Day in the Life

So what does my day look like? Well, every day is sooooo different, but there are some routine things. I’ll share with you what we do every day and what we do once a week:

Everyday

Every day we wake up and have Breakfast together. We start our blessing prayer at 7:30am and we start eating then. If you’re late, too bad, we aren’t waiting. At the end of our meal prayer we add the prayers:

“All for the love of you, my Jesus”

“May the souls of the faithfully departed, through the Mercy of God, rest in peace”

“God Bless our farmers, our veterans, our mothers, our fathers, our seminarians, our Ben, and God Bless the COOK!”

Then, at 8am we start our hour-long Personal Prayer. At 9:15am (never on time), we leave for Morning Mass at 9:30am. At some point during our day, we have Lunch. Everyday we also have Team Prayer. This normally consists of Praise and Worship songs centered on a theme with some readings from the Bible to reflect on. This usually takes about an hour. We also have Dinner Meal Prep where we have two people to cook dinner. Then we all join together after the meal is prepared to have Dinner. If we aren’t pressed for time, we have a nice dinner around a table that is all set with candles lit. Ideally, we sit around the table catching up on our day and asking intentional questions. Some days, we are pressed for time, so dinners might just be grocery store soup that gets nuked in the microwave. Our next ‘everyday’ thing is Hood Prayer for the Sisterhood and Brotherhood in which the prayer is before bed in the rooms. Then, ideally, Lights Out is at 10:30pm.

Once a week

Once a week we have time set aside for ministry planning. Before each ministry event, we have Ministry Prep to run through the schedule and do some preparations for what we have planned (run through testimonies, get supplies for activities, go over rules for games, etc.). We also have specific planning during the week which would include Drama Practice to go over the skits, Entertainment Practice to go over the games, and ELA (experiential learning activities) to go over the activities. Also, each member of the team is designated certain roles. For example, I am in charge of Social Media, Mary is in charge of Finances, Matt is in charge of Music, etc. We each have a couple of roles to balance the team. So during the week, we have some Services time to work on our independent duties.

We also have weekly Cleaning to tidy up the home and our bedrooms. Along with home chores, we have a Grocery Run and Gas Run that needs to be scheduled. We also get a 2-hour Phone Block that is personal time on our phones to call home or attend to our personal lives. But, sometimes we just take naps during this time because sometimes, it is our only free time.

We all also have individual phone calls with the Supervisors to ask any questions, but mainly to have a thorough check-in on how we are. These are always really good and the Supervisors always offer great tips and advice.

As Team Leaders, Matt and I have to schedule in some administration things. This would include Meetings with the Priest to get weekly duties in the parish and talk about new ministry opportunities. We also have Meetings with the Youth Minister to plan the youth group. We also have to plan our own schedule for the team, so Matt and I will meet individually to Schedule the Week. This is always crazy. Let me show you a glimpse of our schedule:

Because Matt and I are often talking about work and ministry, we schedule in time for the both of us to hang out - called TL Fun Time. It is a time to spend together that is completely stress-free and fun. Most of the time we use that as an opportunity to just sit on the couch and RELAX. We always look forward to our hangouts.

We also have weekly ministry that is pretty constant. We help lead the First Communion Calls on Mondays. And we also go into schools to teach Classes on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. We have Youth Group at night on Thursday’s and Friday’s. And then on Sunday’s we join the Choir for 11am mass and then try to have some kind of event after mass to meet parishioners. Then on Sunday evenings, we have a Bible Study.

Weekly, we also have different ministry opportunities that may include retreats or hanging out with the youth like coffee dates or video games. With all of that, we stay pretty busy in ministry…

…Which means we need to have fun outside of ministry!! Weekly we have a Team Time which allows us some time to hang out as a team and maybe explore a new place or walk downtown somewhere. There is also time in the schedule for the Sisterhood and Brotherhood to hang out to check in how everyone is doing. Us ladies always go to a coffee shop.

And on SATURDAY’S we have our Day Off!!! So we can go anywhere we want and we don’t have any obligations to do anything!

We rarely have independent or introverted time. We are constantly busy. Praise God for that. We have been able to use every minute as a NET Missionary. Especially since my team only has 3 months, it is good that we give as much of ourselves as possible. Sometimes it feels like we are going to break, but God’s grace gets us through the hard days.