Focus "NST"

A group of women from my NST college prepared to go to the Etiquette Dinner.
(I am the second to the left)

"NST," or New Staff Training, is a five-week long summer training session for all first- and second-year missionaries. The forth week just finished, and so far it has been pretty intense! Training takes place on the campus of the University of Illinois-Urbana/Champaign at the St. John's Catholic Newman Center. The Newman Center is right in the middle of campus, and has a chapel, cafeteria and dorm rooms all in one building. We are lucky to have a number of priests with us, so we attend mass every day, and pray for an hour in Eucharistic Adoration.

Monday through Friday we attend about five hours of classes, with a long lunch break. So far we've had excellent speakers come in to teach on apologetics (why the Church teaches what she teaches), Salvation History (the story contained within the Old Testament that points to the coming of Jesus Christ), Catholic worldview (how to understand the world around us and why we exist in it), practical mission tools (obstacles facing mission work, including how to fundraise), and many other topics. It's all incredibly interesting, and we are so blessed to have to opportunity to learn from some well-respected scholars.

This is the largest incoming group of missionaries FOCUS has ever had, with over 160 new missionaries! It's impossible to get to know that many people in just a few weeks, so missionaries are divided into colleges named after saints. I'm in the college of St. Mary Magdalene, and it's been great to get to know a small group of 8 women really well. We often have meals together and sit as a college at mass twice a week. One of the other special things that we do is read the passages from the Bible on Mary Magdalene, and then pray and discuss what we can learn from her about loving Christ. I didn't know too much about St. Mary Magdalene before coming to NST, so it has been great to learn more, and to hear the insights of the other women in my college. I love hearing what other people think about in prayer because it's often so different from what I meditate on, and such a beautiful testament to how God works through each individual in such a unique way.

Although Illinois is beautiful and my time here has been exciting, I'm looking forward to heading back to Green Bay in a week. It will be great to see my family again, and to celebrate the 4th with brats and beer in full Wisconsin style!