Days 131-134: The Swing of Things (1/14-1/17/21)

After a week of quarantining, I am finally returning to St. Paul! I missed pretty much all of January Training, but i’m healthy, and excited to be reunited with my team, and that’s what matters at the end of the day. Unfortunately, my whole team is not back yet. 4 of the members had to quarantine upon getting exposed during training, so we won’t get our full team together until Monday (today is Thursday). I landed in the evening, along with two other teammates who also had to quarantine at home for one reason or another, and we got picked up by our supervisor Christina and the rest of the team! Guys, you have no idea how much I missed my teammates’ hugs while on break, it was the only thing that I truly missed from January Training. I mean I was involved with January Training, I got to zoom into all the talks and schedule the next couple weeks with Grace at home, but that physical touch aspect was tough. We got back to the NET Center, ate some Chick-fil-A we picked up on the way home, and hopped into team activities before calling it a night. Sadly, as much as I wanted to see other Netters, there was little to no time for

it. Sad, but it’s all good. I’m ready for this half and whatever it has in store for me. . . We have three confirmation retreats the next three days. Brenden put it best when he said it’s like skipping the intro cut scene of a video game and just throwing yourself into ministry again without any preparation. I mean, we know we had January Training, but not being there and just traveling the day before doesn’t help for sure. It was an evening retreat, and many teams were staying one more night due to a snow storm, so I was able to say hello to many peeps, which I was grateful for. Then, within 24 hours of landing into MSP, we put on our first retreat of 2021 at St. Peter’s in Forest Lake, MN. It was a confirmation retreat, and although we only had 8 people + Christina on retreat, it was like we never left! I led the retreat, and I was thriving. The guys on retreat were fantastic as well, I was super stoked to be back. . . We came back from retreat at 11:30pm, and had to leave at 7am the next morning for the next retreat. It was a very quick turnaround, but this is what NET is usually like on a normal year, so I was thriving like it were a normal NET year. Less than 12 hours after closing one retreat, we put on another at St. Joseph in Waconia, MN. Again, it was like we never left, great execution on our side, and good participation from the retreatants during the day-long retreat. From there, we left for New Richmond, WI, as we would put on an all-day retreat at Immaculate Conception parish. I’m most excited for this retreat, because I put on my favorite retreat from last year at this church! It will be a completely different confirmation group, but it was the same facilities and the same confirmation coordinator, so I was very familiar with what was happening. It was my favorite retreat since there were many jokes that came out of this confirmation retreat weekend last year, some that now even my new team uses on a regular basis! We stayed the night with Abby and Cael and their three kids, all under 5 years old and absolutely adorable. Abby is a NET alum, and her brother Austin on the road last year, so seeing him again was great. . . Just like last year, the retreat was awesome. I threw myself into retreat alot, giving two talks due to number of peeps, but retreat leader Amanda put me in a couple activities as well, so I got alot of spotlight time at one of my favorite places. After retreat, the contact person took us out to this great place called Champs Bar, then we had a chill night with Abby and Cael, who shared with us their marriage testimony, which was so moving, and put alot of things in perspective.