In CO

Hola!

I'm sorry that I haven't blogged in forever (I am really going to start blogging consistently). I hope that you all have been well. A lot has gone on since I last blogged. I can tell you for sure that God has been doing some awesome things!
Since I last blogged I have moved back to Minnesota since I subleased my apartment since I am planning on leaving for El Salvador at the end of June or the beginning of July. That has for sure been an adjustment in the fact that I haven't lived at home for almost four years, but it will be a good readjustment for moving to ES and living with a family. My initial support raising is almost finish, which I praise God for! I am still praying for the rest of my support to come in soon so I ask you to be praying for that. Finally, I got into an earlier training that I needed so that was a huge blessing, the training is called SPLICE which I am at currently in Palmer Lake, CO and so far it has been good and God has been really moving in my heart by convicting and encouraging me in so many things.

SPLICE (which stands for spiritual, personal ,lifestyles, interpersonal, cultural and endurance/enjoyment) has been great, we have an amazing group of people here of 43 adults and we are going to 23 different countries. It has been amazing to meet new people and I do have to say that all the families here with kids have the cutest kids :) One of the big things that has been stressed is being one big community so this has been awesome because more and more everyday we are becoming like family here. There are so many stories of awesome and funny things that have happened here but I will just share a few.

One thing that we learned about was about the "yay duck" and the "yuck duck" it is a paradox analogy. When we talked about this it really struck me because the basis of it's meaning is that you can be really excited and really fearful about the same situation, especially in the realm of going overseas. For me this is so true, I am so beyond excited to go to ES but at the same time I have fears or concerns of giving up certain things so it has been really refreshing and encouraging to be able to see that it is alright to be both excited and concerned at the same time. Also along those lines we have been talking about the perception of missionaries and how they should be "perfect" and how it seems that a lot of the time we as missionaries feel that we need to be perfect all the time and not show the weak side of ourselves because we have that label as a missionary. It has just been really encouraging to be able to talk and discuss this with people who know exactly what your going through and such.

Another fun thing that I have done here since coming to SPLICE at MTI has been since we are in Colorado right at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, has been to go hiking, running, etc in the mountains and on the trails as a time to not only exercise but also just to marvel in God beautiful creation. So the other day Ashley( who is going to Honduras) and I set out on the Santa Fe trail towards Palmer Lake. We had only planned on hiking the two miles from MTI to Palmer Lake and then chill at the lake for the morning, however that is not what exactly occurred. Those of you who know me well know that I have to explore/be adventurous. So as we got to the lake we saw this other trail that kind of lead up this hill and into a different direction so we decided to follow it and it then lead us to another trail that would take us a lot farther and up in some elevation, so we pressed on. I was great fun except for the part where I map was labeled backwards, but before we know it we had hiked a ton and realized that we should probably head back. As we headed back we realized that we hadn't been drinking enough water and my hands swelled up like "pregnant lady finger" so we kept pushing on and finally made it back to MTI, but completely exhausted and worn out. We had hiked over 15miles in 3.5 hours and up in elevation and it was actually a lot of fun and we got to see some views of God's amazing creation. Here are some of those amazing views like Mount Herman, Palmer Lake, other mountains on our trail and the view of Pikes Peak from our trail: