I remember as a young child, I was always thrilled when it became bedtime. Why? you might ask. I was thrilled because at bedtime one of my parents would read me a story while I sat on the other’s lap. I always loved hearing the sound of my parents’ voices as they read bedtime stories to me. I honestly feel that those nighttime reads were where my love of books began. For as long as I can remember, I have loved to read and, even if I’m not going to buy, I constantly find myself drifting towards the book section in Target!

A rough draft of my work!

A continual of the rough draft of my work!

Some of my favorite series that I have read, as of now, are: Harry Potter, To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before, Kingdom Keepers (I’m a huge Disney fan), and The Summer I Turned Pretty. Some of these I have read multiple times because I love them so much while others, I haven’t read more than once but will want to read again one day. Harry Potter is one of the series that has found its way into my hands multiple times. In fact, if you happened to look at any of my Harry Potter books, you could probably see the amount of love they have received over the years. The same is for The Summer I Turned Pretty trilogy. Both of the book series I love and the book covers are bent and torn in places. Even though the book(s) of these series aren’t small in the slightest, they have been forced into bookbags of various grades, dropped, flipped through, and all of the other things that come with reading books and trying to make them fit into your bag.

Due to my love of reading, my younger self, I was probably eight or nine, thought it would be “Oh so cool!” and easy to write a book. I remember sitting behind my mom’s office chair while she worked, writing about one of my then favorite TV shows iCarly.  Looking back, the book was probably 75% iCarly stickers and was sloppily crafted by my young hand, but in the moment I was so happy with my work! I probably still have that book, somewhere in the dark depths of a desk drawer. I even tried keeping a journal at some point, though I don’t think it lasted very long.

Looking back, I feel like my desire to “write” stemmed from my love of how the authors I read could make a whole other world come alive. For example, in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, I love how J.K. brought to life the stress and fear that the Triwizard Tournament competitors felt and how, at the end of the Triwizard Tournament, when Harry arrived at the graveyard with Voldemort, how J.K. brought in the struggle, anxiety, and fear that Harry felt to stay alive. I love how she brought to life the anger that Voldemort might have been feeling and it made you feel like you were really there, standing next to Harry while he fought the darkest wizard of all time, seeing those whom Voldemort had recently killed and trying to bring Cedric back to his family. I’m not sure now how long this dream/idea lasted but, even though I still love to read and am inspired by an author’s ability to bring a world and characters to life, I don’t wish to be an author anymore. Maybe one day, when I’m older and have more money saved up, I will wish to become an author once again. But, for now, I will leave that craft to more experienced people and will go on to try to teach young ones to create their own love of reading.

I am a Lutheran and being a active and a part of a youth group is extremely important to me. The summer of 2018, my church youth group and I had the opportunity to fly out to Houston, Texas for the National Youth Gathering! It was such an amazing experience and I am so thankful that I got the chance to go and experience all of the speakers, the music, and the ability to meet new people while also growing closer to the people that I already knew. I guess I had never thought about the fact of how many other Lutherans there were in the world until I got to this gathering and WOW! There are a lot!

Throughout our time in Houston, we did a bunch of different activities that were really eye-opening and awesome to experience! Throughout the day we would go out and do different things depending on the day and the days theme and then at night, we would go and worship our amazing Lord with our fellow Lutherans!

On the first day we got there, we had the opportunity to go and explore the city and see everything that could go on in Houston in a day, it was eye-opening to see how people in different areas of the world live differently than us. We also got to watch the Houston Astros play! So cool! The second day, we went to this big, open area called the Interactive Learning Center where we hung out, played different games, and did different activities which was super cool! That night, we went to NRG Stadium and had a big worship service called the Opening Mass Gathering. On the next day, we attended a smaller worship service with everyone in our synod, or everyone at the Gathering from North Carolina, where we played different games and got to know each other! This was a day called Synod Day. After we got out of our Synod Day, we hung out and explored more of the city. The fourth day was the day where we went out and served the community at a place called “Port Neighbors in Action INC. Community Center.” This was such an awesome experience and was very eye-opening to what goes on in an effort to help those in need, and we only experienced a small portion! The fifth day, we got to go to the Interactive Learning Center and spend the day there. It was cool to get to hang out for a day! On the last day, we had a closing worship at mass gathering, which was a really awesome service! After this service, we were able to pack up some, hang out, and just have a ‘chill’ day. That week was such an awesome week and I will be forever grateful that I got to experience it!