But before I ever got my final marks, there was Portage Conference. This year my parents took two carloads full of girls! We had a great time rockin’ out, chatting, and laughing about anything or everything. Or maybe we were laughing at the fat cat sitting in the middle of the road in Souris, MB and the two teenage boys standing a few feet away on their phones and my mom yelling out the window at them, calling them “crazy cat boys” as we drove off, away from the swinging bridge. The Souris Suspension Bridge is probably the safest and sturdiest suspension bridge I’ve ever been on… It takes forever and lots of teamwork to get it to sway even the teeniest bit. We did it though – and scared everyone off – but who wouldn’t be the teensiest bit afraid of a bunch of teenage girls screaming and running/jumping to the centre of the bridge…??‍♀️

Cassia wasn’t feeling very well and got a lot out of the ministry…? And I got an arm cramp.

We also got to meet little Wesley!!! He was only two days old – and one of the smallest babies I can remember holding….?

We were faced with this storm on the way home from Portage Conference… It was raining so hard that we had to piddle along because you couldn’t see anything! I guess this storm was a little foreshadow of the next one to come… On the way home we talked about what we enjoyed the most. My enjoyment wasn’t so much out of a single message but from a speaker. Brian Kember spoke on the armour of God and explained it really well. As an example: the belt of truth, he told us the meaning – committed to the truth and then told us the context. Back when Paul wrote this, the Romans would use a belt to make sure the loose ends of their garment wouldn’t get in the way while they were fighting. He was telling us to prepare our minds for action – not have little things getting in the way and distracting us from the truth.

An ironic picture… A day after the storm on the way home from portage and three days before our hail storm.

Hall clean up for conference on Tuesday!!!!!

The hall has a huge yard, with several play sets – so we had to trim, mow, and tidy in general.

The obvious main focal point is me up the later in the background…? This year they let Chelsea and I clean the windows – which was great!!!! But then half of them got kind of smashed…

Doing all the dishes in the kitchen, and (not pictured) setting the tables and food prep and everything else that goes into cleaning the Hall before conference.

And then, on a fateful evening, two day later, the hail storm hit. It was almost like a Hall cleaning all over again afterwards… Except this time we were all just trying not to get cut. In one of the messages the speaker spoke about the storm a little. He said, “Rejoicing in the Lord is the key – not rejoicing because everything is going wrong,” just reminding us all not to go around with long faces because the storm destroyed a lot but to rejoice in the Lord and who He is.

I had school on the Friday and so missed the conference bible readings… But I really enjoyed all of the Young People’s messages. One was about having your water pot so overflowing with worship that when you interact with people it can’t help but overflow out of your life and into others. The other Yp message I enjoyed was about “union with Christ, communion with Christ and being like Christ.” When we get saved we become one with Christ, then as we read and pray we interact with christ, which helps us to be like christ. The speaker was saying how those three phrases have to be in that specific order because, for example, if we put communion before union, then that would be saying that based on how good we do – that’s how close we can be to Christ.

And, of course, school is out!!!!!! I finished finals, graduated grade 10, and made Honour Roll! One of my favourite parts of finals was going to bed at my normal time, and then waking up at six to study… This was mainly because my dad made me coffee. On the Monday morning it was a latte, and then on Tuesday morning an affagato!!!!!

Tuesday, June 26, 2018 was the last day of Grade 10, and several of us went out for lunch to D’Barrio’s to celebrate. I had the most amazing poutine ever… It had ripped up chicken strips and real bacon bits, and it was amazing!!!!

On Tuesday afternoon I, thankfully, finished my accounting final quick enough to see Lanaya’s air-bands. She was the lead singer and their goal was to get everyone on their feet clapping… Which they achieved and were pretty proud of!!!

All of my school work for semester two… a whole bunch of History, Pre-Calc and Foundations, Science, ELA, and Accounting!

Grad is one of my favourite times of the year… A little because I love seeing the dresses but mainly because of singing. You see the Gospel Hall does a “grad do” for the graduates and the Young People get to sing!!! Around the end of May/beginning of June we get together every Sunday afternoon and have a singing practice. We pick our songs and Mom goes to work figuring out the parts and the beat and the instruments we should use. This year Mom branched out a little more, because there were five graduates, and did a sibling song… And it was AMAZING. Like, pass out from sheer amazement and screaming amazing. Of course, I didn’t actually do any of that – except in my head…?