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Howdy everyone! My name is Bridget Hennessy and I am a junior studying sociology at St. Mary’s University.  I am a member of the Marianist Leadership Program and that is the reason I had the wonderful opportunity to go on the LA Winter Immersion 2014 trip.  I made the trip and had a wonderful time, but now I’m back in Texas, getting back into my normal routine.  I’ve been thinking non-stop about the trip and wondering how I can put my experience into words. “So how was LA?”  These are four words that I have been dreading.  This simple question could be answered with just “good” or with an hour long conversation.  For me, I would prefer the longer conversation, although the “good” is WAY easier!  I enjoy going on retreats and religious experiences like this one, but I always struggle with articulating my experience afterwards and sharing with others what I learned and gained.  I want make my experience known and understood by others because this is...

Hey everybody, this is George and Charro from Chaminade (Go Swords!) and we'd like to share the story of our journey as we returned to Skid Row. We woke up kind of early in order to prepare for the long yet fun filled day ahead of us. I (George) started off my day with a few bowls of triple rainbow Lucky Charms and a healthy dose of optimism (and sugar obviously). The drive to Downtown Los Angeles was a little cold and hazy, the buildings blurred in the distance. Arriving at the Union Rescue Mission (URM), I could see that it was a place that meant business; it had somewhat of an official feel to it. Once inside, we made our way to the kitchen and after dawning our hair nets, rubber gloves and aprons, we immediately began to help out with creating the breakfast plates. It was there that we met Rene. At first she seemed like any other volunteer that we'd met in the previous days, but then she shared her story with us; she h...

Aloha, everyone! This is Faith, Joey, and Annie. After a long day of service yesterday, we were able to sleep in a bit and at 9 o'clock, we departed for San Gabriel Mission. This is one of the many histroic missions in LA. Here, we did something a little different than we have been. We broke into groups and spoke with each of our adult leaders about the Marianist charisms, leadership, and social justice. Br. Mark and Br. Brandon explained how charisms are gifts of the Holy Spirit that we can use to mold our own spirituality.  Brian helped us to reflect on how we can set goals and develop our own personal visions.  Later in the week, we're sharing our visions with each other. We talked with Mo about the difference between social justice and charitable works, and how they are different in that social justice goes beyond good deeds and aims to change systems that are in place. San Gabriel Mission Bells Next, we went to Dolores Mission and had lunch in the plaza. Dolores Mission i...

     Today our day started early at 5:30 AM and after a short breakfast we were split into two groups and sent to two different locations. The first was The Catholic Workers Group and the second was Union Rescue Mission. Both of these locations reside in the overpopulated Skid Row district located near downtown Los Angeles.       At The Catholic Workers Group we were working at a soup kitchen that was affectionately named "The Hippie Kitchen" and we soon came to find out why. The majority of the workers that were involved in the sustaining of the Kitchen were a crowd of older folks who were probably well versed in the art of protesting and living in the Hippie era. The workers all had their own story to tell and a compassion for the work that they did, with an undescribable force that can only be fully understood watching it happen in real time. At one point during a prayer that was held before we ...

Our morning adventures began with a full belly of the famous Vietnamese dish Pho and insight into the life of an inspiring individual. We all gathered around a long table at the well known Vietnamese restaurant to indulge in the Asian culture. The dish of rice noodles with beef and the company of Mr. Chan filled our stomachs and hearts with warmth. This man had only known us for a short amount of time, yet treated us like any true Marianist would, like family. He shared his struggles of escaping North Korea during a time of religious persecution and communist take over. Mr. Chan's story sounded unbelievable with the amount of people who died in front of him during his immigration. The boat he took to America was small with over a 100 people who lived with out water and food for three weeks. It was a miracle that he survived. Mr. Chan's bravery and courage was striking, and looking at him now, no one could ever tell he had a past of suffering. He made a joke at the end of our m...

Good Evening!! It is Morgan (from Dayton) and Bridget (from St. Mary's)!! It is 10:30 pm here in LA. After the Dayton group getting delayed a day due to airplane issues and what not, we finally made it this morning!! We instantly began getting to know each other and clicked pretty quickly and started forming a beautiful community right away (#Marianist). While the rest of the group was waiting for the UD people to arrive they went to mass on the property where we are staying. They said mass was great and got a special greeting from the priest that called them students from Ohio but obviously none of the Ohio students were there hahaa. Once the Dayton crew got to Santa Teresita, our home for the next week, we raided the kitchen for food since we hadn't eaten all day!! Once everyone got back, we began with prayer and then a little "would you rather" game to break the ice allowing us to see where we were all at with this trip and where we have been before this trip! It w...