Greek Conference

Last weekend I headed to Indianapolis, IN for Greek IV Conference. It was so much fun and I'm so glad I went. Here's a little recap of what I did and learned from the weekend:

Friday:
I had to go later than the rest of the group because of my classes so I flew to Indianapolis. After a strange start to my journey at the Des Moines Airport where attendance was taken on the plane I made it to Indianapolis and was picked up at the airport by a volunteer with the conference. I got all checked in and then headed to my room to hang out with the other Drake peeps. There were 5 other DGs (Tess, Christina, Lindsay, Haley, Anna), Amy, and Turk from Drake. That first night I missed the sessions, but still got to chat with all of those wonderful people before we went to bed. We spent the night talking about a lot of random things and it was so great to see my DG sisters again and spend time with them as well as meet one of the new members.

Saturday:
We got up and got ready then heading to Starbucks for breakfast. We arrived at our concentrations a little late because of this breakfast stop, but we decided people needed to eat. My concentration was called Influencer and my specific section was about how to influence the world. It was aimed at graduating seniors and so it talked a lot about making the transition from a student in a greek house to the "real world", and how we can be influential in our new location. It was a great concentration- I learned a lot and it really made me think about some things.
Here are the things that stuck out to my from the concentration:

• God is still shaping you: life in your 20s is primarily about what God is going to be doing in you rather than through you. This is the time of your life where you are figuring out who you are and what God is calling you do. Your calling is not just about what you do, but who you are and what you are becoming.
• Get to know yourself better- find out what your passions are. There is a quote that we talked about and that I have talked about before about where the deepest needs are and where your passions meet is where God is calling you. I just love this!
• Stay connected to others in community- wherever you are sink your roots in deep no matter the length of time you will be there. This really stuck out to me because lately I've been thinking how I won't be at Drake much longer and then I'll be moving about for the next year so it doesn't exactly matter what I'm doing. Even though I'll be in these places for a short amount of time I need to be present and loving people and finding people who I can be in community with while I'm traveling around.

During our lunch break we headed to the Butler area and ate at the Ripple Bagel Deli and it was SOOO good. Haley ate here on a college visit and said it was good and so we decided to check it out. After that we headed over to the DG house at Butler and asked for a tour. Our tour guide was really nice and did a great job showing us around the house and explaining things even though we just dropped by. I love looking at other DG chapters and seeing the similarities and differences. Their house is a lot bigger than ours and has more of a typical sorority house feel in my opinion.

After supper back at the hotel we had large group time. The speaker was James Choung and he did a great job. The talk was on the "good life" and what exactly does that mean. It focused on the story of the rich man who was told to give up all his wealth and follow Jesus, but he couldn't do it. I feel like this has been in theme in my life lately through Urbana and Greek Conference and other things. To follow Jesus means to give up everything and follow him for the good life. It's not what the world says it is, but it is so much better. I think that has been hard for me to accept lately. I love having plans and everything mapped out and control so it's really hard for me to trust God's plan and timing for my life and to be ok with giving up that control. But if I really want to follow Jesus that is going to be what I have to do. I'm still not sure what exactly that looks like in my life, but I'm excited to continue to say yes to God in all the small ways and figure out what his plan is for my life.

After that we had a dance party and the theme was country clubbin' so we all got dressed up in our preppy attire and headed to the dance party. It was actually a lot of fun dancing and hanging out with everyone. Then after the party we headed to our room and chatted for quite a while before we went to bed.

Sunday:

We woke up, got ready, and headed back to Des Moines. It was an 8 hour car ride back and so it was nice to chat some more and also rest a little. I'm not the best at sleeping in the car so I didn't do that, but still just got to rest and relax before coming back home.


Here's some pics from the weekend: