with that. She knew that it was wrong, but she knew that like, if a teenage girl who's scared and alone has an abortion because she doesn't know what else to do, God's not going to send her to hell. So for a while, Mom didn't want to be Catholic just because of that. She loved everything else about it, but she didn't want to be a part of a church that tought that. But then someone else told her that that was Grandma's personal belief, not a church teaching). But it's just...
    It seems like that, plus your congregation (which is really the only experience I've had with JW), it doesn't give me a very good impression of the church. Because it's th elders, the leaders of your church, who aren't doing the Godly thing here.
    JW are good people. They are caring and loving. But they only take care of their own kind and their studies. If someone says, "No thank you, I'm happy with my beliefs," then they won't take care of that person anymore. Like... Catholics have charities and organizations all over the world that help people, Catholic or not. We don't turn people down, or shun people, just because they aren't Catholic.
    And JW... I know they go on mission and stuff and go t other countries... but I don't know. It seems to me, from what you've told me, that all they care about is converting people. Handing out bibles. Like that's a bigger priority than making sure that they have the necessities for life. I could be wrong. And I'm not saying that spreading God's word is bad. That's what we're supposed to do, that's what He told us to do. But it's also important to make sure they have clean clothes, a place to sleep, some food to eat. Whether they are Christians or not.
     To me, it seems like JW only focus is converting people. I know you say, "No, we aren't trying to convert people. We're trying to encurage them to read the bible." But you want them to read your bible and read your articles and go to your meetings. And that's perfectly fine. But it's called converting people. And it seems like it's your only focus. And when you're on a religious mission, that's important. But people will listen to you a lot more if you feed them and give them a place to stay.
   When I went on my mission trip, we were helping an order of nuns. They feed people, give them beds to sleep in, they'll clean their clothes, and all that. And on Sundays, they take people to Mass. But it's optional. Just because you sleep there for a week doesn't mean that you HAVE to go to Mass. You can still stay there without becoming a Catholic, or without reading a bible.
    We take care of humans. And to me... it just seems like JW only take care of their own kind. And if you're not JW and you don't plan on being JW, then you're nothing to them. You're someone to avoid and stay away from. And that's NOT what God said to do.
     Like, if you're disfellowshipped... you're shunned by everyone. Jen got disfellowshipped, and she didn't do anything wrong. And now she's not allowed to talk to you guys. How is that justified? Where does it say that that's okay in the bible? She was in the hospital and her only choice was to leave the kids with her husband. That's not  reason to shun her and not talk to her, and kick her out of the church. How the farm does that help her? It doesn't make any sense to me.

I have to go now. I'm sorry if anything I said offended you. I know I don't know everything, but that's what I see. I know that JW are good people, and they just want to serve God to their best ability. But it seems to me like they don't make a very good name for themselves. And how are they supposed to bring people in if everyone has this negative view of them?
    I hope I didn't offend you.
Love you!!

Still praying, still staying strong.
Love,
CC Raz

6/18

Lawson and Jolie are going to vacation bible school out by Ken' house. Yesterday mornng, my mom made little mustaches for Lawson and Jolie so that they could be like Ken. And Lawson kept his on all day, all through VBS. Isn't that adorable? I love those kids.:D

Tomorrow, I won't be able to send you a message. I'll be at Ken's house. We're leaving today, and I'll be back on Thursday. So tomorrow, I'll just write you something on paper and then type it up once I get back home.

And then on Friday, I work. YAY. Actually, it's good. This pay period, I'll be working 3 days. That's GOOD. At least, it's good for summer time. But this last one, I worked for 4 hours. Thats not good. At all. That's like... less than $30, once it takes out for SS and Medicare. NOT good at all. And where will it go? Straight into the gas tank.

Yesterday I had to take the truck out to the ranch so that Memo can feed the horse. And that used a lot of gas. I had to go to Double D, then back home, wait for Memo to get off work, then go to the ranch so he can put it away. Then I went back home, and I had to take Jake back all the way out there so he could go swimming. Lots of gas. It went down to almost half a tank. That ranch is far out there. It's way out on Rincon, at almost the very end.

I'm sorry that I can't figure out anything else to say right now. But it's early in the morning. I just didn't know what time we'll be heading out to Ken's house and I wanted to make sure I sent you one today.
    It bugs Jake that I send you something every day. Not because he doesn't like you, but he says it's not good for me, because then I think about you all the time. He says he can tell it bugs me and it's always on my mind and that frustrates him. He says I need to go out and do stuff and not think about this.
    He doesn't get it,though. I'll be doing other stuff, but my mind still comes back to this. It's the only thing that I can focus on for more than an hour