NST, Round Three

Whoa! Looking at my last post it was all the way in the end of April--and there's been no shortage of events, activities and new relationships happening. Currently, I write to you from Ave Maria, FL way way down in Southern Florida for FOCUS' annual New Staff Training (NST, for those of you who love all of our fun acronyms). In previous years, the Newman Center in Champaign, IL at the University of Illinois hosted us, but we've officially outgrown the facilities so we're down here, essentially in the middle of a once-swamp and kind of the middle of nowhere.

I've been here for three weeks now and a description I gave to a friend earlier today perfectly sums up my sentiment about the time thus far: it feels like a really busy and overstimulated extra-long retreat. The setting is almost too good to be true (that is, until our feet and legs get eaten alive by fire ants and other creatures) and the town is literally like a little "Catholic Disney Land." FOCUS told us it would be like that and I didn't believe them...but it's true. I mean the town is pretty much built around the university, and it's pretty cute. Bottom line: Kelsey is happy and doing well...and apparently speaking in the third person now. Weird. I'll cut that right out.

I'll begin by introducing our new team for the 2013-2014 school year at NDSU! (drum roll please....)

You might be thinking to yourself, "wow, those people all look extremely familiar." And well, that's correct.

• TJ Beyer, army veteran from Albuquerque, NM and our dashing super-evangelist apologist will be returning for his second year. 
• I, Kelsey Kaufman, graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, from Sauk City, WI will yes, be returning for a three-peat at NDSU!
• Jane Voelker, 2011 graduate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, hailing from Wisconsin Rapids, WI will be joining us for her first year on staff after working as an intern at St. Paul's in Madison.
• Bryan Thiry, formerly known as "BLT" (Beloved Leader of the Team, per Fr. Cheney), graduate of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and a diehard Husker, originally from Butte, NE will be re-joining us as the beloved leader of the team, or rather, our team director. (Basically, he's our boss.)

One of the best parts of NST round three is definitely the amazing women in my college. They are all so unique, gifted and a beautiful reflection of femininity and each day that I get to spend with them is a reminder of God's delightful plan for each of us. It's just amazing to think that He set it up so perfectly for us to all be together, for some reason or another, and we are learning a ton from everyone else.

College of St. Agnes!

I would love to relay to you all the cool things I've been learning and re-learning in our classes, but let's just say that when I'm at NST among all of my missionary brothers and sisters, I honestly can't imagine doing anything else. This certainly will fuel my prayer for the next year, that is, how long I want to serve with this incredible organization, but for this year, I know that the Lord is calling me to be a missionary at NDSU. Also, I've been asked many times, "Oh, three years at the same place? Are you the team director?" To clear up any doubts, no, in fact, I am just your average third-year missionary, loving the North Dakota mish (as in missionary) life. There are a few (literally, probably 3) others in the same boat as me, so if I feel self-conscious about that I just have to remember I'm not the only one.

Just an average day at Ave.

To be honest, and this shouldn't surprise you, I've had this blog post open for about two weeks now, thinking I'd finish every single night before going to bed. Well, by the end of the day I can muster up just about enough energy to walk upstairs to the chapel, get a little night-cap with Jesus, and then head to bed. To be honest, I'm writing to you on a day when most missionaries are not on social media, seeing as this weekend is retreat weekend for us. This year there were three different options to choose from (because there's so many of us!!), and right when I decided which one I would choose, Fr. Kevin Dyer, one of the Jesuits that led our 8-day silent retreat last year, asked me if I'd be willing to help spiritually direct the missionaries making one of the silent retreats.

.....insert awkward response by Kelsey here.....

I decided to offer it to the Lord and that if He needed me I'd be more than happy to help. There are three other missionaries helping out, and the reason is because we were all on the 8-day Ignatian Silent retreat last year, and this retreat is a modified version of it. Essentially, we have a semi-recent experience with the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius so we can help the newbies with their potentially first encounter with the Exercises.

Perhaps now that I've finally finished my first "NST update" I'll give you a few more before my time here is over. Let me just conclude with a few thoughts:
1) Please keep myself and the other missionaries in your prayers, especially this weekend with the retreats!
2) I love being a missionary, and I also love being here at Ave Maria, FL.
3) Only 18 days until I board an airplane for the Camino de Santiago!!

Orlando and back... on bus!

Sarah, Katie, me, Nikki, Mary, Lisa and Cari

That's right. We made it from Fargo to Orlando in one piece, both there and back! The 36 hour bus rides flew by and I'm still amazed at the good spirits the students had at the very tail end of the long trip home. The bus I was on had WiFi, outlets (helloooo fully charged phone!), two tables and fairly decent TV's to watch movies. Basically, we were living first world luxuries all the way there and back but I have a feeling that even if we weren't our students still would have enjoyed themselves.

