Stay strong and sparkle on: EFY Week Three: Santa Barbara 1

So here we are....just finished week THREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can't believe it has already been three awesome weeks. I have learned SO much these past few weeks and had a blast doing it. I gotta say. I LOVE my team. Love them with all my heart. We are each learning more and more about each other, our strengths and our weaknesses, but we are also serving one another which just makes our love for each other grow. I feel so blessed to be surrounded by such amazing people whom I look up to and admire.

EFY in Santa Barbara is the BOMB. For many reasons.

Nice weather

Amazing food

Beautiful campus

Wonderful UCSB staff

and....the gospel!!

I am so glad we have 2 weeks here :) This last week was a TON of fun. I feel as though the last few weeks have been refining me as a person and this week was no exception. But I really felt like I got to use my ability to love and care for others every day. My sister was also here as a participant and that was A LOT of fun to have her here and hang out. Plus I had some girls from last year here and it was SO good to see them! :)

So here are some of the highlights from the week!

Ryan and I flew into Santa Barbara a day earlier than the team to start setting up the session. We had a blast. I LOVE this guy :) Funny story...our flight out of SLC was delayed and we thought we were going to miss our connecting flight into Santa Barbara. They guy told us there was a chance we might make it, but that definitely our bags wouldn't until later that day. So we tried to make a plan. First, we asked if we could get moved to the front of the plane so that we'd be the first ones off and could RUN to the next gate. Ryan told the lady it was our honeymoon....Lol. Then he proceeded to do the Cheetah girls dance in the middle of the airport. I proceeded to find a seat haha. So we got on our flight (the flight attendant thought I was Ryan's wife...haha) and we ended up landing with about 20 minutes to spare. As soon as the cabin doors opened, we got our bags and RAN....and I mean like Home Alone ran. The lady at the other terminal was waving her hand for us to hurry....and hurry we did! So alas..we made our connecting flight :) So we land in Santa Barbara and I was thinking, lets not even wait for our bags because it is NOT possible that they could have made it! Well...Ryan wanted to wait and as luck would have it, THEY DID!!! We were so shocked. Two tender mercies of the Lord right there :) The team flew in the next day so we went to pick them up (in our amazing rental car named Alejandro) and we made them signs while Ryan SCREAMED out the window "WELCOME TO CALIFORNIA!!!!!!!!!!" Everyone was staring at us :) It. was. awesome.