Dancing in September

" This is the job of leaders: to nuture the vineyard with freedom, creativity and hard work..."

THE REUNION SEASON: Earlier this year we had celebrated Elizabeth's 30th. I had coined the #thereunionseason at her little birthday. I had a feeling there was going to be more than one occasion where our group would get together and hangout. Little did I realize #thereunionseason would also mean reconnecting with other people I haven't seen in such a long time. A couple weeks ago Raymond, from LF had messaged me on Facebook randomly. He had invited me to this Seacret presentation in Carson that week. As much as I hate sitting through those 3 level marketing presentations, I thought it would be cool to catch up with them. Im so glad I had went cause it was great catching up with Charisse. For a minute it was a like rush of old memories that had flashed back. In fact last week Raymond ended up hanging out at the Packing House last Thursday night. Earlier this month the Youth Ministry celebrated its 10th Annual YPR. Again, another cause for reunions and celebrations. On top of all that Antoinette celebrated her 30th along with her engagement. #thereunionseason I love it.

GODPROVIDES: All summer long I had been looking for an extra job. The end of summer and the month of September become extra long since Im not working. I can really see how people who get laid become so discouraged with the job market. Day after day I would look on Craigslist throwing out my resume here and there. I was able to go through a couple of interviews, only to be declined in the end. Fast forward to this month and Im in a position where I've been offered two jobs I had applied and interviewed for. Its rough and as I said it gets discouraging, however in the end I know God provides. Trusting God is never easy and something I've always struggle with in my own personal faith journey. I need to remind myself something that St. Pio once said, 'Pray, Hope, and Don't worry.'

STTHERESE: For the past 11 years, after learning so much about St. Therese, I started to have a devotion to her. I always love sharing with others about her simple life. About 6-7 years ago I bought this book, Shower of Heavenly Roses. The book is filled with stories of people who have had answered prayers from St. Therese. Her feast day is October 1st and I started the 9 day novena last week with the novena finishing on her feast day. God never stops to amaze me with just how great He is. On day 3 of the Novena in the hallway at work I had noticed a rose petal on the ground. I picked up and it made me smile as it reminded me of St. Therese. When lunch came around as I was warming up my lunch in the microwave there was a calendar in front of me. The calendar has been there since the beginning of the year and just never thought anything of it. 'Ding,' the microwave goes and as I opened up the microwave I noticed the picture for the month of September. It was a cupcake with a rose frosting decoration on it. I took down the calendar and went through the whole year noticing that only September had the rose cupcake on it. Laughing to myself I knew at once it was St. Therese. As if that wasn't enough, there's a floral dept. at my work. Last week the floral teacher decided to do the 'Duchess Rose' project. The campus was filled all week with students walking around with roses. St. Therese knew exactly what I needed and helped make it happen. 

WYD16: In 2008 I was blessed with the opportunity to go Sydney, Australia and participate in World Youth Day. I remember hearing about World Youth Day back when I first became active in the church. Some people had just came back from Tornto, Canada. Then in 2005 I remember other people from other ministries planning for their trip to Cologne, Germany. It never really dawned on me that I would be able to go myself one day. Then when the idea of going to Sydney, Australia was thrown out, I knew I had to go this time. Although the fundraising, planning, and even at times the trip itself became stressful it was still a eye-opening experience. Thankfully I was able to fundraise $1000 through inkind donations from parishioners. As I always tell students one of the most important lessons in in life is all about networking and who you know. Who you know and what they could do for you can become such a huge advantage to you in life down the line. Anyway, this time Im preparing for WYD 2016. The goal to come up with $4,500 seemed like such an impossible task. Praise God that as of this month I've slowly made a small dent raising $1300 of it on my own. Im praying hopefully in the coming months that in the end I can be able to raise the balance with a little extra. God definitely provides. 

STBERNARDS: Last year I had met this girl who was subbing for a couple of weeks in my room. At the end of the year we said, 'it was nice working with you, good luck, etc.'  Fast forward to this past May, I get a random instagram request from her and she comments on of my pictures to contact her. For the most part I always keep people's numbers unless I know I wont need it anymore. I had texted her and she told me she had been trying to find/search for me a while. She had just got a promotion to become the new Activities Director at the school she was working at and needed help. The funny thing is when we were working together she would always make fun of me cause I always busy with ASB activities. We met up and I gave her ideas and suggestions which ultimately led to me organizing an ASB retreat for her new ASB students. Fast forward to June and it was an amazing, humbling experience. I knew already from the first day it was meant to be as a portrait of St. Therese was hung in their library. To help plan student activities at a catholic high school?! WOW! I was super excited. I get to share my faith as well as teach them how to plan events. Putting that retreat one of for that school was the best start to my summer. Last Saturday I went to their Homecoming and it was so great to see them. A whole different culture them Im usually use to working with, but I love it and I love them. 

OKTOBERFEST: I was sharing tonight how this time of year is kinda exciting. The parish starts slowly transform into 'Oktoberfest' season. The big trucks with the rides come in to the grass, the tents start to get put up, and then the stage is put together. As I was looking at the stage earlier tonight a rush of fond Oktoberfest memories came to me. The year was 2007 and I can clearly remember walking on stage and seeing the tons of people waiting for Passion and Gabe. Literally it felt like being on stage for a concert. I had never seen so many people, mostly all young teens and kids at church like this before. Then as they got on stage the screaming and the yelling of the crowd going crazy. Who would've thought that Holy Family would ended up landing two huge YouTube stars at their festival. Again, God provides. I was super biter cause of the fact Aj Rafael had backed out after agreeing to perform for the festival. He had posted a myspace bulletin trying to find out who was in charge of the entertainment for the festival and then went on to say something to the effect of I wasnt clear with the information. Of course I was so and replied back to the original myspace message where he had agreed to perform. After that whole incident I never cared for the guy and his music. Oh well in the end it worked out cause Passion and Gabe came out instead. Those were some good times back in those days. 

