It seems like yesterday that I was moving in to start my freshman year of college. I was excited about starting a new journey in my life and to be honest, I was just excited to get to know me more! I was excited about meeting new friends and people! I was looking forward to be living with someone else that was not family, since I am an only child. I was excited about playing in the pep band and the MC Symphonic Winds! To sum everything up, I was just excited to be at college and have the opportunity to start college! I was excited to see how God would work in my life for the year!

God was able to place me at the right church from square one. I am so thankful for my Morrison Heights Baptist Church family. The members of Morrison Heights have been loving, kind, and caring for me ever since I started attending Morrison Heights. I could not imagine going anywhere else for church! Being involved in a church that loves the Lord has been a highlight to my freshman year. They are also a church that believes in making disciples. I never missed a Wednesday night or Sunday morning, unless I was back at home for the weekend or during the break.

Being a member of the MC Pep Band and Symphonic Winds has been another highlight of my freshman year. I could not imagine not being in the band! I love it so much and even when I wish we did not have practice on certain days, I was reminded on the day of our concerts how hard work pays off. It has been awesome to see how I have improved playing the flute this year. I may not have improved a lot, like you might think, but I have improved on my quality of playing and I have learned how to play more difficult rhythms. I have also learned how to play more notes on my flute that I did not think was possible for me to play! Getting to know the band director, Dr. Craig Young, has been good, as well! Just like any other band director that I have known, he makes jokes, sometimes he gets out of track with what he is doing (even in the middle of a song during a concert), and the most important part, he cares for and about you.

This year has been filled with so many different things that I never thought would happen. I had a lot of different opportunities that I was able to do that I never imagined of doing. I was able to start co-leading a small group Bible Study during both semesters at MC through Morrison Heights. I was able to get involved in the Baptist Student Union (BSU) at MC and do a couple of things with them. This year has also been filled with a lot of new friendships that I will cherish forever! The opportunity to meet these people that I call more like family than friends, has just been an awesome experience for my freshman year! Just getting to know people that love and care about you no matter what is so encouraging and awesome, especially since I am away from home! I was able to lead my first DNOW at a local church close to the school and it was an awesome experience! I had the opportunity to join Odyssey during the summer before I started school, which has been awesome to write every week! The Lord has worked through me and the articles.

One of the most important things that has happened during my freshman year of college, has been my relationship with Jesus Christ. My relationship with Christ has grown in so many ways! I have mainly learned how to trust in God and how to obey the Lord no matter what. At the beginning of my first semester, I kept obeying the Lord and doing things that I questioned at first, but in the long run, I see the Lord was calling me to do particular things for His Kingdom. In my second semester of my freshman year, I learned how to trust God in very uncertain times. I had an awesome opportunity to go to Las Vegas during Spring Break with Morrison Heights on a mission trip. I was not for sure how I was going to pay for it, but I prayed for God's will to happen and I trusted in Him. I was able to get some help from others to pay the trip off. It was so awesome to see God move in so many ways in my life and in others while on the trip. I never saw me going to Las Vegas, and now I cannot wait to go next year during Spring Break! I went through a period after Spring Break to where I had no idea what I would be even be majoring in. I was doubting if I should be a nursing major or not. (I am still going into nursing, though!) While still doubting my major, I found out that I had been put on a waitlist for both of my applications for a summer job at two different camps. I was freaking out, because I has felt the Lord call me to work at a summer camp and I really did not want to work at a fast food place. I ultimately knew that the Lord would do whatever His will was for my life, so I continued to pray that His will would be done and that He would get all the glory no matter what the outcome would be. After a month of praying and trusting in God, I received an email offering me a position at a camp for the summer that I applied for. To say the least, I was praising God big time, because I could see Him in it and I could not have received that email at a better time! I am still learning how to trust in God more, but after those major things that has happened in my life this year, I have grown closer to Him and He has opened my eyes more on a new perspective on life.

It is still crazy to think that my freshman year in college has come and gone. I could not be more thankful for it, though. God has done unimaginable things in my life! I could have not survived freshman year without Him! Yes, classes were hard and stressful at times, but God got me through it! Freshman year treated me pretty good, here at Mississippi College.

Praying that my sophomore year of college will be filled with more unexpected things, a continued closer relationship with Christ, a burning passion for the Lord every day, and better grades!