Contributed by CARP Las Vegas
On October 19th, CARP Las Vegas hosted a one day retreat with the theme, “You Are Worth More.” There were four new guests, two community members, and ten CARP members in attendance.
In preparation for their upcoming Campus Talk event, the theme was to convey the message that the lives we live are meant to be so much more than what we can imagine.
To give CARP leaders more ownership, CARP members were the ones to give the presentations. For this workshop, the presenters were Ryota Naito, Masato Takahashi, JungHyo Batino, and Mia Taguchi.
By being the ones to present, each of them had a deeper experience with the content and could reflect how these principles we study in CARP have affected their life in a positive way and helped them to understand God more deeply.
As always, all the participants had their own teams to help discuss the lectures that they received. Each participant shared with one another how they see the principles working in their lives. Whether they were born into the Unification community or attended the workshop for the first time, they all had experiences to share of how the Principle was working in their life.
As per CARP Las Vegas tradition, the workshop concluded with a bonfire talent and testimony time. During testimony time, all the new participants shared their experience on the workshop. Here were some of the reflections:
Hearing God’s plan for us on experiencing eternal love & joy was important because it helps me to understand that He wants the best for me & His heart for me.” - Jennifer Silerio, fourth year CARP member
“From diving deeper into surrounding myself with good people, I realized that there are some people in my life that shouldn’t be allowed to hurt and cause me to disregard my morals. It’s important to me, especially right now to continue to grow my heart and love myself more.” - Danette Roybal, first-time participant
“I realized that I was guided by God a lot in my life. This is not a new realization from this retreat but thinking about the reason that God guided me here is important.” - Tadakuni Sakamoto, first year CARP member
“I couldn’t believe in a peaceful world, but coming to CARP made me feel that it is possible. I will definitely continue to come back to future CARP events.” - Joseph, first-time participant
“I gave a lecture as if I was giving a lecture to my 18-year-old self, which was when a [these principles] really spoke to me for the first time. That was very deep for me because it gave me a sense that all the guests here were a younger version of myself, seeking the truth for the first time. I could feel God’s desperation for me but also His deep love to never give up on me.” - Ryota Naito, fourth year CARP member and presenter
See more of CARP Las Vegas on their website. Share your story to jennifer@carplife.org.