"I wont let go of you, Im latching on to you..."im done, im out God bless 

Daydreamin'

"The world bursts at the seams with people ready to tell you, you're not good enough. On occasion, some may be correct. But do not do their work for them. Seek any jobs; ask anyone out; pursue any goal. Don't take it personally when they say 'no-' they may not be smart enough to say 'yes.' "

ANSWERED PRAYER: It's funny since week St. Therese seems to have come back in a sense. Here's a story for all of you. At end of last month the Confirmation coordinator's wife at holy family past away suddenly of a heartache. In fact the sad part was a couple of days before she past away, they had just celebrated her birfday. Anyway, I guess after she past he was a feeling a little sad and depressed. Well like myself, he has a devotion to St. Therese. So one nite he was praying to her asking her to let him know if his wife was alright and if she was in heaven. In his prayer he specficially asked for a white rose. He goes about doing this normal routine he comes back and there next to his bed on his desk was a white rose!! Alright so thas one story and here's another one. Im helping out a friend of mine put together a show for OLF. Well when he got the approval to go through w/the plans for the show the condition the principal wants it at the beginning of April. Wow! we all thought, freakin' april is juss around the corner there's no way. So I said let's pray about it and God will let us know if this is meant to be or not. That nite I asked St. Therese for her prayers asking if this meant to be send me a yellow rose. Before I left for work I went to get the mail and when I got the mail there was this small package with a rosary in it from St. Therese! Crazy huh! Now I know its not exactly my yellow rose soo I'm kinda praying for confirmation.

SICK: SInce Monday Ive been kinda stuck at home with this stupid stuffy nose. Tuesday was horrible I juss barely made it through the day. That maximum strength sudafed I bought though was legit. I took that thing yesterday morning and it's help clear up my sinuses. Little stuffiness here and there but its not as nearly as bad as Tuesday. I took yesterday and today off of work juss to rest up on top of all that I have a confirmation retreat I have to be at this weekend. A part of me doesn't really want to go but I already said in the beginning I would go. At least I wont be really running the retreat so that's kinda cool. Im leading a discussion group and I hope the talks and speakers are interesting. There's only certain people I can really sit and give my attention to when they're speaking-others juss kinda end up loosing my attention.

CHRIS BROWN: Maan all I gotta is kawawa Chris Brown. I dont know I really dont want to believe he'd do something like that. I always said he would be one entertainer that would be fun to juss chill with. I mean he looks so easy going and juss fun he doesnt look like the type that would have a temper unlike others ahem kanye west ha. Now they're saying this isnt the first time and rhianna is saying that this is happened before or something similar to that. Whaack. I think he's innoncent until proven guilty so hopefully they got him mixed up with some other crazy guy.

SPAM MESSAGES: The spam messages on the tagboard are getting really annoying. Errday I have to go and clean it up. It wasnt like that before how come they keep coming back!! And I really dont want to throw away my tagboard either. AHh I wish there was a way juss to block the stupid messages from coming in. Last Thursday over dinner we were talking bout blogs and old networking sites from when we were younger. Crazy how technology has advanced and changed over the years. I wonder if I would've had an ipod when I was in high skool or even maybe let alone a cell phone.

SPA: When I was in New Zealand there was this pretty tight spa place. It was named one of the top 10 spas in the world back like 2007 or something like that. Anyway, for $20 you can spend as much time as you wanted in these different pools of hot springs. Talk bout cheap and a good deal! Being in there was so relaxing and defintely worth it...too bad they dont have anything like that over here. Well I'm sure they do it's juss probably real expensive and well not as nice as the one in New Zealand.

DEBIT CARD: Talk bout missing something important! Last week I found out that my debit card has been compromised so to be on the safe side the bank said to cancel it and they'll issue me a new one. Maan not having it has been super hard especially since I dont carry any cash on me most of the time. So I had to go the bank last week to withdraw cash which was sort of an inconvenience since I had to make an extra stop before work agh!!

MOVIES: Last weekend was an eventful weekend, I had to make the most of my long weekend. Back to back movies, back to back hang outs, and back to back rain which is probably how I got sick oh why?! Anyway, first movie was 'He's just not taht into you.' Yeah I know but it looked really interesting so I had to watch it. The storyline is funny it wasn't what I had thought well sorta some of the characters did eventually cross paths. Overall it was pretty good, the ending was cute and wasnt as predictable as I had thought it was going to be. Saturday I went to go watch 'Push.' That one was aiight, the good thing about that movie was at least there was action throughout the movie and not all this dialouge then all the action at the end. The bad part was it really was like a poor mans heroes and they had gay names for their powers such as: 'sniffers' or 'watchers' or 'pushers' etc

OH WHY STORIES: So my friend showed me the other day this site called 'FML' which is funny cuz it's like there 'oh why?!' stories of people's misfortunate. Now why people would post their stories on a site like that is beyond me but it's entertainig to read.

"Wake up in Paris, chill in tokyo..."im done, im out God Bless!