Higher Things - Day 5

Today is travel home day. Breakfast, then off to the airport. It's been a good week. Busy, very busy! But good. The staff who put on these conferences is amazing. There is so much that goes on behind the scenes that no one knows about - they just come and have a good time. 

One things that struck me this week was the prayer requests I received. Parents whose 8 year old son died suddenly. A woman who lost both her husband and son on the sam day! A boy who fell in a hiking accident and had to have 6 vertebrae fused. A boy with brain cancer that has doctors stumped. I don't think any of these were at the conference - but were known by people here. Yikes! What a broken, messed up world we live in. A good reminder how much people need to hear the Gospel!

I don't know if I'll ever get asked to be chaplain again, but I think I would if asked. But I think I would do it differently. I would attend one conference with my youth so I could spend more time with them, and then chaplain a different conference. For I wish I could have spent more time this week with my youth. They're good, trustworthy, and independent. I saw them around a lot. And did get to spend time with my daughter. But more would have been nice, too.

As far as how I did as chaplain, I'll let others decide that. I only flubbed a few times! My main confusion for the week was with the Sacrament at the Divine Services. At the first, we had waaaaay too much left at the end. At the second, we almost ran out of wine - even after I consecrated more! (And we didn't have any more in standby!) I think the pastors who distributed at the opening service gave sips from the chalice, while the pastors who distributed at the closing service gave gulps. But how do you know how that will be beforehand? I hate consecrating waaaay too much, but that's better than running out, right?

Finally, we had dinner and relaxation/decompression time last night. That was nice. One thing that happened was that one of our deaclets liked catching frogs around the campus, so she did and brought it in to show us. Then it got away from her, hopped onto the floor, and right under someone's chair that . . . well, yeah. RIP Mr. Frog.

Deaclet Anika before . . .

. . . and after!

(In the background are two of the HT Executives, Crysten Sanchez and Harrison Goodman. I also got to worked with Crysten a little synodically and she is on the Board for National Mission and we worked together on a joint subcommittee.)