1 month down, 2 to go!

At about fifth grade, you have to learn all the capitals of every state in the county. Can you name the capital of Delaware? What about Wisconsin? You get extra points if you can name the capital of Nebraska. Here's a hint, think sixteenth president. Give up? Lincoln. That's where we are right now, where are in Lincoln, Nebraska, the only state where lightning strikes like clockwork.

Last summer I got sucked into doing the 'summer sales' thing by Brenan Volpe, and so that's what I did, selling door-to-door for Dish Network and DirecTV. It actually wasn't so bad, I was plenty successful, and although my intent was to save up money to put a down payment on a car and pay for school, little did I know that I would actually be paying for a wedding. Well, I kept doing sales in North Carolina to earn money throughout the rest of our engagement, and here I am doing sales again one more time, this time in Lincoln, Nebraska.

The company that we work for (that's right, Kristin got sucked in too doing office work), Satton Marketing, put us up in a pretty sweet place here for the summer. It is called 'The Links at Lincoln.' We literally live on a golf course, the place is kept nice, we have a nice pool, a full in door gym, pool tables, a hot tub and tanning beds. All for free! You just have to be a resident of the complex. Although we can't live in the comfort of our own, decorated home, this place makes up for it with all of its amenities.

Kristin and I took a road trip out here over the span of two days, stopping in St. Louis, Missouri as our halfway point.

We got settled in and started getting to know the place. Our first weekend here, we stumbled upon downtown and walked around getting to know what makes Lincoln Lincoln. It certainly isn't the logs! Okay, just kidding. The down town is nice actually, it looks pretty neat, and there are plenty of things to do and things to keep us occupied. We tried some of Lincoln's own food and stumbled upon Ali Baba's Gyros (That's pronounced Euro). I had a blast trying to fit that giant thing in my mouth.

Lincoln is also home to the Nebraska Cornhuskers, the only real sports team in Nebraska. There is no pro football, baseball, basketball, soccer, or hockey team at all, so really this is all they have. Matter of fact, 99% of Nebraskans are fans of the Huskers, and of those 99%, 90% have something on or in their house indicating that they are true Nebraska fans. Quoting a Nebraskan, “The Corn Huskers aren't just a sport out here, they're a religion.” Right.

My job is the same-old same-old every day. There are a gazillion small towns out here, and basically what we do is go pick one, find out what kind of cable they have there, and drive there and start knocking. From there on it's kinda like missionary work: Knock, slam! Knock, slam! Knock, slam! Okay, so maybe that's an exaggeration. Most of the people are receptive to us, although there is a lot of “We'll think about it.” Yeah, you'll think about it, and it'll probably take you, oh, maybe two years before you make your decision. Sorry guys, we're not here that long. I do well though, and the Nebraskan people are generally nice.

They give us incentives to try hard and sell lots. Some of them include steak dinners at outback steakhouse if we sell enough customers in a week. Our second week out here we got that incentive, and so the few of us that were still in town all went out and it was pretty neat. I've never really gone wrong with Outback Steakhouse. Our latest incentive was if we sold enough accounts by Friday, we would get to take Saturday off. We got it and were able to have Saturday off, and while all the boys went down to Kansas City, Kristin and I went over to Omaha and spent the day there. It was actually our six month anniversary!

After raging through downtown Omaha, we headed over to see some Church History and found our way to Winter Quarters. We first saw the Temple, and we found out that it is a very little temple. It seems like it is smaller than Raleigh's, and that one is the smallest one we had been to before. We went around the temple grounds taking pictures and reminiscing our special day. The Temple had beautiful golden doors and it was made of white marble. It was something to see another Temple for the first time.

Our next stop was the Mormon Trail Center where we were taken on tour and shown around by the Omaha Nebraska Mission's own Sister Lawlor. We began the tour with a film about the Trek the Pioneers made from Nauvoo over to the Salt Lake Valley stopping at Winter Quarters along the way. The sister missionary took us around and we saw portraits, life size exhibits of pioneers, and even a model of the first odometer invented by William Clayton. We both knew how bad the pioneers had it, because Kristin and I went on Treks of our own. We took turns pulling the hand carts over some rocks. Painful memories.

After our labor and toils, we left the Mormon Trail center, feeling spiritually fed, but our stomachs left empty, ready for a feast of their own. We couldn't help it so we went to Outback Steakhouse and honestly had the best experience we've ever had at Outback. The food was amazing. In fact, it was FREAKING amazing. Yes, that amazing. They even gave us free dessert, so we decided to leave a good 15% tip. Should we have done better? Too bad we're broke. Stopping by for some Cold Stone to finish the day, we headed home, happy for our six months.

It is neat to be out here, but we definitely are looking forward to returning to NC at the end of the summer. 54 days to go!