Life Teen

Dear Avid readers,

As much as i love blog spot, as a Life Teen missionary, we get to blog as one family together on a special page just for us.
From now on please visit that website to see my new blogs
and please take a few minutes extra to catch up on what my brothers and sisters are doing as well.

The web site is www.lifeteen.com/missions

One day soon the web staff at life teen said they would put a link up directly from the Life Teen page, but until then you have to add the back slash and missions!

I love you all and i hope to see you on the life teen page!!!!

I Love Your Laugh

Wow what a crazy week of Formation!!!! So this week we were split into two teams. The first team planned a retreat and put on a retreat this week, and the second team will be doing retreat this upcoming week. I'm on the second team so we did some local outreach this week, we fixed a roof at Ms. Ruby's house, she was so sweet!!!! We even planted flowers for her! Then we did some meals on wheels, and we got lost about 5 times, but we delivered all our meals and we made a bunch of people happy. We were prayer warriors for the retreat team on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. My dad came up yesterday to visit me and to spend some time away from home. all the community members love him...it's such a joy to have him here.

Formation class this week has been fun....God is planning on lots of healing within this year. Which is something i need I've put a lot of fears and brokenness from the past into little boxes which i locked and hid. God is already breaking off locks like crazy. It's a little scary to think about pulling out all my past fears, but i know great things will come from it if i do!

Any who i just wanted to give y'all a little update on whats been happening here. It's been crazy and we just had a group pull up, so we have to go open our doors for them!!!!

I'll update more when i can...life at Covecrest is Insane!!!!

Let Me Explain Myself

Okay so here's the deal a few people have been asking what it is exactly I'm doing. So I'll tell you!!!!

I don't know!!!! ha ha no seriously We don't really know.

At the end of the day this mission program is of God and for God, our main objective is striving for holiness and trying to take as many people we can with us to Heaven. Beside that main goal that rest of it is in God's hands. We spend a lot of time in prayer. Praying for where God wants us to go and where he wants our work to be.

So how about a tipical day at Covecrest? well there is no tipical day it changes everyday but i'll try andgive you a good break down.

6:30a.m.- Wake up (yes i get up at 6:30 every morning!)
7:15a.m.- Morning Holy Hour in the Chapel
8:15a.m.- Morning prayer in the Chapel
9:00a.m.- Breakfast with the community (all the other missionaries and the staff of Covecrest)
9:45a.m.- Morning Formation (classes on prayer and Life Teen history and all sorts of stuff!)
12:00p.m.- Angelus
12:10p.m.- Lunch
From here we are either preparing for groups to come doing our personal work, or hanging out with the groups that are already here.
5:30p.m.- Evening Prayer in the Chapel
6:15p.m.- Dinner
Durring the week our nights are spent getting to know our new family. On weekends we are entertaining groups or in adoration.
9:30p.m.- Night prayer in our houses
10:30p.m.- Pam and Jordan tell Maria and I for the final time we have to go to bed and we finaly turn off the lights


So days change from day to day and our life will completly alter when we get out to Arizona. So i guess i will have to give you another update on our daily life once i get out there and we figure out what our daily routine is!!!!

With that. Jon is trying to play the djmbee and Miller is rocking out on the guitar. So we are breaking it down in song!!!!
I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and I'll be praying for you!

Love and Prayers,
Carrie

Learning to Pray

What a beautiful Tuesday!!!!

I'm siting in our office jamming with Miller and Kristin to You'll Come.
It's not raining today (so no need for the rain boots) and it is bright and sunny!!!!!

For the past few days we have been diving into learning how pray! It's odd because i didn't think of learning how to pray in a "classroom" setting yet I sit here ever morning amazed by God and all the wonderful things he is teaching me! Discernment is today's topic and through it we get to study the lives of different saints, so just in general the things that I am being taught and the things I am learning are just so amazing and incredible exciting. I've always been lead in blind faith and for the first time i am able to grasp some of the concepts of my faith and i'm falling more in love with being Catholic and falling even deeper in love with God through it all.

The Workout Craze Sweeping The LifeTeen Nation!

