Climbin' Mountains

My Bible studies start this Monday!!! I'm so excited! I have been working super hard to meet women, invite them into studies, plan, and now it's almost time to hopefully see some of this hard work pay off. I'm leading studies on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. I'll have a total of 6 studies with about 40 women (I think). Women keep emailing me and I keep getting more and more, so it's great. I'm not going to lie, 6 studies is A LOT and that's a lot of women to keep up with, but I figure if Jesus were here, He wouldn't wimp out and do any less than that. He'd probably lead studies for 12 hours straight because He's just that great. I'm not like Jesus, but I will do my best to make Him happy. :)

I love to journal. It's something I've always done and it really helps me in my prayer life. I am always writing down my prayers, whether they be for me or someone else. I actually have a prayer binder, notebook, and journal. Crazy, I know. Anyway, it's so fun to look back and see how God has answered my prayers. He always does, but maybe not the way I expected Him to. It's helped me a lot in my life and it makes it very easy for me to see how He is working so strongly in my life. I want to give this gift to the women in my Bible studies, so I have made them all a journal! 

The front!

I bought regular composition notebooks from Walmart, decoupaged the front with scrapbook paper, and then decoupaged this beautiful picture to the front of each book! I absolutely LOVE them.

I made a lot of books....this isn't even all of them.

On the back of the books I just patch worked the scrap pieces of scrapbook paper.

The inside front cover.

On the inside front cover of each book I included some prayers that I like and a mental prayer guide. So many people struggle with mental prayer, so I really wanted to include something that could help them. We'll also be going over this throughout the year in study. Let me know if you want a copy and I'll send you one. :)

Back cover

On the back cover I included a Confession guide. Confession still makes me nervous, so I compiled this a long time ago and have used it ever since. I love sharing it with people who aren't used to going to Confession. I'm going to challenge my ladies to go every 2 months. 
I also wrote a letter to all the women explaining how happy I am that they're in study. I really want them to enjoy Bible study and to feel comfortable to come to me with any concern or need. Something I'm also doing is creating an invitation to all of the events I want to do throughout the semester. Here are some of the activities I have scheduled:

• September 17th-Chalk Campus (writing messages of love and encouragement all over campus)
• September 21st- Pray in front of Dream Palace (it's a strip club) and then go to the movies
• October 6th- Go visit the sisters!
• October 20th-Pray in front of Planned Parenthood
• October 30th-Cupcake Raid (hand out cupcakes on campus as a random act of kindness)
• November 17th-Pray in front of Planned Parenthood
• December 1st-Visit the Sisters!
• December 6th- Man Panel Event (a panel of virtuous men answer various questions from an all female audience)

Many of you may wonder why I am scheduling these events on top of Bible study. Well, I want my women to actually live out their faith and sometimes even in a radical way. I want to push them and to allow them the opportunity to do something they would never actually do on their own. I'm also a very goal-oriented person, so here are my goals for this year:

• Mission: To build a sisterhood of women with Christ as their first love, who understand their unique beauty as women, and are able to spread it throughout society.
• Goals:
•  Each woman should have a relationship with Christ that is at the center of her life and be a true daughter of God.
• Be able to view themselves as a missionary
• Understand the dignity and beauty of women
• Build virtuous friendships
• Hold each other accountable
• Develop and understand how to have good relationships with men as brothers in Christ 
• Understand how to build a culture of life with women
• How to have fun and make life beautiful

 In other news, here's what else I've been doing:

Just some of us ladies hanging out!
We were at the boy's house...hence the ugly flag in the background.

I love this...we were caught laughing.
Ugh..that flag.

This is Franco not wanting to take a picture with me.
He's from New York, so he's naturally grumpy. :)

Some of the guys. This is such an odd picture. 

I hiked a mountain! It was so beautiful/early/tough/totally worth it!

Katie and I at the top! 

I can't wait to update you all on how my studies go this next week! Please pray that the women actually come, enjoy it, and are excited to learn about our awesome God! Bring it on week 1! :D