Life as a FOCUS missionary is a lot like I thought it would be and of course a lot different too. The last several of weeks have flown by filled with FOCUS and campus events, meeting so many new people, hanging out with students, and adjusting to life in Dubuque and as a missionary. I have failed to update this blog as often as I had planned and for that I apologize. In the future I will be better at keeping you all updated on my work!
My first week as a missionary started with our staff off-site. We spent two days in IL at my team director's parents house. It was a very successful time away, which we spent going over our campus plan for the year and bonding as a team. My team was able to experience for the first time my 'early to bed-early to rise' life style. It is now a common joke with the team that I am unintelligible after 10pm because when I get tired I start to mumble. This, I have been told, makes understanding my already fast speech harder.
Upon returning to Dubuque we got down to business and spent a day getting things like parking passes and office keys figured out. The next day, Thursday, we helped freshman move into the dorms. It was so different than all of the move-ins I participated or assisted in at UW-Madison. Here at Loras there are so many willing, able hands that the new student and their family carries almost nothing to their room. The proportion of helpers to students was often 20:1. At Madison both times I moved into the dorms it was just my parents and I carrying boxes and lofting beds. It was nice to get to know some of the older students as we carried boxes upstairs and waited for more students to arrive.
The freshman here at Loras are all required to participate in Launch into Loras, which helps them to form community and become adjusted to college life. They spend much of Friday-Sunday at Launch and so the FOCUS team spent much of the first weekend with the older students.
