I am a first-year missionary serving at the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

I was fortunate enough to grow up in a loving family as the youngest of six kids. My family attended Mass every Sunday, and my parents did their best job to teach my siblings and I the faith. In my sophomore year of high school, I was able to attend a retreat at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas, which I ended up attending after high school. I had lost my faith in my final two years of high school and stopped attending Mass and receiving the sacraments.

I came into college with a lacrosse scholarship and a desire to live a lifestyle rooted in modernism and sin. I had no relationship with God and continued to abstain from the sacraments. During my sophomore year, I had hit rock bottom and was thirsting for something more, which was the mercy and love of Jesus Christ. I had to reject myself and my desires in order to grow closer to God and receive the sacraments and it was no easy path.

Since then, I have grown in my faith exponentially and entered into discipleship with one of the missionaries at Benedictine in my senior year where I learned more about the faith and how to lead others in the same direction. I am grateful to now be living and spreading the truth of Jesus and the Gospel at the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado.