In my first week back in Arvada, well, it was yet another terrific week. I looked back on my writings over the course of the semester and realized that there was literally not one week that went by without something really awesome happening in my life. This week, that theme remained the same. The weekend started off early on Thursday night with a family dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory in downtown Denver. It was here that we came across the most entertaining balloon guy ever. I want to enjoy and have as much fun with my job when I get older as this guy does his. He makes even the seemingly worthless task of making balloon figures an awesome experience for everybody. After dinner, we made our way to the Miner's Alley Playhouse in Golden, CO. The play we saw was...alright. The acting and singing was really great, but the story line was just, a lot of the time, there was something happening on the stage and I wasn't really sure what was happening or why. An enjoyable time nonetheless.
On Friday, I had plans to drop off a friend, Ryan Klobossa, who is a seminarian, at St. Dominic's in Denver because he has a friend from college there who is a Dominican novitiate. My plan was to drop him off and then go about my day, getting some Christmas shopping done. Well, everyone knows what can happen when we make plans; they can be completely flipped turned upside down by what God's plan is, and in the end, God's idea is a lot better. The Dominican novitiate, Nathaniel Gee, whom I had met once before, invited me to join them for the day. Nathaniel is just a joy to be around. Full of energy, kind heart, wise, a million other affirmations. I spent the entire day with them, we even went out to lunch together, another novitiate joining us. Nathaniel commented multiple times on how the Holy Spirit had worked in order to make this day possible - mainly, he said that it was once in a blue moon that he and the other novitiates had a free day and so everything just worked out perfectly. In a short overview of my time with these men, it was so awesome to witness men who have such great conviction for the same faith that I do; the difference between us right now, is that they are better at articulating that faith, while I am just at a stage of life where I am just beginning to realize that I need to share my faith with others, so I am learning how to do that.
Saturday was the experience of a lifetime. I have been trying to make this trip happen for the past three years, and something has always come up that interferes. Well, this year, I did everything I could to make sure that didn't happen again. I won't keep you guessing...I went ice fishing this weekend! Up and out the door by 4 o'clock in the morning, and out on the ice before 7. When we got on the ice, it was 9 degrees. As the day drew on, it got a little warmer temperature wise, but the wind decided to pick up so it remained very cold. That is until we set up the pop-up hut (I don't know why we didn't do that from the very beginning, but I wasn't the expert there). The coolest thing about when we put the hut up was that the water was so clear, I could see all the way to the bottom. We watched as fish swam around our lures and struck the bait. I reeled in two decently sized fish that day. Not bad. I came back home and made a tutorial video about how to gut a fish. If you have a strong stomach, you can check it out on Youtube. The day was not over. My dad got tickets to the Denver Nuggets basketball game. I'm not a huge basketball fan, especially the NBA, but it was a fun opportunity to go out with my two brothers and one of my brother's friends. Nuggets win!
Sunday, I went on a men's retreat at the Denver Seminary. Now, at this point, I do not know what God's plans are for me. The main thing for me is that I would like to give my heart to him. I want to do his will. Whether my call is to the priesthood or married life, or single life for that matter, I do not know. All I know is that I do find true happiness when I listen to God's call. I met a really awesome guy there too. He went to a rival high school and we talked about how once we graduated and looked back on all of the trash talk, none of it mattered anymore. We both went to Catholic high schools and one of the things that he talked about was that he wanted to see our schools form a bond and work together. We both still want the competitive spirit when it comes to athletics, but we agreed that we would both want to foster respect and brotherhood between Holy Family and Bishop Machebeuf High School. Love it!
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