Hello Friends!

Well as promised, I have a long awaited love story, and I’ll explain later. I want you to be waiting in suspense because 1.) it is that good and 2.) God is that good and 3.) Mary is an amazing mother.

So the YFE….

Fun and jam packed—5,000 plus personas allí.

I was working mostly “behind the scenes” and didn’t receive much of a chance to get in the action unless it was with 7-9 years olds, because I was a K4J team leader….the teams were supposed to only be 10 kids and somehow I ended up with 14, with 10 of them boys. Every morning was an interesting morning, we’ll leave it at that.

Thursday I believe it was, once again all the days blur into one giant day, I experienced a bit of a meltdown while in adoration and it went something like this

“Jesus….i love you. But I am so done with this, these rules, these norms, these nylons—I am going straight to back to Cincy after this”

And then the rebuttal, “Maria, that’s funny, because I think this is where I want you to be. So I guess you’re gonna have to decide, your will or My Will.”

Fine. If you put it like that…….

But then, all the amazing things started happening, and I realized that in fact Jesus does love me (I don’t believe I have actually ever doubted that reality).

Friday I was asked by one of my best friend, Ashley’s, parents to go to a special dinner with Fr. Alvaro, our General Director. What an amazing experience. I arrived in front of the largest house I have ever seen, I thought it was a museum, was admist the elite of Regnum Christi and found myself completely enjoying watching the interaction of priests with these individuals. Cardinal Rode (he is in charge of religious in Rome), who invited himself to the YFE because he is obsessed with RC was there and I called him “Father” on accident…whoops. And then I met an older woman named Claire from California who has basically adopted the Legionaries—seriously. She has bought a pool table, fuse ball and decided to buy a air hockey table while we were talking to they come over often. So this is how the other half lives. Awesome. She also invited me to visit whenever I wanted and assured me that I will always have a place to stay in Callie….dude (I feel as though that is the way you respond in Californian.)

So this is my thought process, “good things come in 3s….those were 3 goodies, and I know (exercising my childlike faith) that I will meet Eduardo. There is no way in high heaven that my Father would not let me meet him.” Well, being Saturday and all, I placed my desire to meet the man of my dreams in Mary’s hands. I guess I figured that my mother would do anything for me that was within her control and power, so Mary who is tight with Jesus, my Savior, can pretty much pull some strings for me.

Lets just say that the entire day was a tease. I would see Eduardo from a slight distance, I would get oh so close to stroking his beautifully luscious black locks, but I always missed the moment. I decided against the crowd of 15 year old girls running after him to become like that, because who wants to say that they basically attacked their husband upon their first meeting? I mean, that would be so embarrassing.

At last I finally saw my chance to steal a moment with him—and then got called away to partake in a special mission—transporting a full drum set from the world congress center to a hotel on the other end of the street. Ok, this was a special mission—and now it is time for you to sit down, or else the excitement will overtake your body, you will start shaking, possibly go into convulsions and collapse. Quite frankly, I don’t want my fabulous love life to be the cause of any injuries—it would them loose all spunk for me, not to mention what it is ultimately going to do to you.

While in the middle of transporting this large, bulky, awkward drum set, a very charitable dad asked if he could help. We graciously accepted his offer, but shot down his suggestion of crossing the street to go directly into the South Tower of the Omni Hotel. We were on the side of the street with the North Tower and found it prudent to just go in there and go across the skywalk to get to the 15^th floor of the south tower. Once inside the lobby, I volunteered myself to venture to find a pushy thing to pack up and take across. I found one downstairs, got in the elevator and started up to the lobby. Once out of the elevator lost in my thoughts about only God knows what, I turn the corner and see can’t believe my eyes—straight in front of me are the luscious locks I longed to stoke. You know how Bugs Bunny sees like a girl bunny and his jaw slams to the floor? You now know what I looked like for a split second. Quickly I composed myself, I think I may have pushed a priest out of my way (sorry Father), grabbed the beautiful hand of my love and sinking deeply into his transcending blue eyes said, “Hi.”

Hhhhhhhmmmmmmmmm……(sweet sigh)

Our conversation continued for a few minutes while all time stopped and it was just him and I holding hands expressing to each other how we were praying for each other and we would continue to do so (I’m not kidding) and then he was whisked away, gently saying, “it was great to meet you”. As soon as a turned from him, my body started to frantically shake, my friends assured me that I was totally collected and I invited them all to our wedding on the spot. I knew he would want the first witnesses there.

The rest of the night I was floating. I still levitate when I think about it—and thank Mary for being such an amazing mother and pulling through.

Those of you who are curious to meet the man I will be marrying can go to www.bellathemovie.com and not only meet him, but also get extremely pumped for Bella’s world premiere October 26. It is going to be super important that there is a huge presence at the box office that opening weekend so to show Hollywood that it is possible to have a successful movie with moral values. Please, please, please check it out and mark your calendars!

I am sorry it has taken me so long to update….i hope it was worth the wait! Blessings!

PS—I’m going to Atlanta….and am totally excited! Sorry Begona! J