Yo ho!

It’s a pirate’s life for me!

So, there are a couple cool things on the go. But firstly, I’d like to ask for some prayers for someone. Jean is a lady who donates her time here to helping with office work during the week. The last two weeks she has been sharing office space with me because over the holidays the system crashed and the weekly donation info from last year was lost, and they needed to re-enter all the people and their donations so that they could get their tax receipts, so she and Lulu (receptionist, secretary, front desk guru) have been working diligently. She is having doctor appointments and has had an MRI because she is having some major headaches and swelling on her face. She has had cancer that was removed, and she’s really worried that this might be cancer again. She’s actually met with her doctor today about the MRI, but I haven’t talked with her and I probably won’t until Monday. She said she’d leave me a note today and let me know how it went. One way or another, I do ask for prayers for her, cause she needs God’s strength and comfort. Thank you.

And otherly, I have suggested a parish Mardi Gras celebration that all us directors will be working on to celebrate on the 28th of February, and I feel very happy that everyone’s very up for doing this with me. I think it’s going to be really awesome. Maggie (Jr. High Youth Minister) and I met on Thursday and we have some really good ideas for the teens. For this half of the year, I’m just going to do mostly joint activities with the teens, I think, with a few other things for the Sr.’s (gr.’s 9-12, remember), like the Youth Day of the Religious Education Congress (which is totally gonna ROCK!). Anyway. I’m relaly pumped for this year, though. I think it’ll go well. Even if I haven’t a youth group (which is not the place where the teens are at right now to have at any rate), it’s going to be good and I’m going to get my face out there and more familiar.

I had other things I wanted to say..what were they?

Oh, well, I suppose I should show off some of the pictures I picked up today:
1. Johnny Depp’s hand and footprints on that square (I totally forget the name of it) on Hollywood Blvd. He has huge feet!
2. Kathy (coworker) and I visited the Cathedral of Los Angeles; what a beautiful building! Just gorgeous! And it has a mausoleum underneath that was built in style of the catacombs, and honest-to-God, it does feel like you could get lost down there, though it is much, much smaller than the original catacombs and much more lit, and lots of signs that say ‘Exit’ in green. The cool thing about the mausoleum is that they imported a saint (saint Vibiane) from the original catacombs in Rome. It was the original name for the cathedral, but when it was rebuilt it was named Our Lady of the Angels. This picture is the shrine that was to her in its original form that it was in the catacoumbs. Kathy took a picture of the tomb, but she doesn’t yet know how to send it to me…so I might remember to get that from her someday.
3. The artwork is amazing in this cathedral. On the back wall is this magnificent mural of The Baptism of Jesus. I think most of us are familiar with the picture, but what I didn’t realise is that this image was first revealed publically at this basilica. The artist’s name is John Nava, and he also painted the gorgeous tapestries that hang upon the walls of the cathedral.
4. This is the baptismal font in front of the mural of Jesus’ baptism. I thought it was really cool – it’s nice and big, has 4 entrances, and at the corner of each little podium thingy water runs out of it and into the bigger pool. If it was shaped a little better, it’d be a nice hot tub. 😀
5+6. These are a couple pictures of the tapestries on the walls. I thought they were completely mesmerising and beautiful. I can’t even think of what to say about them except that they are an experience.
7. Out in the courtyard is a garden of olives, and I thought that was the coolest thing. I don’t know if the trees actually produce olives, but the trees are olive. And in the midst of this grove are these little bronze (I think) sculptures that are made for kids to play on and with. It’s really quaint!
8-12. These are all just some outside pictures of my house that I’m in, in case anyone was curious. And my lemon tree (yay lemons!). The last picture is the view from my front door toward the sea (where the sun sets).