GENERATION CONFERENCE '08!

.. was amazing beyond words. it was a life changing experience that i shall never forget as long as i live. i'm still wired up from these past three days, i wish it wasn't over yet though! it went by soo fast! here's a little list of the things i did, i'm prolly not going to elaborate too much because that'd just take WAY too long. but i'll write a little about what i did.

wednesday around 3 i got dropped off at casey, cameron, ryne, dan, pastor pearl & pastor dan's house. my mom got to meet cameron in his boxers. haha then david L came over, and we all left to meet up with everyone at the church. we ended up being a tad bit late, but not too bad. then we all piled up into our cars and were off to check into our hotel. i rode with pastor pearl, casey, abbie, ryne, taylor and dakota. it was a blast! when we got to the hotel, we brought our stuff inside and the first marylander i met was sean. he's such a sweetheart, and so polite. it was his birthday on thursday! he turned 20 years old. (imagine having your birthday during a youth conference, i think that'd be so cool!) but anyways, then i met the rest of the maryland kids and their youth pastor and youth leaders. they're all so nice and most of them immediately became some of my bestest friends! then we all got settled in, and went to the wednesday night worship & service. craig groeschel preached. he's the Life Church man. haha he preached on finding your burden, and deciding what you care about and need to fix. i discovered that my burden is helping the homeless, and making a difference in changing my school. i also have a burden to help this girl i used to be friends with, who i no longer am. these things aren't going to be easy, but i know i can do them with God's help. "God does more than we can imagine." those were the words of craig groeschel =] after wednesday's evening service, we all went back to our hotel (prolly around 11 or so?) and hung out for a bit .. and then we ate pizza and sang Happy Birthday to sean at midnight! haha finally everyone went to bed, except for me & casey. we stayed up until 5 in the morning, and even then i still wasn't tired. i was all excited and happy to be there, and hyper. haha but casey wanted to go to sleep, so i forced myself to go to sleep too.
thursday morning after we all woke up and got ready, we went to the morning worship & service. emmanuel cannistraci preached. he's an elderly man, but he's adorable and gave us a good word. he preached about having confidence and how God is in control. he also talked about how we have to know who we're living our lives for, and what we're going to live our lives in. DON'T EVER ALLOW ANYONE TO TAKE AWAY YOUR SMILE apostle e. cannistraci said something along those lines, i forgot the exact words or what it really was because i didn't get to write it down since i was up at the alter call praying for some of my friends. but he said something like that, how you always have a reason to smile with Jesus Christ as your savior and that you shouldn't let anyone take that away from you. idk i wish i remembered his exact words, because i love smiling, i'm a really happy person. so it really got to me. when apostle e. was finished preaching, we had a 20 minute break & visited with everyone .. and then mark schilling preached. he preached on following the example of God and being a servant of Jesus. like washing his feet & stuff. then we all went & hung out and had a lunch break & ate at the mall. then we came back and steve furtick preached. he was prolly one of my favorites. "GOD'S PROMISE IS BIGGER THAN YOUR PERHAPS" was something he said that really caught on to me. =] then we had our dinner break and went back to the hotel and everyone just hung out. then we came back for more worship & service and benny perez preached. he's been a favorite preacher of mine since i heard him last year. he preached on shivelaf (sp?) which means the burden of life. we had more alter calls. ahhh everyone got really into that one after pastor benny preached. lots of people were crying & stuff. then we all went back and had birthday cake for sean and sandwiches and hung out in the hallway and the lobby and sang happy birthday to sean at midnight again. hahah and i stayed up till like 2:30 ish.
friday when we woke up and got ready we all went to the morning worship and service againnn. chico woo preached. he did really good this year. he preached on three very important questions. where have you been? who am i? and where are you going? then we had a 20 minute break and then a 17 or 18 year old named jordan boyce preached. i think he really connected with a lot of people cause he was closer to our age than the rest of them. he preached on grace. "ONCE YOU'VE RECIEVED GRACE, IT'S TIME FOR YOU TO GIVE GRACE" then we had our lunch break and went to the mall .. hung out with everyone .. and stuff like that. me, casey & jesse played dress up in h&m and took lots of pictures. hahaha! then we went to the afternoon service which was mike servello preaching. he preached on encouragement. "A LITTLE BIT OF ENCOURAGEMENT GOES A LONG WAY" and he read a scripture from the bible that i reallly liked. Job 4: 1-4 you should really read it sometime =] then we went back to the hotel, hung out and took lots of pictures and stuffff like that. and then came back and my parents & grandparent's came to last night's service. jude fouquier preached. he was one of my favorites, too. he was hilarious and he had a greattt message. all of them did, actually. but yk. "I WILL BUILD MY CHURCH AND THE GATES OF HELL WILL NOT PREVAIL AGAINST IT!" we were all screaming that at the top of our lungs. haha and he was preaching about how there's so many different groups on a campus but in a church there is no groups, we are all one under Christ and he was talking about how we are so dependent on many things and he was imitating a girl or something and said, "I can't live without my man." and then was like, "Amen, MY MAN IS JESUS CHRIST!" hahaha :D and then he preached on passionate prayer and discipleship. "IF GOD IS THE SAME YESTERDAY, TODAY, TOMORROW & FOREVER .. SO IS THE CHURCH." then we started praying and had another alter call (we had tons of those) and i went down for it, and started BAWLING. i never cry in church, haha but everyone from my youth group was praying for me!!! and i really felt God move in me it was great. and then ryne gave me a couple prophecies .. i don't want to post them on here (even though they are ABSOLUTELY AMAZING!) but it's stuff for me .. and anyways, i'm really tired. so i'm going to go. i wish i was still at gen con though.

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