Universal Life Church

Happy Valentine's Day!! Hello!   FEBRUARY IS ALREADY HALF OVER! - I find it interesting every year that January always flies by before I even get a chance to get adjusted to the 'new year' status. This year is no different. I had some personal things that were resolved a few days before the end of January, so I got to start February with a relatively clean slate. .......................Then life happened. lol That's okay though, it's what keeps life interesting. (If I remember right, 'may you have an interesting life' is a Chinese curse.)   NEW COURSE - I'm working on putting some new courses together. I have one that has been submitted to me, a course on astral projection, that will be available in the very near future. Many of you will get a sample of it within a week or so, and some of you are not as far along on the newsletters/mailings and may not get it for awhile. It will be sent to the seminary students as well. The course will be the Master of Astral Projection.   CURRENT GROWTH - As with last month, I thought I'd share some of the things I've been working on. My focus of late has been about the question of agreements. We all have agreements with various people in our lives -- maybe it's an agreement to be married to someone, to be someone's parent or child, to help someone, teach someone, etc. Have you ever met someone and felt a particular need to help him/her? Not the general kind of 'let's make the world a better place' kind of feeling, but one more specific to that person? My question that I've been looking at is 'what triggers an agreement to kick in?' How is it you can know someone casually for a few months, then suddenly 'notice' them? Or feel the need to suddenly help them, ask for help, or be part of their lives in some way? What causes that? I have noticed it strongly a number of times in the last few years. Growing up, I've often had the ability to notice certain people as being people I want to be friends with, but I never thought about it much. In the last few years, however, I've had it happen several times in an uncomfortably obvious way. I know that when I was sick, I had to go get a bone marrow biopsy. At that point, the most painful thing I'd ever experienced in my life. My church had asked for volunteers to come and be with me (my family was not close by). Two people volunteered. One left after about 10 min. The other one stayed and held my hand and talked me through it. We ended up becoming friends. She said she didn't know what made her decide to come. She said she just knew she had to be there for me. I'd known her briefly as the former roommate of my new roommate (who turned out to be a nutbar). What triggered that need for her to be there? Anyone have any thoughts on the subject?   MAIL - For those of you who have placed orders in January, rest-assured that everything has been sent. We've been having a terrible time with the USPS over the last few months. We do mail everything within days (usually), but I think someone in the post office has been really enjoying a whole bunch of ULC materials because the packages seem to not be arriving. If you have been sent a tracking number, that means we have packaged your order, gotten postage, and brought it to the post office. We can't get the tracking number without having bought the postage, which is a good indication that your package is in the mail. :) If you haven't received your package, please write to orders@ulcseminary.org and Monica can look into it. Sorry for the delay. It has been very frustrating on our end as well.   ASTROLOGY - I don't know if you are interested in Astrology, but I've found a really cool site that gives very in-depth astrology readings. http://www.astrologyzone.com/forecasts/. I don't live my life by them, but I do think that the readings are fun and interesting. It's a free site, so if you want to see it, you might be surprised.   KIND WORDS - I'd like to thank all of you who have been giving me such great responses to the kind words campaign. I think it has become my favorite thing to do for the Seminary. I am finding how big a difference it makes for people to get a few words of encouragement. I'd like all of you to try it. At least one day a week, if not more, say at least one encouraging thing to someone who needs it. Say something uplifting, positive and true. Say it without expectation, but with the intention of spreading good in the world. Mean what you say. Notice the difference. It's available at www.ulcseminary.org/kindwords.php. COMPUTER CRASH - If you've written to me in the last week and a half and I haven't responded, I'd like to apologize. My computer crashed and I had to wipe the hard drive. I had been using Norton Ghost, which was supposed to 'easily' restore my computer. Apparently, Norton's idea of 'easy' and mine are different. My dad spent about 12 hours on it yesterday and got everything restored. I do love my dad! At any rate, I'll be working to get things caught up and answer the many emails waiting for my attention.   CANADA - I just got some great information from one of our ministers about getting approved in Canada. If what she says turns out to be the case, we can be approved in Ontario in the next 6-8 weeks. I need to make a couple of phone calls and fill out a form. If I need help (members to sign), I'll let you know. I'm excited about the prospects.   GROUP HEALTH INSURANCE - I don't know if this is something that would be possible to do for ULC ministers, but I'm going to look into what would be involved in getting a group rate health plan for ULC ministers. Is this something anyone else would be interested in? If so and/or if you know anything about setting it up, let me know.   SALE ITEMS - There are still a lot of items on sale right now. Wedding Workbooks by the case are currently on sale. Buying the books in bulk are a great way to save money on the books. Giving the books to your couples enhances your professional image and makes your job much easier, by allowing the couples to select and customize their own ceremonies.   I found that by giving the couples a book, people comment frequently that the ceremony seemed so 'them' and wondered if the couple wrote the ceremony themselves. Give it a shot. HERE       The social networking sites that we've been using are below: http://twitter.com/ulcseminary http://www.myspace.com/ulcseminary http://www.facebook.com/ulc.seminary     Thanks for everything!   Rev. Amy Long Program Director   Warmly, Amy Long www.ulcseminary.org 916-690-1682 Wishing you all good things....... Please go to this link and vote for me: http://www.nexttopauthor.com/profile.cfm?aid=432 Try our new free toolbar at: http://ULCSeminary.OurToolbar.com/