Florida United Methodist Annual Conference

This past week I went to Lakeland, Florida for a few days. I left on Wednesday and came home Saturday afternoon.

As one of 3 Lay Delegates for our church, I have to go to Annual Conference as a representative of our church to take part and vote on any issues that are being voted on. There is also bible study each morning, but I would consider it more preaching than bible study. The guest speakers were great though and I really enjoyed hearing Bishop Hee-Soo Jung from Chicago and wish I had not missed one of his early morning sessions.

There was plenty of singing and from a few different groups as well as a production of singing and dancing from the kids from the Florida United Methodist Children's Home. There were presentations, retirements, ordinations, calls to service and voting. Fortunately, there wasn't too much bickering about any of the issues.

There was an Expo there as well, so I made my rounds every day and picked up lots of freebies. Water bottles, thumb drives, pedometers, pens, pads, T-shirts, etc. I brought back most of the stuff JT and the ladies in the church office. They were holding a health fair as well so I had my blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar and a couple of other things checked. I was very pleased with the results. All within normal ranges. My cholesterol was under 200 and I don't think it's ever been that when I had it checked before. I tried to give blood though and I was too anemic so they wouldn't take it.

Even though all three of our Pastors went for the weekend and also Howard, one of the other Lay Delegates, it was a pretty lonely 3 days for me and I tried to enjoy the time alone relaxing in my room as much as I could. I stayed at the LaQuinta Inn and was lucky enough to have a microwave and refrigerator in my room. That allowed me to eat in at night and not only save money, but also stay on my diet and eat the low calorie microwavable meals I've become accustomed to.

I discovered while I was at the conference that I still have alot to learn about the church, how it's run, the issues, etc.

I did check out the area to see how many geocaches were hidden nearby and there were actually quite a lot of them. I didn't want to go hunting for them by myself though, it's more fun with JT and Tim or at least someone. There was one close by my hotel though, right behind a 7-Eleven so I was tempted to stop one morning and I saw it almost right away. So at least I got to get at least one find while I was there!