Fall Conference!!

As promised, here is an update from our annual Fall Discipleship Conference.

The location was Big Bear and it was heavenly! I LOVE that smoky, mountain smell and as soon as you exit your car in the mountains you can smell it!! Such a nice change from the icky, smoggy air :) The speaker was Dudley Callison, who also spoke at my freshmen Fall Conference, the one that changed my life, literally! It wasn't really anything he said, although I do still remember the constant question he would ask us, "to what end?" As in, "Ok, you're studying hard right now so you can get good grades. To what end? To get a good job. To what end? To make money. To what end? So that I can pay for my apt/house. To what end? So I can be rested and go to work. To what end? So that I can make money to buy clothes. To what end? So that I can wear those clothes to work. To what end? To what end? To what end???" So that we could really figure out what/who we were living for.

But the reason that specific fall conference changed my life is that the weeks leading up to it, both my Bible study leaders had told me a couple ways I could get to know Jesus Christ personally and I had always brushed them off, mostly because they required effort on my part and I wasn't ready for that. One of those ways they told me about was having a daily time with God, (Quiet Time, Time With God, whatever phrase you use :) reading His Word and journaling about what I find. So that conference weekend rolls around and low and behold, the girls I was rooming with all did their Quiet Times!! That was the thing that threw me. These girls actually *walked the walk*!! I had talked the talk my whole life, but these people actually did those things they told me to do! That was the biggest thing. So that Monday after the conference, I got out my Bible and journal, told God that I while I had always believed in Him I was finally going to commit myself to Him and let Him have the driver's seat to my life now, and then it felt like a new beginning to my life!! Such awesome times, God is so awesome I can't stand it sometimes, like woah.

But I digress, this is supposed to be about Fall Conference 2010, not 2002! So Dudley was our speaker and the theme was Lifestyle Discipleship and it was really great to re-align my perspective and get energy and motivated for the 2nd half of the semester!!

Here are some photos of the event:


ahhhhhhhhhhh, Big Bear, how I love thy clean air!!


Brittany, Josephine (my co-leader), myself and Christina :)


I think these girls were having a good time, don't you? :)


Me with Sydney and Jessyka, and we all found out we love the show "Arrested Development" and plan on having an "AD" party soon!


Went hiking and rock climbing - ohb yeah!!


USC Christian Challenge staff 2010-2011!! Aren't we a good-looking bunch? :P

There was also a bonfire with s'mores which was delicious, and extremely sugar-y, I was only able to have one!! The funny thing is that even though it was only last weekend, it feels like *forever* ago!! Goodness....

It was amazing though, more updates to come later so stay tuned :)



In honor of Halloween coming up and just the fact that I love espn commercials, here is the funny of the day!!

Catch-up

So it's been about a month since I last posted and I'm sorry, I'm going to try to be better at this! Still not used to the whole blogging thing, but I promise I'll get a handle on it :)

Well, many things to go through then! One of them was a very good friend of mine from my college days came out to visit for a couple weeks and it was great to see her again!! We were in my sorority and Christian Challenge together and she just finished law school in Hawaii and took a much-needed break from studying :) I took her on a tour of USC because even though it's only been three years since she was on campus, it's changed a lot! New campus center (thank you Ronald Tutor for donating a bazillion dollars for it!) and new cinema school, and she had never been in Heritage Hall!!! Only where we show off all our athletic trophies! So we made a pit stop there too :)


This is Amy with her favorite bike of all time, the Paul Frank giraffe bike :)

Then we also went by the bookstore and she got a few things because what is a trip to USC without going to the bookstore and checking out all the latest in Trojan fashion??


This was taken post-purchase...and yes we're pseudo-matching with the plaid and no, we didn't mean to!

And of the two times she came to USC to visit, we went to Chick Fil A both times!! Such yummy food :) and as is our custom, we both got the kid's meals :)


I love their chicken nuggets - it's the only thing I've gotten from them!!

We also went to Disneyland and had oodles of fun during Halloween-time!!


in front of Sleeping Beauty's castle...


in front of the HUGE Mickey pumpkin!!


Amy and I fighting on during the Tower of Terror ride, which we rode twice in a row because no line!! Gotta love Disneyland on a dreary day :)

We also watched the USC-Stanford game at one of the staffer's houses (thanks Jeremy and Katy!) and that's all I can really say about that. After the depressing game Amy, myself and another friend of ours Jessa all went to Yogurtland to drown our sorrows in fro yo...


At least I was surrounded by good company right??

Thus begins the first half of the update - the rest will come tomorrow about our annual Fall Discipleship Conference!!