Journeying Through Catholicism: Conference Recap -- Day 2!

My heart is overflowing...tears of absolute gratitude to God, my Father for blessing me with an incredible day and showing me countless experiences of true, genuine love that my brothers and sisters-in-Christ share for each other. I'm a poor, poor sinner, constantly in need of God's grace and mercy....and He's pouring all these blessings to ME?!? I cannot fathom God's love and oh! If only....if only I can show this kind of love to others. Right now, I'm totally feeling St. Peter's idea during the Transfiguration "let's pitch tents, Jesus! And stay up here forever!" But deep down, I know I'll have to return to my ordinary life in Naperville in just a few days! Aww! But God has me there for a reason. Fortunately I still have PLENTY of excitement left in these final 3 days. Anyways....back to today...Friday!

Surprise, surprise! I overslept for the morning Mass, oops! But I had a nice shower and got myself ready for the day, which began with a talk by Jimmy Akin. In all honesty, it was quite informative, but a bit on the dry side since it was about the historicity of divorce, and most of the content I already knew.
During the break after his talk, I met a girl my age sitting in front of me and it turns out not only did we attend the same college, but graduated the same year as each other!! And we're just now meeting all the way out in San Diego! Small, small world!
Next was Dr. Roebuck's talk about the sociology behind marriage, divorce, IVF, etc. Again, a lot of stats and stuff I pretty much already knew, but decent enough talk.
In between talks, I got to meet Timmerie Millington who co-hosts my other favorite radio show, Hearts & Minds with Trent Horn and I gushed about how truly blessed she is to be able to chat with Trent on a weekly basis about all things Catholic/pro-life!
For the first time, CatholicAnswers offered a separate lunch session just for young adults featuring my fave Trent Horn as well as the newest apologist from Cajun Land, Karlo Broussard. They discussed faith & science as well as answering atheism (Trent's speciality). Huge huge blessing right there to have small group time with those two!
Then I got a double dose of Trent Horn since he gave a talk right after lunch about the relational & conjugal views of marriage. Love love love him!
Then, what I've been most excited about, the LIVE TAPING OF CATHOLIC ANSWERS LIVE!!! And yes, I managed to get myself a front row seat and more or less lost my voice from my manic screaming lol I even got to ask a question at the end of the 2nd hour and (soberly) admitted to a million-person audience that I'm a CatholicAnswers-aholic...Patrick promised to get me into a 12-step program lol oh how wondrous it was to get to SEE my beloved radio show produced right before my eyes! *spazztime*
The final activity of the day was an appetizers and drinks mixer where I chatted with a few people who complimented me on my enthusiasm. I got to have a heartfelt chat with Rose Sweet, who's been a guest on CatholicAnswers Live several times, then I bantered around with Patrick Coffin and got to meet Chris Check (the president) as well as Karl Keating (the FOUNDER) wow wow wow!!!
Throughout the day, my now-good-friend and head of the marketing department, Jon Sorenson helped me get all my CA swag autographed (apologies to Trent Horn who probably now has carpal tunnel thanks to me lol)

Ultimately, the thing that chokes me up and amazes me most is that just yesterday, I was on a plane wondering what it would be like to encounter my beloved CA apologists in person. I'm not as insecure as I used to be as a teen, but my confidence is still lacking...but now, I'm on a casual first name, bantering basis with all these people. Not that I'm trying to put them on pedestals, but I've had such a deep admiration/appreciation of them from afar. I was scared that maybe they wouldn't be as genuine in real life...but they are the real deal! God is so so good!

BE A SAINT....WHAT ELSE IS THERE?