Hello everyone! I hope you had a great Christmas season! I've heard some of your wild stories of the holidays, and it's so encouraging to hear how everyone is doing. With that said, I'd like to share how this past month went with you all.
Even though we were wrapping up the semester, there are still students to meet on campus. My friend, Sophie, and I made a "Cocoa and Convos" table to have conversations with people as we served them hot cocoa. As you'll see in the photo, it was so cold and rainy that day! We basically invited people to ask any spiritual question they might have and we can talk it through. I made a big point to share that no one was going to claim to have all the answers; we just wanted to meet people on campus and have spiritual conversations with them. We had a variety of questions asked such as, "Is Samson in Heaven?" to "What comes after death?" Big topics, but the conversations went really well.
This month was a lot more calm than the others since the students were are preparing for finals. We threw a really fun Christmas Party with a Candy Land theme. There was Karaoke, and Chick-Fil-A gifted us with free meals for everyone! How kind is that! My fellow apprentices also put together a breakfast at Ihop one morning to spend some time together outside of our classes. It's been hard to get everyone together like that, and it was so sweet to look around and call these people friends. We made plans to play Whirly Ball in January before students come back, and I'm very excited for it.
A friend of mine randomly gave me 2 free tickets to six flags, and who wouldn't take that!? It was such a spontaneous trip, and I'm so glad my friend Anna could join me for it. We went the day after Christmas, and it was a lot more packed than I expected it to be, but how fun!? I love getting to hang out with her- this is one of the girls in my core, and we also study the Bible together! We got to meet up a few days after this and do another chapter in our lesson too.
Wrapping up the semester, all the apprentices had the opportunity to give our first sermons. This was so hard to write. What should the structure look like? What if it's bad? What will people think of it? What might they think of me? These were all thoughts and fears I had, but it actually went very well. I was nervous of course, but I remembered that this was a way to glorify and honor God and not myself. Below is a picture of me after working 5+ hours on this sermon.
Then Christmas break came around! My brother, John, flew in from Florida, and you can see below just how excited I was about it. This is a fun photo because we recreated it from when we were toddlers. We do love each other, I promise:) Christmas was such a fun day getting to celebrate Jesus, open presents, and spend time with the fam.
All in all, I hope you all had a lively, heart-warming, memorable last month of 2021. I thank each of you for your constant encouraging words, prayers, and support. Please, let me know how I can best serve you as this new year comes around. I'm so thankful for you all, and here's to a new year! YAY!!
With Joy and Peace,
Emily Turner
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