While growing up in the suburbs of Los Angeles in the San Fernando Valley, I never thought that I would eventually end up in a convent in the Bronx. One thing I did know was that I would be happy doing whatever it was God made me for. I know now that I have found what I was made for and it was God who patiently led me here. I ended up going to college at Barnard college in New York City and I majored in chemistry. I had a worldly and successful life. At the start of college I had an “awakening” in my faith, a kind of “conversion” experience and as a result I started getting involved with the campus ministry at Columbia University and even attending daily Mass.
Midway through my sophomore year I went on a retreat and it was then that I realized God was calling me to religious life. It was an immediate, “loud and clear” calling from the Lord to give away everything and to follow Him. I was excited and awestruck all at once because I was suddenly so aware that God knew me intimately and He loved me. I am grateful that God was very clear about my vocation at that moment, otherwise it would have been much harder for me to give up my own dreams and plans. I continued with school and thoroughly enjoyed my evolvement with the Catholic campus ministry and pro-life group. I looked at a few other orders but really felt the Lord was calling me here, to the Franciscans Sisters of the Renewal. I graduated college in May, 2003 and
then spent one year with LAMP Ministries, also in the Bronx. With great joy in doing God’s Holy Will I entered the Community in September 2004.