We ended up arriving in Orlando eight hours earlier than we had originally planned, but huge shout-out to the events staff and the hotel workers who got up at the crack of dawn to make sure that our students' rooms were ready for them and to check us in. Cari, Bryan and I were completely amazed at how well-orchestrated our arrival was, and quite honestly, I'm still floored. Those people at the Swan and Dolphin certainly know how to accommodate large groups of people!

There's no better way to do this, so I'll just give you my own play-by-play of my own conference experience, and see if I can throw some others in along the way.

NDSU Students being super hospitable.

Cheering on the Bison from Orlando!

As mentioned, we arrived super early and because the FOCUS events staff worked so hard to get us checked in and to our rooms much earlier than expected, Mario Martinez, the missionary in charge of hospitality for the weekend, asked if we could get 20-30 students to help out with hospitality on one of the days. This mainly consisted of wearing their matching t-shirts and ushering people in and out of talks, to the lunch line, etc. To be quite honest, I think it'd be pretty difficult to mess it up, but apparently some students managed just that. Our day for hospitality wasn't until the second to last day, Saturday, but halfway through the day the events team and hospitality crew were singing NDSU's praises because our students were doing such an amazing job. Man, these North Dakotans know how to work hard! And with a smile; all the students I saw working flashed me a huge smile and I could tell they were genuinely happy to be helping out. Because of this Mario let us in early for the Matt Maher concert on Saturday night, which was pretty sweet. Not only did they go above and beyond in hospitality, the Bison football team also pulled out another National Championship that day! What a good day for NDSU all around!

Look at all them bisonCatholic students!

As you may remember, the day we actually left for FL I was pretty sick, and sadly, I wasn't the only one. Bryan and TJ were also coming down with colds, along with nearly 50 percent of our students. Man, the 2013 plague has struck! Everybody and their sister was sick on the bus down, and you can double that number for the way back. There was no way that you were getting on that bus completely healthy and leaving without some sort of illness. Having a cold did make sleeping on the way down pretty easy. I helped myself to a few servings of Equate's version of Nyquil and conked out for quite a while. Getting into Orlando and just being out in the sunshine the very first day we got there helped a lot, and Cari and I made a point to take one (or more..) naps on the beach throughout the conference. One of my absolute favorite summertime activities is napping in mom's lawn chair in the backyard, but even better to do that by the water and on a white sand beach! Bring it on! We were then fortunate enough to celebrate Mass the first day, and that was just a little foretaste of the Masses to come.

Without contest my favorite part of all conference was celebrating the Eucharist with 6200 college students, at least one or more bishops, 125 priests and 350 FOCUS missionaries. I mean, WHAT! Yesterday was the gospel where Jesus multiplies the loaves and the fishes for only 5,000 people, can you imagine adding another 1500 to that!? Conceptualizing that many people under one roof is difficult, but boy what a blessing it was to celebrate the pinnacle of our faith with so many other beautiful souls. Archbishop Aquila, who used to be in the Fargo diocese and is now in Denver, was there for a few days and merely seeing him was a huge grace in my life. He cares so deeply for young people and his passion for our deeper conversions shone through in his homily.

L'Angelus Band

The music was also rock solid the entire conference. L'Angelus, an awesome homegrown group that visits us annually at NST to entertain us missionaries for an evening, played before every session at Seek and I think every student fell in love with them while they were there. They totally spoiled us and I'm completely okay with it. Not only that, but the worship leaders were also super solid and had the voices of angels. AND on top of that, Matt Maher (pronounced MA-her) himself came and gave us a concert on Saturday night! It was a definite highlight of the conference for me because I was able to just be there with Jenne and really soak in the worship music, pray and not worry about the taking care of the students at that moment....not to sound selfish. But I guess we all are a little selfish sometimes, right?

Another aspect of the conference that was totally great was the technology. Because there were so many people it was too difficult to have the Keynote speakers each night all in one room, so they

Chris Stefanick in his tiger shirt, with NDSU students

had two huge ballrooms filled with people, and then the speaker him/herself would just come out in one of the rooms. There was a sweet technology that they used especially during the men's and women's sessions so that we could see the screens from the other room and they could see ours and the speakers in each of the rooms could communicate. It was totally awesome and there was no delay or technical glitches! I was so amazed. Speaking of speakers, the emcee for the weekend, Chris Stefanick was the perfect transition between speakers who added his own dynamic flare and what I thought was quite hilarious sense of humor. He randomly brought his six kids on stage one night, that was pretty cute and definitely won all the ladies in the room over. He was just really great.

