SURFING!!

Hey y'all. Like my new accent?

Well that has nothing to do with what happened in my adventure this week. After getting off the Pacific Grace, it was thanksgiving weekend! It felt weird not being home this time. I have to admit that I missed Ontario for thanksgiving. The whole family was home, but I did get to skype them :). Fall in BC is also very different than in Ontario. It's still green here and the leaves havent changed as much. But there is still ocean and mountains here so BC wins. Thanksgiving was really empty. Only six of us stayed behind, accompanied by our lovely interns. We went thrift shopping but I didn't find anything special to purchase so that was a downer. Well we did go to a nice restaurant so that made up for the thrift store upset. So yeah, thanksgiving was really different this year, a good different. The family here is starting to come together quite nicely now. So even though my immediate family is miles away, my family here is becoming very tight. We even got to enjoy a turkey dinner with the staff :)

The next couple of days we went on yet another adventure. This time we got to try our 'skills' (you know like computer haking skills, bow hunting skills...) at surfing. I didn't know what to expect at all. I just thought oh it will be easy, but it wasn't. We went during the cold water classic which was pretty sweet. There were pro surfers, surfing it up, and were making it look easy. We camped out in tofino which was pretty legit. Yeah we did camp out during the hiking trip, but this was a little better because we were allowed to have campfires. Now on to surfing. We got to enjoy a beautiful sunny day for surfing. We put our wetsuits and got our boards and we were ready to go. The waves were nice but because there was so many of us it was pretty cramped. I went on my stomach a couple times and was having a hard time with it. By the end of the day i could "surf" on my knees and stood up for like a second! YAY. After surfing it was just a time of relaxing around the fire. During our devotional, Jim told us that by letting people share a story we can better relate to that person. So Michael gave it a shot for the first time. It was sweet because we were able to know Michael better and it gave us a chance to encourage him.

The second day of surfing was a lot funner than the second. Although the waves were not as good, I was able to stand up on my board! It was such an awesome accomplishment. My goal was to stand up on the board and I was finally able to do it. Surfing was a workout tho. I was so tired and sore by the end of the day. It was a good tired though. Lately I've been feeling very tired, so it was a good time just to enjoy God's creation and just do something I've never done before. I also got to see three awesome people in Tofino. Those being the two awesome livingstones, Melissa and Kari, and the other was the BIRD. :) I love seeing people from the summer because it is so awesome to know what there up to. The staff were so amazing this summer so it was refreshing to see them.

During the weekend I got the chance to serve at the women's retreat. I was helping out in a lot of areas, maintenance, dishpit, and the good ol challenge course! woot woot. It was really good to help out. I have to admit I did have a negative attitude going into it, but what Jay told us really stuck with me. It was a mission trip, just one that was in my backyard. It was pretty sweet because I got to work with year round staff and build relationships with them. I didnt get to make it to church this weekend which was kind of a bummer, and I didnt get to help out with Kidstown but it was okay because i was helping out with the ministry of Qwanoes.

Welp, this week we've got Sid Koop here to teach us about camp ministry. So until then, latter days.

ps. Raisins ruin everything!

pps. Wool socks are probably the best thing I brought to Kaleo!