Great visit to Jax!

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Thanks to all of you who made our recent visit to Jacksonville so wonderful! We had a great time visiting with friends and family while also getting a much needed break from studies and work at the seminary. It feels like we packed in a lot of visiting on our trip, and yet we were unable to see so many great folks, I hope that if we missed you that we'll be able to catch up during our longer visit at Christmas.

One of the many blessings of our trip was attending the worship service at our home parish on Wednesday night. It was wonderful to receive Eucharist in our beautiful sanctuary; surrounded by old friends. It was also great to see many new faces, since St. Andrew's is enjoying a period of significant expansion under the leadership of Father Mark and senior warden Ann. I have always loved the special, almost indescribable, warmth of worship at St. Andrew's... surely the presence of the Lord is in that place.

Our trip ended with a really fun trip to Disney. It was a perfect day, the weather was fine and their were no crowds at all. We spent 5-10 minutes waiting on rides, which was amazing, I'm accustomed to hour-plus waits. The Magic Kingdom employees seem to finally appreciate how much people are spending to be there - my past experience of a 'plastic welcome' has been replaced by genuinely appreciative staffers who were happy to have jobs and happy to have customers. Marti and I had a fun walk down memory lane as we enjoyed the old rides like Pirates and Small World. The kids loved Space Mountain (also an old fave) and Thunder Mountain. The baby cried at almost everything, but he seemed to like the Peter Pan ride. All in all it was a great time and we really thank those of you who made the trip possible.

blessings and peace

Jon