I could give you all the highlights of each of the speakers' main talks, but I'll spare you that. I will say that this conference really lit a fire under me to strive for sainthood. The very last day Curtis Martin gave his sendoff pump-up speech, as he usually does, and he focused a lot on being a saint in the world today. "Becoming a saint isn't just a possibility," Martin stated, "it's likely. Because that is what we were made for. We were made for union with God." Boom. I sometimes get so caught up in the St. Therese of Lisieux's or Blessed JPII's that I forget that I, Kelsey Kaufman, am made to be a saint. It will just take work--making the joyful sacrifice to choose God in every moment, and not just sometimes. It takes more than going to church on Sunday to get into Heaven. It takes a conscious, daily decision to put God first always. So that's exactly what I want to do. Last semester I'll be honest, I went through the motions and did nothing to really reach in true and vivid spiritual growth. This semester I'm ready to start anew, and Jesus waits for me. He waits for me each day to give him my own "good morning" and offer my day to Him. This conference reminded me that that is what I desire, I've just let that get lost in the shuffle of my faith being my job.

(Almost) the entire group at conference! Sportin' those bisonCatholic tees. Nice.

Needless to say, it's great to be back on campus officially. Bryan gave us yesterday and Tuesday to rest and recoup but now we're back in action! BisonCatholic week is coming up right around the corner and it's really exciting to see how well things are coming together for it! Please keep us in your prayers as we prepare for such an impacting week for our students, especially the students that went to Seek and are now trying to figure out how to implement what they learned into their everyday lives.

Did I get hit by a bus? Or will I be boarding one?

Today is the long-awaited day: the day we bisonCatholics hop on a bus and ride it for 40 hours. I don't think it has actually hit me yet because as of yesterday morning I woke up with a bruiser of a cold. I was sick before Christmas but that pales in comparison to how I feel today with the sniffles, sneezing, phlegm-filled coughing...yuck. I feel for all the people who will be on the bus with me and I will definitely do everything in my power to keep my germs to myself. I packed every type of cold medicine I could find lying around, Vicks VapoRub and plenty of cough drops--luckily mom stocked me up years past and I still have the supplies. In consideration of my comrades on the bus, I also toted along a big thing of hand sanitizer and a bag to put my tissues in after I blow my nose over and over and over again... Poor Josie..she's so excited to be my bus buddy. Little does she know that I packed plenty of Tylenol PM, NyQuil and other cold medicines that I hope knock me right out.

2011. Badgers vs. TCU at Pasadena.

I mean, I understand that I'm bound to get sick every now and then, but honestly--I have been completely fine all last semester, and that includes my crazy busy schedule, my hectic running to-and-fro and my lack of sleep. Never once was I struck with a cold then, but rather, now when I should be in good health and excitement for our Seek 2013 conference! Perhaps this is news to some of you:  January 2-6 is FOCUS' national conference in Orlando, FL and it only happens once every three years. There will be more than 6,000 college students along with the 300+ missionaries present and the whole goal is to grow in a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ and hopefully encourage first-timers to get a fire lit under them to share Him with others.

Something that I've learned about myself recently is that large crowds and groups of people can really overwhelm me, and I tend to feel paralyzed as if I don't know what to do or with whom I should talk. However, this will definitely be a reunion for us missionaries! Many of us have not seen our focus friends since June and we are looking forward to seeing our pals once again! The conference is only a few days long and we will all have jobs and students to take care of, but I know it will be good to see the friends that I have missed for the last six months.

Badger fans outnumbered TCU's fans.

For any of you Badger fans out there, yes I will be missing the Rose Bowl; but I hope to follow along on Twitter for the updates. I'm very excited to see what Coach Alvarez will do with our Badgers in Pasadena tomorrow! I can't believe just a few years ago I was there watching them face TCU with my dear friend, Irma.

Other than that, I have not a whole lot to report, at least not for now. The end of my break at home was wonderful, and on the last day mom, dad and Kevin all trekked out to go see the Hobbit (basically to appease me) to celebrate Kevin and I's birthdays a little early. If any of you are wondering, The Hobbit was totally wicked and I loved it. Even JR said that it didn't feel like a three hour movie. Time flies as you're flying along with Bilbo Baggins and the rest of the dwarfs on their adventure! Please pray for our safe travels to Seek--we leave tonight at 7:30 pm and plan on arriving on Wednesday at 11:30 am. I couldn't think of a better way to ring in the new year than spending it on a bus (sarcasm...sorry)--but seriously, this will be a rock solid conference and I'm excited for what I personally will experience there! And now I should be off, maybe take another nap before meeting up with the team. Bryan was nice and gave me the morning off to try my hand at recovering--so far no luck, but who knows what will come!

Also, as a final thought: I would like to point out that currently the temperature in Fargo is -4. Meanwhile in Orlando, it is 73 and will only get warmer by Wednesday. I think a little sunshine will cure this cold in no time.