Beautiful pictures

Picture of some of my amazing sisters and a picture of a beautiful soul I had the pleasure to encounter the other day :) for you Gus!

"I make all things new"

Oh my golly. Hello :)
Alright so February blog post coming at you! Are you ready? Yay, me neither! I honestly just cannot believe it is already the end of February! And that I'm turning 22 on the 16th of next month! Craziness!
Wow, well alright let me begin by saying that this month has been absolutely trying in some areas but also undeniably  beautiful in others. But before we get into what I have learned this month, let's recap it shall we? Duh! Yes.
So as most of you have probably known for a while,  February holds 2 very special celebrations, and the first is... Groundhogs Day!! Ha, just kidding, Valentines Day :) <3  Now, I don't know about you lovely people but my Valentines day was beautiful... let me explain, this was the first year that I took Jesus, our Lord and Savior, the King of my heart and my desires, as my Valentine. Is that beautiful or what? Well it gets better my friends. In very special ways that only my heart and soul know, Jesus romanced me and called me his own through some of my deepest visible and invisible desires. A quick summary of my Valentines day would be... "Your love is better than wine" (Song of Songs 1:2) to say the very least. Ah! He is amazing. I hope all yours were well, if it wasn't then I am sorry.
Now, for the second, ok, well it really isn't a "celebration" by too many people's standards, but it is the beginning of Lent. The reason I say "celebration" is because really we get to become more like Christ through Lent, and that's something to rejoice in. Let's face it Lent is hard, but then again, following Christ is always hard, but also always beautiful. My struggle this Lent was finding something that was " good enough" to give up. I began, like usual, to kinda stress about it... but after talking to others about this, it was brought to my attention that nothing will ever be "enough". Christ died for us and our sins and nothing we will ever do will be enough to earn that gift. "For it is by grace alone that you have been saved" Ephesians 2, that is one of the main things I learned this month. So happy lenting everyone. For me, a few things I am doing are personal, but I'm fasting from social media ( El snapchat, fb, instagram) and am praying more to our beautiful Blessed Mother. So don't worry, try your best and know and accept that Christ's love is a gift. It's hard, but freeing. :)
To end this post, I want to share a couple more things I learned this month:

I am unique and beautiful, exactly the way the Father has made me.

Christ is a mystery, and not all mysteries are scary.

Loving hurts so much sometimes, that you don't know if you can do it anymore... but Christ can through you.

Be patient with myself. The Lord already is so I should be too. "Love is patient" is the first line of the Lord's explanation of a better way to love. 1 Cor. 13: 4

NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE WITH GOD.

And most importantly, let yourself feel pain, it's crappy ya, but without it there is no true forgiveness of yourself, or others.

There is much more to say, but as John writes in his gospel, I would need a thousand pages to write about how much the Lord has done. (summarized of course) haha. But hey, know that I am praying for you and that you are loved. I really mean that. Thank you for reading. Happy Lenting.

Love: Erika

Part of the Journey

Hey everyone, so I am currently in crazy spiritual desolation, but hey that's part of the spiritual life and we keep going right? Right. "This to shall pass"  Please pray for me to trust the Lord and to always remember how loved I really am by him, and I will pray the same for you. Love you all and thank you. Happy Valentines Day, Love in every way possible.

Sincerely: Erika

Rolling... Mission life: Take 2... and ACTION

Hey guys and gals, well yes as the title oh so clearly states, this is part 2 of the amazing mission the Lord has sent me on with Net Ministries :) Let's see what i am up to shall we? Yes.
Alright, so for a quick recap of my break... it truly was amazing to be home, to see my house and my family and my brothers that keep growing! My dogs are still fluffy which is great and my room is still there although my brothers had told me otherwise haha. The first thing I did when I got home was have my favorite pizza with my family! Shout out to chi chi's pizza. On break I also went to daily Mass on most days and saw so many people that have been supporting me this year which was a blessing. But then soon enough the 2 weeks were over, and I kissed sunny southern California goodbye once again.
To be honest, on the plane ride back to MN, I found myself again unsure of what the Lord was going to do in my life. I knew then that he had already done so much and I couldn't even think of what else could be done. I thought "How much further could he take me?" Well friends, don't ever put a limit on God. When I got back to the NET center I was actually really struggling. You see, during the second half of NET, everyone starts asking you what you will be doing the following year. Now for the average Joe this is a complicated question, for erika, this is an anxiety filled qurstion. Haha. All of these questions started flooding in, am I called to do NET a second year or go home? Am I called to go do mission somewhere else? Then the big questions hit... What am I going to do? Where am I called in life? Am I meant to be married? Am I being called to religious life? How do I figure that out? And honestly I was kind of a stress ball when I got back this second half. But the Lord calms the storm.
Through taking this to prayer over and over again, I realized that the Lord wants me to put even more trust in him than I ever have. And I don't need to know everything. He will guide me if I seek him first. One of the last things someone told me at the NET center this time around was "you don't need to know anything, just seek him first. Seek holiness and God will provide." And with that I was able to trust. And that's all the Lord really wanted from me, to trust him. To give him my future instead of holding on to it and worrying about it. He will guide.
And since then a lot of peace about the future has come to me. I don't know all the answers still, but I'm ok with that. I am trusting the Lord with my future. Now, for those of you who are actually reading this, that doesn't mean I don't have a plan for the future, it just means that I am open to the Lord changing my plans :)
Wow, that was a lot. Alright so ya, haha to follow that. I am here, and the Lord is back in action. The second half has started out great, very busy but beautiful too. The Lord is truly working in the teens and families here in Forest Lake. My team is wonderful, but pray for us, we are all getting over sickness and just lost a member of our team temporarily due to sickness.  I write this as I am on my sick bed haha. But truly pray for us. And pray for me when you can. I don't know what I was thinking when I questioned what the Lord has in store for me this half, because clearly trust is a big one, as well as my continued journey with love. Jesus and I celebrated our 2 monthaverssary on the 21st and he is still and always will be an amazing boyfriend.
Thanks a bunches for reading, you are in my prayers.
Sincerely, Erika

