Traveling Back in Time for Tea

Have you ever been in a room and heard a phone go off and automatically checked to see if it's yours? It's pretty funny to watch, especially when everyone has iPhones. Even though there's settings to customize our ringtones and even change the pattern for our phone to vibrate, most of the time, we don't bother to change it. Therefore, when one iPhone goes, we all automatically think it's ours. That happened to me this morning, but then I realized I was in the kitchen all by myself, and it dawned on me, "oh that's my phone." To my pleasant surprise, my friend Lindsey called me and invited me to tea in Old Town Columbia. Columbia is about ten minutes away from Sonora. It's a quaint historical little town that makes you feel like you've traveled back in time to the 1850s. The main town square only allows stage coaches to pass drive on the main road as well as travelers on foot. Also all of the employees in the shops in that area dress up like they are from the 1850s as well. It's actually pretty cool. I literally had to park my car several blocks away and walk on foot just to get to the tea house. 

I've never gone to a tea house before but it was really fun. It made feel dainty and elegant. I even held my pinky up as I drank my tea cause I want to feel fancy. Anyway, I had blast hanging out with friends and drinking tea during my lunch break. After leaving lunch I walked back through the town and decided I would get some work done while I was there. I brought flyers for the health seminar and the Revelation seminar as well, and I also stacked my pockets with GLOW tracts.

The first shop I walked into was a black smith shop. It's pretty cool. Everything they make in that shop they do the old fashion way. Anyway, I continued to go into every shop, talked story with the workers and then would invite them to the events coming up and ask them if they are interested in Bible studies. 

There was one shop in particular that stood out the most to me. I walked into what looked like a museum. There was an older gentleman that seemed like a tour guide. The shop was filled with displays and artifacts from the past. In case you didn't know this area is really well known for finding the Mother Lode (the largest gold nugget in California, 195 pounds). Things started to click in my mind such as why the main state route that runs through town is called State Route 49, after all we are in the historic mining area of the 1849 gold rush. (You can obviously tell I'm not from California, cause only now is things really clicking such as why there's a football team called the 49ers. It just makes so much more sense.) Anyway, this gentleman, Tom, started telling me all about the gold rush and it really was fascinating. Then it was my turn. I invited Tom to the health seminar and then proceeded to invite him to the Revelation seminar as well. 

The invitation to the Revelation seminar caught Tom's attention. He asked, "are you associated with the Seventh-day Adventist church?" When I told him I was, he was delighted. "I've been meaning to look you guys up." Apparently Tom has been studying his Bible and has found that the Seventh-day Adventist church is the closest that he's found to following the Bible. There was only one problem. Tom motioned me to walk toward the back of the exhibit hall away from his wife sitting in the front and then said, "the only thing is my wife is very committed to her own religion." I offered him Bible studies and he then began to tell me that he has been doing Seventh-day Adventist study guides online. He then said, "I've realized that the closer you get to the truth the more difficult it is to accept." I left Tom with a copy of every GLOW tract I had on me and he is planning on attending the Revelation seminar and also checking out the church for himself as well.