I feel like I haven't posted in forever!!! So much has happened over the last few weeks!!!
My mom came to visit this weekend! It was so wonderful seeing her...I can’t believe it’s been a whole month since I left California!! It worked out perfectly that her hotel was just around the corner from both my apartment and my rehearsal facility. We walked around the city a little and I got to show her around the rehearsal studio and the apartments. I took her to some of my favorite parts of Toronto and we even went and saw “The Muppets” up by the Eaton Centre. She was able to meet a handful of my cast members including my wonderful roommates! It was so nice to catch up with her and show her how much fun I am having up here in Canada!
Can you see the snowflakes on our coats?!
My roommate, Ava, turned 25 last Monday! Maleah planned a surprise birthday party for her. She painted a “Happy Birthday” sign and baked some brownies, while my mom and I made a cake! All of our treats were delicious!!! Ava went out to dinner with a couple girls and she was told to stop by one of out cast member’s rooms afterwards to pick up something. Our whole cast was hiding in the room anxiously awaiting her arrival! She finally walked through the door and we all shouted “surprise!” She almost cried she was so surprised! It was so much fun!
A couple of weekends ago, the Fantasy 1 and Dream 3 Character Casts went ice skating together! There is an outside skating rink down by the water that is actually a pond that they freeze in the winter. We had a blast skating around the pond together and taking tons of pictures and falling all over the place. We even did some Zumba to the music that was playing outside!
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| Fantast 1 and Dream 3 Characters!!! |
Our Character manager, Michael(bottom left) tried skating under Justin's legs (the guy I am pointing and laughing at)...The most hilarious collision I've ever witnessed. We were laughing so hard that we all fell down.
We're dancers...
Which means we're really not all that graceful...
Two of of our cast members organized and hosted a Trivia Night. There were 7 groups of 5-8 people and we were given different questions to answer and challenges to complete. We had trivia on Canada, geography, films and celebrities. There were three challenges: finishing the lyrics to a random song, smelling and tasting a mystery substance and trying to guess what it was, and collecting a list of items from our teammates’ rooms in 7 minutes. Our team name was Team Train Wreck because our team was thrown together last minute, but we ended up tying for third place!
Our lovely hosts!
We are currently sharing the rehearsal space with the Fantasy 1 cast! The Fantasy is the brand new Disney cruise ship that sets sail in March 2012! I have made a lot of friends in this cast and last weekend we were invited to watch the first run-through of the brand new Disney musical, Wishes! It was fantastic! There were a lot of Disney executives observing the rehearsals and filming the Fantasy cast for videos like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mFP9Po5-FE&sns=fb
There are so many exciting things going on up here. We are finishing up our second main stage show and then we only have one show left to learn! Pretty soon we will be doing daily run-throughs! We only have about a month left in Toronto and then it's off to the ship! I'm getting pretty nervous for Orlando, but also anxious to perform all of our shows in costume and on stage in front of a live audience!!!
God brought two new friends to our bible study this week! I haven’t been able to set an exact time and day when we can meet because our schedules are always different. Only 4 of the usuals showed up this time. We all shared a little bit about where we're at and what we believe. After a long discussion about love and religion and such, we went around the circle and asked for prayer requests from everyone. After the group meeting, our two new friends said they definitely wanted to start coming regularly!
I decided that I want to be a prayer warrior. I have witnessed the power of prayer first hand and I know that God listens. I want to become more comfortable with verbal prayer and more confident with private prayer. I want to fully experience the intimacy of prayer. So I'm starting this new thing I like to call a prayer jar. Each week I will collect prayer requests from the friends in my small group as well as from anyone back home. I will write all of these prayers down and keep them in a jar on my bed stand. I will designate a time once a week where I sit down and pray each prayer and spend at least an hour just spending time and listening to God!
After closing small group in prayer, I shared a video that was made during this year's Halloween up in Santa Barbara by the church I became a part of in Isla Vista. This video had really spoken to me earlier that day and reminded me that I am not in control. I do not have to strive to be a light because His spirit lives in me and He is always working. I need to learn to rest and trust in Him more. If you have the time to watch this video, please do. It is a beautiful example of God's love and how He intended His people to live: freely and joyfully!
