ZINCON 2024 Day 1, Thursday, August 8, 2024

Today has been an amazing day at ZINCON 2024.  Let me bullet-point the highlights, and by God's grace I will write in detail after that.

• Waffles for breakfast
• Meeting "Amanda" 
• Purchasing discounted trolley tickets for travel to and from ZINCON to hotel
• The wonderful prayer call prayer meeting, fellowship, and I participated in the prayers also
• Meeting and making small talk with the bus driver who was very kind to me
• Listening to different inspirational speeches at the morning "kick-off" session
• Hearing about the blind ZUMBA instructor and watching him dance with Beto, and receive an award of some sort to continue to pursue his dreams
• Hearing about the woman whose 23 year old son battled some rare form of cancer, and hearing the son's heartfelt speech to his grandma, Joy Prouty
• Getting to take a picture with Beto himself and the brief interaction with him: nice to meet you and enjoy your jams/zincon or something to that effect
• Meeting Karen in one of the sessions; who is a fellow believer 
• Meeting Anna in the 1st session who post on IG is something spiritual to some extent; she was from Kenya; I had a pen pal growing up from Kenya so I felt an immediate connection with her!
• The session by Marlee King, Dr. King! My strengths include gratitude, love, humility, zest (enthusiasm), and eagerness to learn (in my own words).  My "homework" is to consider how I might demonstrate my strength every day (use my "gift" to benefit others, you might say).  It could be in the ZUMBA world with my students or general ZUMBA community to use my strengths there for them; OR AND/OR I could challenge myself in another area of my life such as work, family or whatever and put into practice my strengths there.  Something to think about; something to do.
• Mauricio greeted me with a warm hug!  And, I was surprised who is this person hugging me, but at the same time that I was surprised is when I realized it was him!  And I said, "oh, Mauricio!" once I recognized him!  His session was all about the technical side of producing social media content.  I think I like to maybe try to learn how I might earn money with ZUMBA related social media content, as an "influencer"; maybe.  On the other hand, if we really are in the times that the Bible talk about as the "end times" then money is not going to do me any good anyway.  I'd be better off learning how to farm and grow my own food and cattle.  But, I digress!
• Speaking of which, the day before this Day 1, I arrived a day early to unpack, register, and scope out the venue in advance for myself.  I got a phone call from a sister "Leah" who was a complete pleasure to speak with.  We talked about current events but from a prophetic end times biblical worldview.  And, that's all I will say about that.  Sister "Leah" also affirmed God's love for me, and value of me, and she also affirmed my role as a fitness instructor and in caring for our temples, and for helping motivate others in the fitness class (ZUMBA).  So, I really appreciated her and God using her to affirm those things in me!  Amen.  Praise the Lord.  Praise the Lord Jesus Christ always.
• I met Tina at the bus stop who also turned out to be from Los Angeles area, and I enjoyed talking with her!
• I was dragging after the 3rd session, and took a brief nap on the seats.  But, I knew better to go home and rest which is what I decided to do.  That made me miss the next and final session for the day, but I did get there at the tail end.  I pushed myself after my rest time, to make it to the end of the session.  I felt disappointed to have missed most of it, but there will be notes available for me to read and review that content.  It was about how to do ZUMBA related fundraising events, which is something I've been very interested in.
• My bullet points turned into a blog.  An extended writing post.  I so enjoy writing; I'm an introvert, or at least I consider myself to be one.
• From Mauricio's session, I realize that I need or should get /invest in a tripod for my photos and videos that I'll be posting up on social media.  Hmmm, how am I supposed to go "off-grid" if I am doing this?!  That's for another day.  
• So my two homeworks so far:  tri pod, think about what kind of social media content I want to make, and also think about how I will use my strengths in a NEW way either in the ZUMBA world or in any area of my life.
• These are a few of my thoughts from today's Day 1 of ZINCON 2024.  Thanks for taking the time to read my post.  I hope you too, are finding and doing what you have been made for.  To be continued, by God's grace.