An Eventful Weekend: Jumping, Rafting, and Camping

I'm sorry, I've been so off my blogging schedule lately. This past weekend was a pretty eventful one, which is partially why I'm a day late in posting this week. 

FRIDAY: I did nothing for most of the day, but later that night I went to a place called Skyzone with a bunch of people from my church! It's a place where you can just jump on trampolines everywhere. You can even play dodge ball, dunk basketballs, and do flips into the foam pit. It's a lot of fun, and I wish I had more pictures. I didn't want my phone falling out of my pocket while jumping so I kept it in a locker with my other stuff. 

SATURDAY: The boyfriend and I spent Saturday river rafting with one of his cousins and his cousins for his cousin's birthday! Because of the drought that California is currently in, the river wasn't as high or strong as it has been in past years, according to the workers. Regardless, we still had a great time! I recommend doing river rafting or white water rafting if you ever get the opportunity to!

SUNDAY: I had a normal day at church as usual, then I had an all-day training for the camp that I will be working at in less than two weeks! I don't have any pictures from the training, but after that I can tell you that I am seriously beyond excited for it! If you want to know why camp is such a big deal to me or if you're interested in going to a camp next summer, check out my top reasons to go to camp post that I wrote last year! As tiring as they are, camps are worth it.

So that was my eventful weekend; these next two weeks are going to be hectic as I prepare to go to camp next weekend (not this weekend). How was your weekend? Have you done any of these things?

The 4th Day After Christmas: Top 13 "God Things" of 2013

Whew, day 4 of my countdown to the new year! That means that in 3 days, it will officially be 2014! Are you just as excited as I am?

Among all the clothes, makeup, and food I had this year, my faith had also gone through lots of trials and tribulations, causing for many revelations and lessons learned for me. I've learned the term "God thing" this year when lots of friends of mine would refer to amazing acts of God or crazy situations working out as a "God thing." "It's a God thing." I had some awesome moments with God this year, and I want to share them! It also happens to be Sunday today, haha. 

1. Money. 

I know that it's a cliché thing to say "he's provided for me financially," but it's true! Paying for school has been a huge pain for me (and crap I just remembered I have to financially register for school soon), but I've always been able to somehow come up with the money for it. And I was blessed enough to have two paying jobs for this year. They don't pay as much because they're not paid by the hour, but just having my own income to help with my day to day expenses is really nice. 

2. My relationship with Darell, my boyfriend.  

I'll talk more about this tomorrow when I talk about love lessons I've learned this year, but I firmly believe in the concept of grace and the impact it plays on us. God's grace has truly covered Darell and I because we definitely don't deserve the blessings we have together. Darell has been such a blessing to me, and while God is still working on both of us, he is still definitely using us in each others' lives in crazy ways. 

3. Vanguard's amazing community. 

I'm pretty sure I've talked about my school's community before. I've met some of the sweetest and most people in my life there! Whether I was stressing about school or other personal issues, you can always count on the people to be there for you. Spring semester earlier this year, I found comfort in my floor sisters and a couple upperclassmen girls, including one who just graduated this semester. This past semester, I got to know one of my professors really well, and she was a great source for knowledge and advice on anything if I needed it. 

4. Finding a new church. 

I had left my old home church earlier this year to find one that I could be more actively involved in with school and a few other reasons. Leaving the church was hard because of the relationships I had developed, and having to look at other churches to go to was hard because I seemed to find a hard time finding where I fit. I thought I found my church for a while, but I soon realized how hard it was to get connected to the people of the church and other aspects of it, even though I enjoyed the church. I found the church I'm at through Darell, and it's been such a blessing to be part of the community there. I feel so much like myself and feel like I can be honest about myself without judgement. 

5. Getting the chance to go to Peru!

Okay, so my story with Peru is a little weird. After coming back from a mission trip to the Philippines three summers ago, God had put it on my heart to South or Central America for my next mission trip, I just didn't know when.

When my school announced the mission trip locations for this past summer during fall of 2012, Peru and the Middle East immediately stood out. (There was another Central American country on the list and I'd always had a heart for missionaries in the Middle East.) I got an application to go, but I soon got busy and forgot about the application and the deadline. I'd missed it and was sad but didn't think much of it.

Before the end of that semester last year, a friend had told me that the Global Outreach Department was still looking for people to put on the mission teams. I picked up an application and signed up for an interview time to be placed on a team.

The view of Cusco