Originally written on Dec. 9, 2008

Hello from Moriah again! It is hard to believe that the semester is almost over.  Yesterday, I took one of my nursing cumulative finals, and I'm certainly glad to have that one behind me.  I have one more final today in philosophy and one more nursing final tomorrow in pharmacology. Then, I will be officially done for the semester.  I can't wait to have a break from school and be able to focus on basketball only. Yesterday, we had a day off practice, which we all appreciated. It was nice to be able to sleep in and not have to worry about basketball and just be able to study. 

On Sunday, we played Auburn and kept it a close game.  Going into the second half, we were leading by one point and kept it close for the majority of the second half, but ended up losing by 11. I was still impressed with our team, because right now we are currently playing with seven players and only two out of the seven are seniors. The rest are either freshmen or sophomores, excluding Amber Mays, who transferred in from a junior college this season.  I think we have been defeated these past few games because we lack depth on the bench and we can't keep people as fresh as we might like to.

We have had a rough start to our season, but I think God is building our team to be a much stronger team than what we would have been if we did not have as many injuries. It has given girls the opportunity to get quality minutes, who may not have gotten to play otherwise.  I think it will make our team much deeper going into the second half of the season.  This past week, we had another girl go out with an injury, but thankfully we will be starting to gain people back within a week or so.  I can't wait until we get people healthy and we will be an even stronger team. 

One thing I can say is that our team has done a great job of keeping our heads up, and I believe it has stemmed from Coach Green staying so positive.  He has done a great job of encouraging our team to keep pressing on.  One acronym that he sent to us in an email was P.U.S.H. It stands for Pray Until Something Happens.  I thought it was very encouraging. We have also had great support from our loyal fans, who are always so positive and encouraging.  Thank you so much. We all truly appreciate it!

This past Wednesday, I went to see the Virginia Christmas Spectacular (Living Christmas Tree) with my sisters and a couple of teammates.  For those of you who don't know what the Virginia Spectacular is, it is a Christmas performance put on by Thomas Road Baptist Church, here in Lynchburg.  In the program there is singing, which comes from two huge Christmas trees that have singers in them, as well as acting.  It was really good this year, and I know it will impact many lives for Christ.  For those of you who get a chance to go, I would recommend it. Well, I am studying for the rest of my finals, but here is a little glimpse of what I have done since the last time I wrote. I wish everyone a Merry CHRISTmas, since I don't think I'm scheduled to write to you before then!