Hey hey hey!
it's Sunday and we finally have our first day off. Which is strange because the idea is "a day off of community" but thats like taking a day of family since i live with these people and they are just like family. Plus i'm sitting in our office surrounded by at least half of the community. So i guess our day off means we can go to Wall-mart and we don't have stuff we have to do.

So let me tell you it is raining like crazy!!!!! it has rained everyday since we got here and most days it has rained all day. The 10 day forecast is calling for more rain everyday!!!! So i'm going to buy my rain boots which i tried to convince my dad to buy me before i left and he didn't!

So let me explain the title of this blog, yesterday we did work camp projects. I was in a group with 5 guys! That was fun, especially since it was the first chance i got to spend sometime with he boys! So our work camp project was to move a bunch of heavy stuff (which i did! I helped a bunch!) and to set up the missionary gym. The boys made me bench press the bar before they would leave so we could move onto other projects. So any who the idea for the missionary gym was because us mesa girls want to start doing the P90X program.

so starting tomorrow we will work our butts off with each other and build the community it another way!

Your Last Name Is Now Life Teen

In the few days i have been at Covecrest i have learned a lot about myself and the things that need to change in my life. I won't go into great detail because it's long and complicated and a little personal but i know that i have many walls to break down for me to be able to get to God and let him love me like he wants to. I have had a lot of time to think about lots of random things and there is one thing that has randomly been on my mind that i would like to share with you today.

OK so i don't know how many of you like to read. But if you do i recommend a series called Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. They are defiantly children's books and i can make it though one in a day but i love fantasy books and just the idea of books taking you into a different world.
Well in Percy Jackson's world he is the son of the sea god poseidon. Yes, i know what your thinking, Carrie your sposta be Catholic here where are you going with this? Well i will tell you! Let me stat by saying i read these book purely for entertainment value and i don't believe in any of that (obviously I'm Catholic) but i have this awesome way to tie reality into fantasy....just for the fun of it. (like i said we have a lot of time to think)


So in this book, Percy goes to a summer camp for kids who have gods who are parents, and they call themselves demigods. This camp has a magical border to keep all the bad things and evil things of hades out. So here's were the fun of my thinking process comes in. I was thinking Covecrest is kinda like this camp Percy goes to. But instead of keeping out "hades" we are kinda like a safe haven from the devil. It's like he is way to afraid to attack us here. We have these almost "magical" boundaries keeping him out and getting us closer to God, i think that is completely awesome!!!! I'm not saying we are completely cut off from sin, i know i sin everyday even though I'm living here, but i haven't been sinning as much and it's just been a little easier to remain close to Christ while I've been here, i mean we do spend most of our day praising the Lord!!!

So any who that was my great revelation today.

Day 3 Cont.

Ok so i was reading my earlier post and i realized it kinda stinks! but i was trying to write and i was almost running late for prayer and some of my fellow missionaries were trying to talk to me. So any who i want to give a better update on what is happening.

Monday i arrived at the Atlanta airport with sara and nick (the 2others from the st. pete area!) and we met up with a whole group of the missionaries. we packed 12 people and 12 peoples luggage for a year into a 15 passanger van (that was loads of fun!) We arrived at Covecrest in time for dinner and some prayer. We got settled into our houses and we stayed up late to get to know eachother!

Tuesday we got up at 7:15 for our first holy hour, morning prayer and mass! Us ladies left for a lake house for an overnight girls retreat (we left to boys to do camp work!) we got to go really deep in prayer and we opened up about a ton of girly stuff, and let me tell you I LOVE my new sisters!!!!
The girls i'm going to Mesa with are wonderful and we all get along together very well! Plus the Germany girls and the Covecrest girls are amazing as well and we have all already talked about what will happen when we are done with formation.

Wednesday We finished our Woman's retreat and came home for dinner and night prayer. Tomorrow the Men are leaving for a hiking trip and us ladiesare gonna run the camp!!!!

So i just wanted to let everyone know just how much all the prayers have helped so far. I'm sure this trip is going to be truly blessed and already has been by the Lord. The Holy Spirit is moving in so many ways already in all of our lives