NST, Round 2!

Well, this dream has officially become a reality and I'm here in Champaign, Illinois for another round of New Staff Training (NST)!

We completed two full days of classes and so far I've successfully taken one nap, gone for two runs, and have been spending ample time catching up with all of my beautiful friends that I have missed so dearly over the past year!

I'm surprised by some things:

1) How quickly I can forget people's names, even those that I was quite familiar with last year and have been staring at all year on a missionary map on our fridge! A bit humiliating, I'll admit, but also kind of hysterical when I find myself actually pulling out the "Oh HEY you!" card that I joke about far too often.

2) People remember that I wasn't at the Student Leadership Summit out in Baltimore in January when the NDSU team stayed in Fargo for bisonCatholic Week. I know this isn't what it's about, but I feel loved and truly cherished by so many of these friends, some of whom I hardly got a chance to know last summer!

3) I'm a different person this year than I was last year, and I'm okay with it. Prior to coming I was mildly freaking out about how much growth and purification has gone on in my life and my heart this year and I just wasn't ready to open up about some things. Turns out, it's actually not so bad!

4) I don't feel pressured to go and stay out late and have been getting to bed earlier than I have almost all year, it's a beautiful thing.

5) How many of my 2nd year friends are going to be team directors. It's an awesome testimony to the caliber of leadership FOCUS is blessed with and I'm so excited for all of them! Truly inspiring.

6) Lastly, my phone is pooping out on me and not that any time is a convenient time for your phone to stop working, but I was just at home for a solid week and could have moseyed into US Cellular to make an exchange had I known. Darnski.

All in all I'm really excited about this year's NST! I've got a lot to learn about what it means being a second-year missionary here and setting examples for the first-year missionaries, but the Lord is leading me, and I'm in the college of St. Cecilia! She's got a ballin' story and is an amazing example of purity of heart, mind and body and I have a feeling she'll be teaching me a thing or two this summer as well!

I'll write more later, God bless!
Kelsey Marie