These last few days have been really uplifting. The campus is crawling with active young people and the energy is very high. Today the kids arrived, all 60 of them. Last night was a pool party of sorts, and I was able to enjoy the water along with all the other counselors and teachers. Felt really good to swim under the stars!

This morning, after arriving 2 minutes late to dawn prayers!, a fellow service member and I drove to the airport to pick up about 8 of the kids for the program. It went very smoothly. We returned to a whole bunch of new young faces and the activities officially began at 4pm with intro games and lots of running and laughing. Ryan, a new friend of mine who I really look up to had just returned from a wedding which he described as the funnest wedding hes ever been to. It got me thinking about what I picture my wedding looking like, if I desire a big one or small one, and where I would have it. What a beautiful thing it is to see two people dedicate themselves to each other.

Dinners here are really good...Tonight was a whole assortment of pastas and different sauces and of course the awesome salad bar! The chewy brownies topped off the vibrant conversation that was going on outside on the deck.

A young man about the age of 10 began talking to me during one of the games and asked me if I would help him find some prayers to say for his mom who has just had surgery. He is really an amazing kid...he sings and plays piano and is full of joy and hope. All during dinner he was motioning to me that we needed to get together to find some prayers to say, and we made plans to do so tomorrow morning.

After dinner the kids went to class and I had the privledge of helping to tutor a ruhi book 5: for those who do not know ruhi is a curriculum centered around the Baha'i Faith which has a series of books, each pertaining to a certain core activity. Book 5 is about engaging junior youth (kids ages 11-14) in groups that are concentrated on spirtual empowerment and enhancing their power of utterance. Very fun stuff!