What's Going on at Conception

The weather is changing. Fall is here and winter is coming. Nothing new about that, is there? On my last blog I wrote on this site I included some pictures of the trees and flowers on campus. Well the leaves are pretty well gone now and the flowers have frozen a couple times. We have had a lot of windy weather in this area and so the beautiful leaves are mostly on the ground by now. We are well into November. I went into Walmart in Maryville yesterday and you would have thought it was already Christmas. Christmas decorations and Christmas music. The business world has certainly taken over the Christmas feast.

Speaking of the weather, however, the last few days have not felt at all like Christmas. We have had some days when the temperature got down into the 20's at night, but the last few days it has been getting up into the 70's. Great weather for being outside. The harvesting is pretty well all done in this area. We had a lot of nice weather for the fall and so the farmers were able to harvest all their crops in good time. Some years they are barely finishing by Christmas.

This coming weekend will be the first vocation weekend of the present school year. Called "Encounter With God's Call" two of these are held each year, one in fall and another in the spring. It is a good way for young men in high school or college to visit and get acquainted with the seminary as well as those who are presently seminarians. Talks are presented by seminarians here.

This next weekend too will feature the drama production for this fall. Cotton Patch Gospel will be presented in the gym and auditorium on Friday evening, November 12, on Saturday evening, November 13 and on Sunday afternoon, November 14.

Last week we had a farewell luncheon for two of our employees in the Development Office. Jarrod Thome, an alumnus of the seminary, and his wife, Emily, are moving back to Wichita, the home town of both of them. They have four girls, two sets of twins. Olivia and Sophia were three years old last August, and this fall another set of twin girls were born, Nora and Grace.
So I think they are looking forward to some help from family and friends when they get back to Wichita. Jarrod began work here in March 2007, as Director of Communications. Later his wife Emily also began working here on investigating available grants. They will be missed by all of us here at the Abbey and Seminary and we appreciate their friendship and all they have done for Conception. We wish them many blessings in their life.

Jarrod, Emily, and family

I myself have been seeing doctors recently. For years I have had high blood pressure, but suddenly it went up very high. Finally it is coming back down after the changing of medicine and adding more medicine. I had to cancel an oblate trip to both Des Moines and Wichita because of this. Sorry about that.

Let us all continue to pray with and for one another.

Fr. Kenneth