Laughter and pleasant conversation filled the air as 380 PUC freshmen, including myself, boarded buses bound for a weekend of fun and friendship. The ride there was pleasant as Shaddai and I conversed in Spanish. When we got there, we all eagerly settled in and, after a brief meeting, were set loose in the camp. We immediately rushed to the zipline, and were the first ones to enjoy zooming through the glorious Redwood trees. It was such a delight!
Afterwards, we played board games in the cafeteria until dinner, where by complete random chance I met Diane, one of my classmates from long, long ago. The moment we realized that we had both gone to La Crecenta Valley Adventist School in third grade, we were immediately transported back to that time, and enjoyed recounting many fond memories.We enjoyed catching up until the evening meeting, which was spectacular in the volume of the praise band and in Roy Ice's colorful jokes. He had very practical advice on how to react to our new-found freedom.
Then, there was a session with our fusion group, where we spent a long time debating over what our group should be called--we never chose one. All kinds of names, some of which I'd be embarrassed to mention in these letters. The only interesting thing out of this fruitless enterprise was randomly meeting Jonathan, a guy who then proceeded to follow me around all weekend long. To his credit, he is an excellent conversationalist; I could've just used a little breathing room.
Breakfast the next morning kicked off a wonderful day with a delightful worship service and another fusion group session. They did some great mixer games, including a version of bloody knuckles that I enjoyed thoroughly. Then, they gave us Spiritual Gifts surveys. My results yielded few surprises. My top three categories were, in this order: Teaching, Evangelism, and Pastoring/Shepherding, the very things I wish to do with my life.
Our afternoon activity was Bible Treasure Seekers, which involved lots of running around in the rain while solving complicated clues. This was a good deal of fun, if a bit tiring, and our team came in 8th place overall, 3rd among the women. Not bad at all. We sort of chilled in our lodge, recovering from all the running, until dinner. The evening program, which focused on the importance of service, really spoke to me.
The rest of the evening was devoted to social activities put on by PUC's SA. The first was, to my surprise, barn dancing very similar to what I experienced at the Pioneer History Center barely a month ago. It was endlessly amusing to see these uncoordinated SDA kids with no rhythm try to hard to get the steps right. Some were better than others, of course--my partner stepped on my feet several times, but not too badly--but everyone seemed to have a good time. The other activity of the evening was a trivia game, which the girls' team won spectacularly.
One last game of cards in the morning (at which I lost spectacularly) rounded off a wonderful weekend. This experience really made me excited about this school year, and I'm looking forward to the start of classes with great anticipation.
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