Days 133-135: On the Road Again

Our final day of training started off with Men’s liturgy. All the guys were dressed up in their shirts and ties, and had a great mass led by Father Fred. Then, we had brunch downstairs, where the sisters were cheering for us, and surprised the guys by honoring us, singing “Holy is His Name”. It was angelic. From there, it was just prep to go. I was so exhausted for some reason, and i had no idea why. I wanted to feel refreshed and ecstatic, but that just wasn’t the case. I’m gonna miss all my friends though. Another five months without seeing them again is gonna be difficult, but it’s good knowing their doing the good work like i am. I will admit, I’m excited to be back in the road with our team. Doing team prayer, sharing memories and jokes again is gonna be so good, hopefully that energizes me. . . We had a School day retreat in Minneapolis, at Annunciation School starting at 9. Many of the other teams didn’t have retreats, just travel days, but I’m glad we do. It does means i had to get up at 5:15am and made sure i was good to go by 6:30, but still glad. Getting back to retreats with my team was so refreshing and rewarding! From recalling the skits and dramas, to having unique small groups (one kid knew pig Latin while another sought out vulnerability in such a beautiful way). And, what i was most excited about, team prayer. It was beautiful in such a unique way today, and we felt ourselves changing and growing already! Who knows how far we’ll go. Well, quite literally, not too far, as we drove over the Minnesota-Wisconsin border to New Richmond, WI. I recognized the name, it was the same place we did laundry back at Camp Wapo! The beautiful campsite was 15 miles away from Assumption Parish, and i totally recognized the town i once explored with Aimee months ago, even driving past the laundromat we went to! It’s way prettier in the snow, i can definitely say that. That night, Jakob, Evan and Istayed with Tim and Deb, who played slide guitar and lots of poker with us and showed us all of their Elvis Presley memorabilia, since Deb is a huge Elvis fan. It was their first time hosting NET, so giving them first impressions was important for us, and created a mutual love for eachother. We get too stay with them one more night as well, and they said they’ll show us more stuff tomorrow. . . Today was a simple team day, filled with little ministry stuff but lots of fun. We started at a later time, about 9am, with team prayer and Men’s/Women’s Session. From there, we drove to one of the girl’s host family’s to go sledding! They had a huge hill that wasn’t too steep, but was totally fun. Although we crashed many times into the trees at the bottom of the hill, everyone was fine. Once we were all frozen, we came back inside and chilled out, played some games, and talked to the family. Then, it was finally time for dinner. We were going to meet our host families at Notjusta Cafe, not too far from where we were. Except, we went to the wrong one. And then went to the other wrong Café. In Minnesota. By the time we figured out the right Notjusta Cafe (an hour later), they were closing, and we had to meet up at the local Subway. The fact that there are three Notjusta Cafe’s all nearby eachother, and we went to the other two, is mind-boggling, but so funny. Oh, and it hit single digit temperature outside with brutal wind chill. Fun times for sure. But Tim and Deb were really cool!! Turns out Tim does historical re-enactments, and has a ton of guns and weapons he built himself that the soldiers of the Revolutionary War and wars before the 1840’s used, and showed them off to us and taught us how one would use it. It was absolutely fascinating, and the led balls were HEAVY!! Super effective when you were finally able to shoot it two minutes after loading. On top of that, he had tons of skins and clothes that one would wear, making me grateful for the layers i wore today in the freezing cold. We ended the evening with Farkle, a new dice game that i really enjoyed. They even gave the game to us since they had an extra, which we can not use on retreat and the road! No better way to start off the year than an amazing host family, who also spoiled me with these chocolate/pretzel cookies that melted me. But what was to come made me nervous but so excited. What is it you ask? Find out next episode.