New York, New York!

Hey,

I'm in New York! Finally! It's been a really great couple of days here. I spent the first two roaming around the city with Marie and Josh (another SLM from Washington) and we got to do all sorts of cool things. We walked around times square, strolled through Central Park, saw the fireworks on the 4th (correction: we caught glimpses of fireworks from behind trees and through the masses of people), and we went to daily mass at St. Patrick's in downtown NY. Now, some of you may know that at one point in my life i had the dream of moving to NY. WHOA, what was I thinking. ALthough it is a really cool city, trying to manuever through the masses of people of the 4th of July turned me off of the idea of EVER wanted to move there. It was so crowded that at many points in time I didn't get to choose which way I wanted to walk and was just forced to move with the crowd and police men were everywhere shouting at us to keep moving, not to stop. Anyways it was just kind of crazy.

Well, I've made it to orientation. Crazy, right? It's weird to finally be here, it has been something that I have been looking forward to for the past couple months and I am finally here... sitting in the computer lounge at way too early in the morning writing a blog. lol. So bascially it has been a really chill couple of days, we are just in the phase of getting to know everybody and where everybody is going and taking care of some administrative business like how to get a visa, what to expect in the foreign country, what to do about money, registering with the embassy, etc. There are a total of 23 of us going abroad with the Salesians come August. Out of the 23, I am the ONLY one going to Brazil. :-) In a way I'm glad, because if I hadn't answered God's call to go there, they wouldn't be getting any help this coming year from their program, but it is also kind of nerve-racking because EVERYONE ELSE has a missionary partner. But, I trust that God has some crazy plan for me and it is time to trust blindly in Him... soo here it goes.

Many of you may have heard that I have been having visa issues. Well, fear no more. I think it is all going to work out. I am just waiting on some documents from Father Chicao in Brazil (he has already put in them in the mail, and they are on their way to New York as I type) so it'll be just a matter of time before I get them and can send my passport off for the visa.

The group of people are absolutely amazing here. They all seem to have a strong devotion to the work that I am passionate about, which makes it really easy to get along with all of them. Today is the first day that we will be working together with the Maryknoll lay missioners (another missionary group) and we will be with them for the next two weeks.

Well, morning prayer is in 15 minutes and I gotta brush my teeth.

Jon

"Christ has no body on earth now but yours."