How did you end up here at Notre Dame?
I was part of the youth group at church and our old youth group leader left, so we ended up having Russ and I was one of the actual five that stayed from the old youth group. So we ended up bring friends and helping doing the skits and coming up with new ideas. So I was so involved with it, my youth group leader was like “Hey do you want to go to Notre Dame?” so we started getting more information and I was ecstatic about it. And heard "Notre Dame," and that’s the big school. I have never done retreats, ever. This is my first retreat.

So whats it been like?
Inspiring. Different. I have been learning stuff I didn’t know and seeing how everybody is acting. It's out of my comfort zone, the worshipping. I've never seen that before. When everybody sings and no body knows the words, they just start coming up with their own words. I have literally never seen that.

Do you make up your own songs?
I made up one of my own songs when the music was going. Instead of talking it, I just sang it.

Where do you see yourself in ten years?
Ten years, wow. Obviously, hopefully, graduating college and involved with my community. I am already involved at my school with clubs and involved with a lot of people. So I am looking into being a youth group leader, helping kids out. I have done that since I was little. I will be the cooler youth group leader.

What other things do you like to do besides interact?
I love to sing. I have sang my entire life, pratically. I am involved with the chorus at my school. I started up the teen choir at my church. After I finished the children's choir, I was like there is an adult choir and children's choir, so wheres the teen choir? Other churches have teen choirs so I kept persuaing to my youth group leader and my priest. I love to sing and I think that there are other teens in the church that love to sing, can we start a teen choir? And we now have one.

Do you stand up in front and wave your hands like a choir director?
No, well that’s more of a band.

Tell me a funny story about your youth group, something funny that’s happened along the way.
Theres a lot. Our youth group leader is very wacky. We’ll go anywhere and he will just start acting crazy like a three year old. And we have to be like “calm down,” there's people staring. And recently they had said they had gone to denny’s after bible on the beach, and him and two other teenagers had started screaming out, “It's my birthday, it's my birthday!” and screaming it like three year olds, moshing into people. Basically, one of the waitresses got mad, because they wanted a cupcake with a candle on it and wanted to sing “it’s my birthday.” And she got mad at them and they kept apologizing, over and over, moshing up and down, screaming.

Do you still go back there?
I didn’t go with them. I was in Lakeland for a leadership conference. Two students from my high school were chosen and I was one of them. So I was there, stayed at another college campus for a week.

When you see yourself this fall at school, what do you want to do differently than you did last year?
Differently? Talk to a lot more people. I mean, I do it a lot. I can’t stand being at one table the entire period. My best friends all know that if you want to eat lunch with me, you will be getting up every five minutes. But sometimes I get assigned to the same groups of people and I don’t go out more and I don’t talk to teachers because I don’t know that much. And I think that I am going to talk more and let them know that I am a good student anyways and let them know that they are not the only ones going through a hard time in life. And the kids that are going through a hard time in life to let them know that they aren’t the only ones and hopefully talk to them a lot more.

What hard things have you gone through?
My biological father not being there for me.

Are you adopted?
By my stepdad, yeah.

Have you met your biological father?
Yeah. I was one year old when my parents divorced, but you can feel that something is missing. And I had always known that he wasn’t my real dad, I didn’t have to be told that. And our relationship was really weird. I haven’t spoken to him in six years. And when I did six years ago, I thought he was my cousin. There were so many times that I wanted to say, why weren’t you there for me? What did I do? Like why can’t you take the courage or responsibility to pay for child support or at least come and visit me, send a birthday card? Like it was always missing, like I have been told that I don’t need him there for me since my step dad is there for me. Yeah, but I am missing a part of me that I really want back in my life.

Do you have trouble understanding God the Father because of him?
At times. I never considered myself very religious. I was one of those Catholic girls that went to church because your parents do, you pray because that’s what you do in church. And after my grandma died, I have lost the point of prayer since I didn’t have the motivation to do it. I was really lazy in that way and when I would pray, I was like, I want my dad back in my life, why is this happening to me? And my prayers weren’t answered. I was pretty much, what’s the point of it? And over the past three weeks, I have been trying to build up to pray again. This other leadership conference I went and there were girls that were Christians that helped me out. And being here with other Christian leaders help to build me up and I have been praying more. And even in my household, we would read the Bible everyday and we would pray at certain meals, so I have this lack of knowledge. I didn’t know how to do it or when to do it at all. So I was pretty much on my own. And plus, my old priest never really spoke to so even the people at church, so I had no guidance. And seeing Fr. John and my youth group leader, in one year has done so much for me. I am a completely new person, I pray more than I ever did. I help out even more people. I help out a lot more in my community even though I didn’t at first. I actually look forward to going to church. My mom is like you are at church way too much, stay at home for once. And I’m like, it’s something I just gotta do.

What would you like the reader right now to pray for you about?
Pray for me to not lose my confidence or my strength to stop praying. And pray for my dad especially and when times get rough, to not give up.

Will you promise to pray for those people back?
Yes, I will. I swear. I had like literally one year, three weeks, being here, it’s so good to be around my youth group leader, like my best friend is going through a rough time and I spoke to him and a bunch of other people about it and it’s like I am scared for her to get hurt. She’s gone through so much and I’m praying so much for her.

What will you pray for them about?
That they don’t get lost in what the world wants them to be and that they don’t choose the wrong people to hang out with. Peer pressure does so much. I was so lucky enough to not have to go through peer pressure. I guess it was the way I was raised. But I have seen my close, close friends literally get attacked by it and I tell them so much and they don’t see it. And they are those people that are like “yeah, yeah, I won’t do that” but they literally don’t see what they are going through. And I don’t want to see them hurt.