My team

Update: Silent Retreat

It was beautiful and a true blessing. The Lord gave me time to know myself and know him better and actually healed me so much from the wounds of my past. I highly reccomend doing a silent retreat, I might actually do a longer one if I have the opprotunity. To just simply be with the Lord as his beloved is beautiful! On this retreat, my wondeful Jesus let me see a glimpse into just how much he loves me. And let me tell you guys, no words or earthly things can even begin to describe it. And he loves us all that way, we just have to let him in so that he can pull us close.
P.s. had lunch with a bishop today and sat right next to him. 2nd time that's happened this year!
P.s.s. Jesus has a burning smile when you see how much he loves you. I pray you one day do.

Much Love: Erika :)

I am engaged!!

Hey guys :) alright so welcome to the November / December blog post! To say the least this month was crazy! After halloween we really hit ministry hard! As you can see from some pictures it snowed November 5th and it was a good 16inches! And it has stayed haha and kept snowing, the arctic Minnesotans say it won't stop till April probably. Awesome!  In other news I have now had the pleasure of meeting negative degree weather, the coldest I have felt so far is -8° which I guess isn't that bad.... ha!
But as I said before this month was a little  crazy and life changing, like all motnhs are with God :) haha but ok guys are you ready for some crazy news??? Ya you are. I AM ENGAGED!!! that's right there is a ring on my left hand and I am engaged to a true man and God. His name is Jesus, you have probably heard of him he is pretty famous, ya he saved the world. Haha but I actually am engaged to Jesus. Here is how... On November 21st 2014 I gave a year of my life (till November 21st 2015) to date Jesus. Why you ask? This is why my sons, Being here on NET has truly let me see how I really didn't know what love was or how to love. And I see the importance of that now. Without love, and loving correctly... I am nothing. And so when i heard that Pope Francis announced that this upcoming litergical year was dedicated to the religious life, I felt the Lord calling me to take him as my love this year. And so I let him. It is one thing to love God and another to be in love with him. I am seeking the latter. And what better way to do that than to date him, to be with him for a whole year as his beloved, trusting and learning what love is about so that one day whether I am called to marriage or religious life I can love fully and know how much i am fully loved. I am excited. Yes it was extremely difficult to decide to do this, and I don't fully know all the reasons why I am doing it but I'm trusting God cuz he put it on my heart for a reason so he must know why I'm doing it. It's sort of exciting to have the beauty of it unveiled as I go <3 ya big news but good news :) haha
Well other than that, we had a great thanksgiving! :) our team went down to Faribault, prenounced fair-bow MN, to our teammate Sam's house and spent a good 4 days just relaxing and eating a million thanksgiving dinners! After we got back our team put on 2 full day retreats and went to a Lifeline (gathering of thousands of teenagers down in Saint Paul ) all in 3 days. It was exhausting. But hey now it's done and we are on the other side :) thank you Jesus. Sidenote: Jesus is wondeful, he helped me give a 30 minute talk to 80 confirmation teenagers the other day. I was afraid but the Holy Spirit truly came upon me and to my aid. Ironic cuz the talk was about the Holy Spirit haha should have known he would have shown up!
And so now I am here, right at the moment I am on a silent retreat till tomorrow afternoon, ya 2 days without talking is a while for me haha but it's actually so nice. I see a lot more than I do when the world is so crammed with noise and I get to know myself better which is really good for Saint Teresa of Avila says that it is crucial to know ourselves in the spiritual life :) i will update you all on how it goes! I will be home very soon for Christmas! 8 days to be exact and then it's the good old Griswold family Christmas for 2 weeks! Socal as the Minnesotans say it... here I come :)
Oh sidenote: I walked on water today... ok it was frozen. But still cool!  Ya buddy! Ya Jesus.

He is coming!
Christmas Blessings:
Erika JJ Christopher