Today was the first day of our 2024 Montana Immersion trip. Everyone gathered at Calvert Hall at 5:30AM to get ready to embark on this amazing trip. Ms. Henson was very selfless this morning and drove us all to BWI for our first flight at eight to Denver. The first flight had a little bit of turbulence but was overall pretty calm. Once we landed in Denver, we had a little of time to grab a quick bite to eat before gettin on our next flight to Great Falls. Once we landed in Great Falls we had a little bit of a mishap with someone's bag (mine), but they will deliver it out to the Mission hopefully on Sunday. From the airport we picked up our two rental cars and drove to the bunk house where we all are living for the week. The brothers had a few things for us to do around the school, so 8 of us drove the 20 minutes into town to set up some things for Sunday. Four of us stayed back to cook dinner. ~ Ryan F

Dinner was excellent! Our first family meal. After dinner, Brother Jim sat with us for a bit to give us a lay-of-the-land and to help us learn more about the bunkhouse. When he left, we gathered for our first evening prayer and reflection session with our group. There was a word for this prayer, today it was "Discovery", but each day the word will be different. As part of our evening reflection, we spent time journaling and then talked about our experiences. The word each day helps us to focus our reflection and prayer, but we can journal and talk about whatever we want. Tonight, at our reflection, we talked about what we seek to discover this week and how these discoveries can help change our lives for the better. We will always end our day with a meeting like this as a time to wind down and talk about our days while also having productive reflections about ourselves. As the week goes on, the hope is that our interactions with the students and teachers will influence us in a positive way and our discussions will become deeper and more meaningful. Tomorrow, our words are "simplicity" and "zeal", so our focus on prayer will be our enthusiasm to serve and also on the little things we see that fill us with that zeal.- Chris G.