7 Quick Takes on Being Sick, Missionary Reunions, and Twitter Encounters [7]

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On Monday, I didn't feel so great. So I told Carol & Christina to give me a minute and not to judge me. I then proceeded to get on the floor under my desk and lay down. My plan was that five minutes would be enough to catapult me through the rest of the day. Then they peer pressured me to go home. Which ended up being a good choice, because it turns out I had a fever.

Then on Tuesday, I was on fever quarantine, so I worked from home. Which was great for the first half of the day, but then I really started to need interaction with other people. Luckily, my fever broke that morning and I was able to go back in to the office on Wednesday.

Even though being sick was the worst, I learned that the space under my desk makes for great naps and/or hiding from stress. I feel like this will come in handy in the next month...

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Last Friday, I walked out of the chapel to head to my next meeting when I suddenly was stopped in my tracks. Four of my FOCUS teammates from UNL last year were just hanging out in the lobby, talking to other FOCUS Missionaries. I think I screamed. I ran to Weeder, Martha, Jim, & Jess and gave them each a huge hug. Jim laughed at me as I yelled, "I'm overwhelmed with so many feelings right now!!" But oh my gosh, it was such an incredible surprise. Unfortunately, I had to run off to a meeting, which became very hard to concentrate in. It was such a beautiful moment where my heart was full of love. Those people walked along side me during my time as a missionary, and I am so grateful to have them in my lives. Jess and Martha ate lunch at my desk as I worked on answering emails. Surprises and people are the best.

Later that night, I went to the hotel where Interview Weekend was being held and I was able to spend time with my awesome disciple, Laura, more old teammates, and fellow missionaries. It was such a great night and I left with a very full heart.

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Speaking of people - my dear friend Rachel is coming to visit me this weekend! Rach-face was a Delta Gamma, Alpha Kappa Psi, and FOCUS Student Missionary alongside me at Drake. She was the very first FOCUS Missionary to be hired from Drake, and I was the second. She is now the Team Director at the University of Tulsa and doing big things on that campus. I am so excited to spend this weekend with her catching up on life and just being friends.

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Um...thanksgiving is next week. I'm going home to my parents house on Wednesday! How did that even happen? Also this means conference is almost a month away. AHHHHHHH. 

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My team is really great at celebrating. It snowed quite a bit yesterday, so to celebrate, we made crock pot apple cider. Yummmm.

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I met up with two of my freshman discipleship girls on Sunday night for some coffee and hanging out. I am constantly blown away by the real depth of their struggles and their desire to put Jesus more at the center of their hearts. Their commitment to Jesus pushes me to be more committed to Him. I was humbled when one of them started giving the other advice on how to only worry what Jesus thinks of their lives and not others. That was a huge theme I struggled with in college (and still do). Hearing the girls encourage each other in this area allowed me to peer into parts of my heart where I still struggle with this, and it propelled me to take steps to put Jesus back into the center of my heart.

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Yesterday morning, I was sitting on my couch, enjoying my coffee, when I noticed that my upstairs neighbors were vacuuming. It was 7 AM. The following twitter exchange occurred...

I think I offended the good people at Dirt Devil. However, I will stand by my statement that it is inappropriate to vacuum at 7 am.

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

7 Quick Takes: Delight, Fall, & Christmas Music in October [4]

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Last Saturday my friend Holly and I went to the Colorado Ballet to see their performance of Giselle. The dancers were beautiful and so impressive, even though the story was a little weird. My favorite part of the whole experience was the old man sitting a seat away from us. He stinkin' loved the ballet. When the dancers would do something particularly impressive he would cry out, "bravo!" We would hear him say things like, "beautiful!" "oh wow!" and "wonderful, just wonderful!" My personal favorite was when he exclaimed, "Ah! I'll be damned!!" after a particularly impressive lift (seriously - Giselle was 100% above the man's head and completely flat. They did this like 3 times). 

Although this man's exclamations were cute, I really appreciated how much he delighted in the whole experience. He was not afraid to show his appreciation for the art and he was real in how he expressed it. It made me think deeper about the concept of delighting in something beautiful and how God delights in us.

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On Wednesday, I mentioned that I really like The Walking Dead and other things about Zombies. And that's weird for me. But...I find it fascinating to think about. Maybe my brain is weird, but when I watch/read things about post-apocalyptic societies (like The Hunger Games or The Walking Dead or even Harry Potter), I always think about where would God or the Catholic Church be if this was reality. Like, what if you really had to live on the run in fear that Zombies would attack you!? And that was your everyday reality? How would that effect your view of Jesus? Hard for me to fathom...but I always think about it. Last year when I first encountered the Walking Dead we would have some sweet conversations about the morality of killing Zombies and what the Church would teach. I think those conversations were what got me hooked on the show.

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October has been all about birthdays and celebrations in our office. Carol and Christina both had birthday, and Oct. 16 was boss' day. Our team does celebrations right...Thai Food, drinks, pink sparkly crowns, baked goods, and decorations. Maybe because we're all event planners.

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Last weekend, Carol and I hosted the first of our (hopefully monthly) parties: FALL DAY. This day was just so much fun! We started at the pumpkin patch, came home for dinner (Carol & I made butternut squash mac & cheese), played a riveting round of Things, and ended the night with a great discussion about the first time we all said "I love you" back to Jesus.

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UNL had fall break this week and a few of the missionaries and students came out to Colorado. While the group went up into the mountains on Monday, I snagged my good friend Emily for the day. Emily is my mentee on staff and oh my gosh I just love her. She has an incredible story about how she ended up as an affiliate missionary at UNL for the year. It was so great to be with her in person and just be friends. We talked for hours about the things that are going on in our lives, and had our formal mentorship in person for the first time. I am so honored that she has asked me to guide her in her journey as a missionary.

Emily came into the office with me so she could see FOCUS Headquarters and talk to her Regional Director for a bit. We were asked by almost everyone that we met, "Are you two sisters!?" A few even did double takes because they thought she was me.

Last year my teammate Logan insisted that I was identical twins with Caitlin (a student at UNL last year and now a FOCUS intern at UNL).

We didn't see it. However, at the beginning of this year I received this text:

Logan had finally figured it out. My roommate, Melissa, confirmed this assumption when she told me Emily & I had the exact same mannerisms. We'll just have to get a picture of the three of us and see what happens.

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Next week Carol & I are going to a Christian Conference Planners Conference to meet with vendors, learn more professional skills, and hang out in Florida. I'm excited to get a deeper look into what it means to be a professional event planner and to bring back everything I learn to further the mission of FOCUS through events.

I will say, these vendors are insane. Look at this invitation to dinner that I got yesterday:

SO FUN, right!? But I want to know how many people they sent these to and was it really worth the $8.75 shipping cost!?

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So I may or may not have listened to Christmas music in the office on Wednesday. I had Let It Snow! stuck in my head, so I decided that was fine because it's not technically a Christmas song. Then the Glee Christmas Album showed up on Spotify and it was all over from there...People had some fierce opinions on the matter:

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!