Emptying Yourself

"How do learn how to pray? By praying..."

SATISIFIED: Great weeked getting away from it all, I think it was exactly wha I was looking for...somewhat. I always feel like whenever I'm at scrc, it's like a whole different world. It feels like being a whole different town. Like a 'catholic town' where people are so on fire bout their catholic faith, their love for God, you run into people you either know or havent seen in a while. I picked up the newspaper outside the door of my hotel this morning and it was like whoa...I felt like I've been gone for ages. Anyway, its nice being back to reality again, though scrc weekend feels like more than a weekend, which is great. It doesnt go by so fast...so much to do w/a lot of time.

WIDE OPEN: I think the quote and the picture(s) above perfectly describes this weekend. You see this brother during mass, w/his arms wide open, juss ready to receive whatever Jesus wants to give. Then you have the picture of aela w/her hands open, emptying herself to be made an instrument. The whole weekend was bout being filled up again. This was wha my second I guess retreat for this year. Last year it seemed like at least every couple of months there was one or helping put one together. So it was great that God made this one especially fufilling. A lot of interesting things happened, ran into a lot of people who I havent seen in a while also. The only thing that sucked was there seemed to be less vendors. Maybe that was a good thing, so I wouldnt of spent a grip of $$.

DAY 1: Friday was a busy day all over the place, trying to get things done. Peebs and ate nariza car pooled w/me on the first day. Originally I planned on staying pretty much for the whole thing, but then last minute changes happened. I went to the first talk which was on 'obstacles to growth.' I got there late but it was still worth it, I cant remember wha priest it was giving the talk. Anyway, he was going through the different characteristics of things that prevent us from growing spiritually. How it affects us and then we all prayed that we'd overcome that obstacle.

SAVING $$: We brought some lunch of our own to try and save some money. Food is a freakin rip off over there. I remember being there for congress and juss how expensive errthang is. So we all ended up coincidently bringing hot pockets! ha The problem was trying to find a microwave for hte public to use. Good thing them peeps at the arena grill were kind enough to warm up our hot pockets for lunch. We were all ready for lunch w/hot pockets, baked cheetos, and water. Then it was off to the next talk...except I ended up missing mine cuz I had go and get my hurr did. Met up lyn lyn at her work and she gave me a d0pe haircut...salon style. Shampooed my hair, washed it, the whole works! Now all thas left to do is color my tips again. I think a brownish color would look perfect for the fall season.

SCRIPT WRITING: Stopped by the soratorios to drop off nini's carseat and ended up playing w/her for a while. Actually, more less tried helping her clean up all her toys. Though each time she was going upstairs to put something away, she was bringing down mroe stuff. After leaving there went over to mark anthony's house. I didnt even realize how long I was there for til I walked outside when I left. It was good times though, dane was suppose to show up but then couldnt but we still got a lot accomplished. Actually, in fact we were able to write the whole tenative script for the skit. I like it, it's gonna be fun to see who's going to be the characters. I think my favorite scene though is the last one. ha At the same time we were able to catch up on whas going on, so it was real cool.

SATURDAY: Saturday was a busy one, I really lagged on getting stuff together so I ended up coming to the convention center late. Then I didnt even park at the hilton, so I had to move my car and errthang after my first talk. I barely made it for the first talk, well they were running late anyway. It can be tiring walking back and forth from the hilton to the convention center, especially when you're doing that like 3-4 times in a day. Jim murphy gave a really inspiring talk on 'I know God loves me but...'this guy has been a bodyguard for BlesseD Teresa as well as met JPII. He traveled across states for a whole year carrying a 6' wooden cross. Pretty crazy but had a lot of cool stories to share.















MOVING AROUND: After hte first talk, went in line for confession, which I didnt think was gonna take that long. I was wrong...ha but it was cool cuz I had people come in to join me. Somehow a couple of people ended up joining me in line unexpectedtly, talk bout front cuts and back cuts! ha! Then ran around like crazy people to move my car to the hilton(after already paying $9 for parking at the convention center oh why?!) Ran a quick errand to the 7-11 store, Im obsessed with extra green apple gum! Got our rooms together and had a nice late thanksgiving lunch inisde the girl's room.

