Great Week

This last week, my second back in New Jersey this semester was great!

The week began on Friday the 21st and my 5 teammates, Fr. Gomes and I were taking a group of 45 students to Baltimore for a FOCUS National Conference. Everyone had a blast at Conference which was about 2 days. We listened to some great speakers and were all challenged to deepen our relationship with Jesus Christ. We were challenged to do this in several ways but one of the best ways that was suggested to us was through the Sacraments of the Catholic Church. On Saturday night 2 young women that are from Seton Hall went to confession for the first time in 9 years!! At Conference I had to work the Varsity Catholic information booth and even got to speak with my teammate Melissa about Varsity Catholic to an audience of over 50 people. Conference was also a great chance to catch up with missionaries serving at other schools that I have not seen since this summer and some that I had never even met.

Once Conference ended on Sunday afternoon my roommate Anthony and I stuck around at the hotel to watch the NFC Championship game. The result of the game was especially enjoyable and even more so since we watched most of it with 2 Bears fans.

From Baltimore we went to Washington D.C. on Monday for the March for Life. Last year I went to a local version of the march in St. Paul where I walked with a group from St. Paul's Cathedral to the steps of the state capitol. This year was a little different. This year I marched with over hundreds of thousands of people!! It was beautiful to see so many people united for the same cause, to end legalized abortion. People from across the country made the trip to DC to stand up for all to have the right to life. I was especially impressed by a group that I saw from Green Bay, WI. At the end of the march several of the FOCUS missionaries that were there gathered for a picture, there were about 40 of us. The rest of the day was spent with missionaries out for dinner and the night ended with the Seton Hall team of missionaries in Alexandria, VA. We stayed with Rosabel's (missionary) family.

Tuesday we made the trip back to campus and the rest of the week was pretty irregular. Wednesday I had my 2nd Bible study of the semester, 11 guys made it and we talked about chastity and purity. The guys really enjoyed it and had a lot to share. I'll post what I used to lead the discussion in a later post. Wednesday the school was closed because of the weather and the amount of snow that we were supposed to receive. Well it snowed so much that school was closed for all of Thursday. On a whim we (missionaries) invited over students to hang out and eat. Typically we host a Grilled Cheese Party each Thursday night so for this Thursday we extended that to all day and even threw in some tomato soup. In all probably around 30 students stopped by, it was a long day, but a fun day, what snow day isn't a great day after all?

Today, Saturday has been action packed as well. Melissa and I joined the women's basketball team for their pregame devotion. I watched the first half and then stopped by the swim meet for awhile. Then I got home just in time to welcome some guests. Some guys from the baseball team came over for some pizza and video games. This is their last weekend that they're not in season, so I wanted to get together with them. We had pizza and played some NFL Blitz and NHL Hitz and watched some golf and basketball on TV.

I also made a big decision this week, to go home to watch the Super Bowl with my family, which will probably be the next best place to be besides Dallas next Sunday.

It's weeks like these that really make me thankful for where the Lord has put me and thankful for the work that He is allowing me to do, I love my job!

GO PACK!!