Hi Friends,

Has it been a week already?  Time goes so fast!  This past week I flew into Toeele Valley Airport which is kind of in the middle of nowhere.  It was neat though, a very nice runway. I am planning to solo there on Tuesday.  There is not much traffic and will be a time for me to gain more confidence before attempting the busyness of a towered airport.

 http://www.panoramio.com/user/290390

While en route to this airport, I was able to fly over Salt Lake City International Airport which is literally 10 minutes away.  It is the biggest airport that I have flown over so it was neat to see the heavy airplanes taking off and taxiing, as well as the overall layout of the airport.

 “SLC airport, 2010” by Doc Searls from Santa Barbara, USA Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons – http://commons.wikimedia.org

I wanted to post a little bit about my job quickly.  I am an F-16 mechanic and I currently work at a facility called Flight Test.  This is an area where a jet receives tests,  some on the ground and some in flight, to see if the repairs made were adequate or if any further repairs need to be made.  There is a lot of troubleshooting involved.

Here is a picture of the F-16:

 

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Valued_image_set:_F-16_Fighting_Falcon

Here is a picture of the F-35.  I do not work on these jets but they are also repaired on this base and occasionally take off near where I work.

wallpaperswide.com

I am very blessed to be working here.  I am paying off debt and learning so much about aircraft maintenance.  It has been great!

I am going to go for now.  Please pray for my upcoming flights.  I spoke with my instructor last week and asked him if I could have my license by April and he answered with a resounding “Yes, definitely.  I don’t see why not.”

I am excited to accomplish this great feat.

Thank you for your prayers and taking your time to read this update.

Liz 🙂

I arrived in Utah on November 8th.  It has already been 2.5 months!  Boy, how time flies.  Here are some pictures of the road trip heading from Colorado into Utah.  I was told that these roadside beauties were called “mesas.”  What an awesome Creator we serve!!

 Life here is going well.  I have no complaints, really.  I am getting payed well and learning a lot at my job.

When I arrived in Utah, the military put up a group of us up in a hotel.  Most of us stayed there until we realized we could save money by moving into an apartment or sharing a house between us.  I chose to move into a little studio apartment which I really like.  I live a few steps away from the community clubhouse where I can get free wifi so that saves me some money too.  It is kind of like a continual retreat.  It is nice.

This was the view from my hotel before I moved into my apartment.

  I will try to post pictures of my apartment in the next blog update.

I spend most of my days studying and flying when I am not working.  At least that is what it seems like.  I am learning so much, not only about aviation but also spiritually.  God is doing such a wonderful work in my heart and life.  He is answering some long-time prayer requests and I am seeing personal growth.  It is exciting but painful at times.  I guess that is what growing pains, stretching and exercise are all about.  If you are not being stretched or feeling some sort of pain, you are probably not growing, right?

Back to flying— I am flying about twice per week.  It has been fun.  It is a lot of work though.  I am working on soloing at a towered airport.  I hope to achieve that goal by Thursday, the 29th.  I will report back with my progression in next weeks update.

Here are some flight school pictures taken here in Utah:

  Cessna 150

God blessed me with a nice church here.  It is called Salt Christian Church.  It is a new church plant about one-and-a-half years old.  I would say there are about 60 people that attend.

 The awesome “God” part of this story is that when I first moved here, I did not have transportation.  God allowed this church to meet in a hotel/conference center room just behind the hotel where I was staying!  So wonderful!  Within 2 days, I found my temporary church home.  I enjoy the messages and the worship music is wonderful.  It is great when people use their gifts to exalt the Lord!  It is truly a blessing to my soul.

Another blessing was that I was also able to go skiing one day for only $5.00!!!  That included all the rental equipment, lift ticket and transportation.  It was provided through the “Single Airman” program on base.  It was a lot of fun..and a great work out 🙂  Here are some pictures:

Well, that is about it for now.  I look forward to posting again next week as there is more to share 🙂

Thank you for reading and for your continued support and prayers.  It means so much.

Liz 🙂