Days 114-117: 50th Retreat and Last Team Day of 2019! (12/6-12/9)

Today was another school day retreat, only this time it was for a home school community at St. Isidore parish in Grand Rapids. In fact, a few current Netters can’t through this home school community, and their siblings are on retreat today. Only, I would have the day off with Nels, but it’s still cool hearing about it. With our retreat off, we went to watch the new film Knives Out in theaters, definitely recommend that, and went to Costco for lunch since Nels has a membership. It’s very rare to have a day off with a fellow brother, so we took full advantage of the opportunity given to us. When we returned, we had some extra time on our hands before having to report to host homes, so we went shopping at a cute Catholic shop called The Angelus across the street and ate dinner at Chick-Fil-A. That’s when we returned to Chris and Lynn’s house, the house where we watched the Office a few days ago. This time we actually got to spend time with them, and played a game called Oh Shucks! Very fun game, will never be able to explain it though. It was cool because they completely left the basement untouched for us, so it was like we never left. I liked that alot for some reason, familiarity possibly? Either way, we get to run a youth group retreat with alot of youth tomorrow back at Our Lady of Consolation again, and if it’s anything like it was a few days ago, it’s gonna be an awesome time. . . Well, we WERE expecting 115 youth, but instead only had 34 show up. Apparently the 115 is the amount of youth signed up in the program, so no wonder it was significantly smaller. No matter, I truly enjoyed this retreat due to the amount of basketball played. It’s the most I’ve played in a long time, and since it’s getting colder outside, it’s the easiest activity to do when you’re in a gym. Still a good retreat, don’t get me wrong there either. Just sports are fun. Anyways, the retreat contact person took the team out to a Chinese buffet right next to the theater Nels and I went to yesterday, and it hit the spot. Although i wont lie, it makes me more excited for teriyaki back at home, I’m craving it so badly right now. That night, we returned to host homes from the night before, and I crashed HARD. I was a goner by 10:20, easily the earliest I’ve gone down in awhile. Clearly i needed it though, looking forward to sleeping in at home. . . Today was a very special day: our 50th retreat on the road! It took place at St. Phillip Neri in little Reed City, MI, where had the pleasure of giving the talk for the 25 youth in attendance. The youth were alot of fun, and we put on the funniest skits yet, making us laugh more than the youth did despite us knowing the results. That night, Evan, Jakob, and I stayed with a lovely gentleman named Tom. He hosted us for the night, but would host the whole team tomorrow evening. But praise God we got him an extra day! His house was a renovated mansion, with an indoor pool! Beautiful rooms, huge kitchen, the whole shebang. For dinner, he took us out to one of his favorite places: Chase Creek Steakhouse, which has some high quality food, as many steakhouse do. And of course, we took advantage of the pool, and we swam/jumped off the diving board for an hour. Legit one of the coolest houses I’ve ever been in, and so glad we had a chance to go swimming! . . Well, here we are: our last team day of 2019. Everyone was going to meet up at Tom’s house, where we were staying, so we had a chance to sleep in a little bit longer than everyone else. After team prayer, we had some free time to do what we wanted until lunch. In other words, it was just time for us to swim in Tom’s pool. After lunch and a team discussion, the team leaders planned a Secret Santa/White Elephant/Advent Angel for us! The plan was to drive to General Dollar (we are missionaries after all), and pick out gifts up to $10 for our Secret Santa, and $5 for our White Elephant. My gifts I gave were mainly inside jokes, but what I received was priceless: a pink Peppa Pig blanket from Monica! It literally the funniest thing ever, and I love it. She knows me too well. All jokes aside, it was so much fun doing this final team activity. Because it was the great day of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, we went to the obligatory mass at St. Phillip Neri with Tom, who then took us out to Ruby Tuesday’s. He is such a generous man, and I’m so grateful for my time with him. . . The next five days are gonna be intense: five school day retreats, five different cities, before we finally head back to the NET Center for Christmas break. It’s truly the final leg of the 1st semester, and with fatigue building up, Im giving everything I got these last few days, no matter the circumstances.