Casey,
I recommend reading anything written by Fr. Seraphim Rose. In particular, I benefited from reading his \"Othrodoxy and the Religion of the Future.\" It gives a lot of background on strange things you might run into.
But of all things, what is most important is prayer. I recommend that every night you fall asleep, you do so holding a prayer rope and doing the Jesus prayer. There is no experience like waking up in the morning still using the prayer rope realizing that you did it all night -- or something like that. I don't remember, but I think it's the best kind of sleep you can get.
I hope things go well with your parents. I would be worried that they might find fault with your pursuits and try to impute restrictions or disapproval. There always seems to be much to talk about concerning church politics & scandal, so I would keep these topics to an absolute minimum so that they don't have reason to worry or complain.
It is always fun to tell people about the lives of saints, so I use this strategy to reach people. You might try it on your family. If you start talking about Christ right away, some people throw up a wall. But if you tell them a nice story about a miracle then they accept the story with Christ attached. It's kind of a trojan horse sort of thing.
Walt
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