What kind of things are they teaching you? Is it like a classroom where you're learning how to become a nun? I have no idea.

Well, it's a little mix of everything.

Okay.

But yes, I mean, we basically followed the schedule.

of the congregation.

So for example, we were up at five in the morning and our life consisted of prayer studies and working in what we call the apostolate.

The apostolate is the work of that particular group of nuns.

Right.

How long were you in the convent? Did you take your final vows, or were you in the process of doing that? Describe that, those years and that life.

I did not take my final vows.

That takes four years to become a temporary pros- professed sister.

I entered the first convent when I was 16.

I was a senior in high school.

So I finished my high school senior year in Boston within the convent.

I was there for a year and a half, and that stage is called the prepostulancy stage.

What did self-acceptance actually look like for you in practice? Not just emotionally, but in your everyday life.

Talk about that relationship.

And I never really talked about this, but to maybe one or two friends while... actually one while I lived in Tampa.

But when I returned from Boston and went back home, so at this point, I'm almost 18 years old.

I returned to my elementary building and I continue to work with the sisters that I went to school with since second grade and went to their camps and worked with them after school.

I went back to them, the Sisters of St. Francis de Sales, and I'm working there as a teacher's aide.

I'm close to the sisters.

I spend all my days with them.

Was there an aha moment one time that catapulted you into acceptance? I