I've decided to split up the retreat post into four parts, one for each day, because... I just don't seem to have THAT much time on my hands.

12/26, Sunday - I woke up later than I had anticipated, but I managed to arrive at church before noon (missed the prayer session). Many of the retreat-goers were already there, but most of the leaders left first in their individual rides so they could arrive early to set up the decorations or what not, while the remainder of the crew waited for the school bus (if only it was a charter bus D:).

I ate a few cookies and chatted with a few people before the kids were out of class and crawling all over me. Caleb (a kid I knew for several years now) likes playing "Bob's Journey to the Center of the Earth," a game on my phone, so he came up to me today, searching my pockets. It came to me as a surprise when he didn't find my phone when searching or notice the huge rectangular lump in my right pocket. He just hung around asking everyone, "Where's Jeffery!? That's not Jeffrey, he doesn't go to **** High School (my sweatshirt...)!" Joseph, a friend from church, would point at me, but Caleb would purposely look at the door or the window and say, "That's not Jeffrey! That's a door/window!" Such a bossy, cute kid :).

Well, once the adults were done with their Sunday service, I went to find my mom and headed home to pick up a few things I had forgotten, getting boba on the way back ;). I went back to gather several spare batteries before heading back to church when the bus had finally arrived. I took my boba, my huge luggage (that I didn't even need), and my sleeping bag with me, packed it into the bus's cargo storage, and sat inside next to Nathan.

The ride was long and tedious and I spent the majority of the time sleeping and sleeping with my mouth open (embarrassing) until we reached the base of the mountain we were about to drive up. As we got closer and closer to the peak, the air that passed through the bus's windows grew colder and colder. Luckily, Faith, Josh's sister, had asked me to hold her pink blanket, so I used it to keep me warm for the remainder of the ride until we reached the snow-covered Christian camp grounds.

First time seeing a patch of snow! I was completely awestruck and excited to enjoy the cold and snow-covered camp for the next few days. I had started thinking about what I could do with the snow! Fun fun! Well, it was dark by the time we got there, but I could still make out the beautiful snow that extends as far as... the light will let me.

Everyone unloaded their belongings off the bus and headed to Oak Lodge, where we'll be at the majority of the time, and dropped off our stuff. Shortly after, we headed to the Dining Hall where we'll be having lasagna for dinner, both vegetarian and beefy :). Kathy, Nathan, Faith, Aaron, and I walked around after dinner towards the boy's dorms (that weren't assigned just yet), but I ditched them halfway there and headed back to the lodge to gather my stuff and put it into the cabins, where I'll be sleeping. Not too long after I leave the cabin, I hear, "You ditched us!" or "Faggot." Yeah, I ditched them :), but I got settled in earlier than them, so I was okay with leaving them. LOL!

Time for the night session. We started off with worship, some announcements, raffling for Secret Angel, which I'll explain in a bit, and Ming starting off the retreat talking about "Half-heartedness." He talks about the disappointment of God when he sees people praying because they feel like they HAVE to, not because they WANT to. That's considered being half-hearted. I don't want to expand, but he caught the audience's attention and sent out the message thoroughly with the use of some comedy and some emotion :).

Note: Half-heartedness is the first point of our "You Down?" theme of the retreat.

After the little speech/sermon, we split into small groups (I was with Jordan's group, consisting of Matthew, Joseph, Jeremy, Josh, Allen, and me). We started off discussing where we stand now (whole-hearted? or half-hearted?) and what we could do to be whole-hearted towards God. I can't say it was a very deep and progressive discussion, but it does help a bit... for Jordan because once Jordan begins to explain his experience of "half-heartedness" at his job, we all start talking to him about it, giving him tips and such and such. Ironic that the group members were helping the leader more than the leader helping us :P.

Back to Secret Angel. The point of this is like Secret Santa (explained in a previous post) and you don't want people to know who has you. Instead of giving gifts, we do things in secret for this particular person. I got Jason and because I don't know him all too well, it made things harder to do, but I managed to do a little by giving him a cup of tea and telling him what a great speech he did (Monday night, not Sunday). Too bad I couldn't give any more than that :(. I'll expand more about Secret Angel later on :).

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Well, its the second day of school for this year and I already skipped a class! I don't think I will be again, but I'll do my best to attend every class this quarter :). After seeing my BBBA grades, I feel the need to "step up my game" and do better! Anyway, I got out of bed around 10:15am, prepared myself, and got to my physics class (a little late because I couldn't find the room). And for the last fourty minutes of class, we'd be spending it taking a pretest to measure our knowledge on physics, but luckily, the test will be worth 100% no matter how many you get wrong.

After the test, we had like half an hour before Psych, so Heidi, Pola, and I (all were in the same class) headed to a cafe right next to our next class, hung out with Mish for a bit, and headed there together. I thought it was a funny, yet boring introduction to the class, so I decided to sleep until the last 20 minutes hit and I just decided to browse on my phone and talk with Mish. O yes! Heidi forgot her phone at the cafe too! So I volunteered to leave the class and check for her. AREN'T I NICE HEIDUS? LOL!

-Jeffjeff