Hey everyone! Hope your guys’ New Year Day was a fun, awesome, (un)memorable one. 😉
It’s been awhile since I’ve done one of these posts (I feel like I’m saying this with each What’s Up), but life’s been good. Winter break has been treating me very nicely, I’m getting some much needed rest, and I haven’t had a boring day yet.
I’ll just cover what went down the past week.
Last Sunday to Tuesday, I attended my church’s annual winter retreat. This year’s winter retreat was a bit special, because it was gospel-oriented, so we could invite friends to attend as well.
The camp we stayed at was called Forest Home, about an hour and a half east of LA at the base of the mountains. It was cold, but the scenery was beautiful.
There was a message series in the mornings and evenings, and we were fortunate to have Elton Chu as our guest speaker. He was articulate, passionate, and funny at the same time – I really liked how he used ridiculous (and humorous) examples to illustrate points that he wanted you to remember.
Most of the concepts he talked about I had learned growing up in the church. But it was definitely all a very good review of the fundamentals of being a Christian, particularly the point that being a Christian is less a religion and more a relationship. Perhaps I’ll go into more detail in a future post – we’ll see.
Apart from the messages, we had free time, which was a good opportunity to meet new people. Attendees could rock climb, walk through a ropes course, cross a suspension bridge, or even fish. Of course, I spent the time playing basketball, which was fun, AND I got to talk to some of the guest attendees.
Overall, I had a blast those three days, and I felt convicted to start off the New Year on the right foot – by improving in my walk with Jesus.
Also, a quick shout-out to Jay, Darren, and Daniel: nice meeting you guys, and welcome to the family.
After I got back from camp, I spent a day hanging out with Michael, George, and Alan. The next day, I drove Michael back to the airport – he was going back to Arkansas for school.
On Friday, I spent half the day at church to hang out with youth group. We had an epic Nerf war in the meeting hall, played basketball, and talked to the new people from winter retreat. Later that night, there was a New Year’s Eve potluck, and we had sharing on what we had learned/experienced at retreat (one of the FUNNIEST sessions thus far).
New Year’s Day was super chill. My buddy Xavier came over, and my dad had us move some stuff from the backyard. I had dinner with the family – Garden Cafe again, for the win. Finally put my gaming laptop to good use by playing Team Fortress 2 for the first time in a year with Alan and George. I had forgotten how fun of a game it was.
So that was my week. George is heading back to UCLA tonight, and I still have almost two weeks before going back to Berkeley. Typically, things get slow around this part of break, but I plan on hanging out with some Cal friends – there are quite a few coming down to visit from NorCal, too.
Looking forward to a fun and relaxing second half of break. Good luck, quarter system students. 😀
I love semesters at randomtidbitsofthought.wordpress.com.