HOLY SPIRIT COME: The nice thing bout staying at the hilton was all my talks were there. I couldnt miss out on fr. faircy's talk. Made it juss in time to hear fr. faircy talk bout being out poured in the holy spirit. Then we got into groups and did a mini baptism in the holy spirit. Giving each other a big 'holy hug' after each person was done being prayed over. Afterwards fr. faircy did his thing bout people getting certain gifts and certain people being called to the religous life. He even told people if they want to know if they have a religous vocation or not they could come up to him and ask. Well, I did juss that, but I'll leave that for myself.

MASS AND MORE: Walked around buying some stuff that I didnt think I'd have time to get on sunday. Such as my annual bible diary, I really have to give props to kristel fama for intro. me to this concept. This is my 4th bible diary, which has come in handy in a variety of different ways. I try to never leave home w/o it, thas why I keep it in my car. Ran into erkie and some other SoL peoples as well hojers. One of the vendors was giving away free the Diary of Saint Faustina, I couldnt pass that up! Mass was good, except for the lady who took two of my seats I was saving. Good thing it all ended up working out in the end.

PARTY STARTS: The real part defiently didn't really start until later on after mass was over. Erryear the young adult track offers a 'Jesus and Java.' Basically a nite of different groups playing praise & worship music. To fufill my volunteer duties, I did ticket bouncer for a while. Making sure peeps had their sticker before they walked into the party. Interesting how people would say, 'oh I juss want to check it out' or 'Im juss gonna walk this person in.' Yet end up sampling the coffee and biscotti w/o trying to pay. So I had to and get them and kick them out or make them pay. St. Paul the apostle from chino hills played for a while. They were pretty good. The only thing I dont like bout the whole Jesus and java thing is the icec breaker games they try and get you to play. Its kinda gay, I'd rather juss go on my own meeting people then be forced through a game to interact. Anyway, thas juss me though.




















MEETING JESUS: After the chino hills group, jesty's band played. They were pretty good too, playing like charlie brown and other stuff. The best part though was having adoration and benediction. Fr. Munoz from this parish in la habra came in w/Jesus. We ended up becoming friends that nite ha. He asked me to take off that one cloth that they use to hold Jesus with. Very, very touching that nite as well as moving. People were literally being touched by Jesus. I've never seen a priest during adoration come around w/the monostrous and actually touch people w/it. That was probably the highlight of the entire evening. I couldnt of thought of a better way of spending a saturday nite.















ONCE A YEAR FRIEND: I have this 'once a year friend' at scrc erryear. I call him once a year cuz we only usually see/talk to each other once a year at scrc. The story is kinda funny on how we met. It was like two years ago I was standing in line for confession and he was either in front of me or behind me. Anyway, I dont know how we started talking but we juss did. I was sharing w/him bout the young adult track they had(cuz it was the first year scrc had it). Invited him to go to the Jesus and Java that nite too also and he went. Then I remember running into him after mass that sunday, and then we exchanged info. He's a real cool guy, so I was intro. leslie to him last nite and he was telling her how it was cool taht I juss randomly talked to him. Apparently at that time he was juss learning to kinda mingle w/other people besides his family. Now, he's all involed with scrc and active, which is cool. Then he was saying how he appreciates the emails and all the devotions. Which I'm going to get back into the habbit of sending out again. I love meeting new people.
















SUNDAY: I'm so thankful that I dont live miles and miles away from the convention center. Im also thankful that scrc is the same place erryear. I cant imagine having to drive 2-3 hrs home after a long weeekend, especially during the holidays. ANyway, sunday was cool woke up early and made it time for my fr. stan talk. He was talking bout the eucharist. You can never get enough of fr. stan. There was this one guy during the talk that was hella excited. Like errtime fr. stan would sing or something he'd get real loud and shout ha. Missed the last talk cuz I had to get stuff down out of the room for check out then ended up chillin in the lobby w/arch. Ran into alma from sol today, I havent seen her in ages! Saw leo and rica yesterday, who else oh yeah I ran into one of my old sre kids too today at the hilton. Well it was actually the mom, but she rememberd me! ha Closing mass w/bishop solis was great. Came home and knocked out for a couple of hours. The nite went by so slow...oh yeah did I mention how there was a million of other things going on at that hilton this weekend. There was this japanese family convention going in, and it looked like they had a formal dance sat. nite. I was tempted to go in and check it out, I figured I'd fit it in ha no one would even notice.

















Summer coming to an end...

"Like head, shoulders, knees..."im done, im out God bless!