Women's Conference

What a wonderful couple of days I was lucky enough to enjoy. I was a little nervous to leave work for 2 days as at the last minute a member of my team decided to take this entire week off. I had been planning on these 2 days for months, actually for longer than that – I start planning on attending Women’s Conference after the last session ends on Friday afternoon!

I didn’t realize how wound up I had become and far away from the spirit I was until I was sitting in the Marriott Center Thursday morning listening to Sheri Dew and I felt her looking at me. Seriously, she was looking right at me. I am sure she didn’t realize she was looking at me, but she was. That was enough for me to let my guard down and let the spirit in. Sister Dew was talking about how important it is for us to step up and be the amazing women the Lord knows we are capable of being. She used the phrase, “Walk away from the world”, more than once and those 5 words really hit home. I need to make more of an effort in my life to turn away from the world and face the Lord. I think that this can mean many different things to many different people. For me it means I need to concentrate more on getting in my daily scripture study then I do making sure I am watching all of the shows I have Tivo’d. It means that I need to follow the example of Jill and send more good mail and be a faithful visiting teacher (I will spotlight Jill later – I just LOVE her). I need to serve more, starting within my own family. I need to be more thankful for all of the incredible blessings I have and not be sad that I am not married and don’t have children. I need to focus on getting my own life in order and not waste my time picking out other’s flaws.

And I got all of this from the first hour!

Each year about a month before Women’s Conference the catalog comes in the mail and great care is taken to determine what classes I will attend. My first pass through I don’t make any marks, I take it all in. I read all of the descriptions and do not even worry about what corner of campus the class will be held. The second pass through I put an X through the classes that I know that I am not interested in – classes on being a good grandmother, preparing sons for missions, being a mother of young children – you get the idea. I am sure these are great classes but they are not the nourishment I am seeking to be fed with at this time in my life. Here is a picture of what my catalog looks like after my 2 day adventure.


I ended up staying in the Marriott Center for the next 2 classes and was not disappointed. The 11:00 class was entitled, “Lay Hold upon Every Good Gift” and it was wonderful and of course, it was just for me. The speakers talked about how we need to determine what our gifts are and that it is OK to ask the Lord for help in developing new gifts. They explained that gifts are not just talents – they are far more – some may have the gift of being on time, the gift of complementing, the gift of writing thank you notes. This class has really got me thinking about what my gifts are and what gifts I have waiting in the wings just waiting for me to ask the Lord to help me realize them. I even spent $1.09 for a set of little index cards that I can start writing down my gifts and gifts I would like to develop. The reason I did this was because I was really having a hard time thinking of my gifts. I found myself feeling almost prideful and I am having to make a conscious effort to shift that thinking. It is OK to think highly of yourself – just so long as you think highly of everyone else too. For those of you who know me, help me out – what do you think some of my gifts are? If you tell me mine I’ll tell you yours…

In this class one of the speakers used a dear friend as an example of a person with some exceptional gifts. She mentioned this person’s name was Vicki and that she worked with the mentally ill and my sister-in-law and I immediately turned to look at each other. We both knew Vicki – I had worked with her years ago. Vicki was killed in a car accident 3 years ago traveling up to Logan for a speaking engagement to help others learn more about how to cope with loved ones suffering from mental illness. Vicki had some incredible gifts and is someone on my list of people to emulate. I really miss her.

The next class was on Sacred Relationships and Self-Reliance. It was also very good and reminded me how important it is for me to keep the education ball rolling so that I can be sure to have the skills I need to provide for myself. It also inspired me to do what I can as a single person to build up my food storage.

After that session we went over to the book store to do some shopping. I love wandering around the bookstore – I could spend hours in there. I spent at least 45 minutes up on the 3rd floor looking at all of the art and meeting some of the artists. I had been looking for a pretty painting of the temple for my home but, of course all of the ones I fall in love with are incredibly expensive. I found Cortney Lunt tucked in a corner with her paintings and I found what I was looking for! I bought a couple of her prints. One big and one small and I need to find some pretty frames.

I am very happy with these and I know these will be a great addition to my home.

After I was done wandering I found an outer corner with some empty chairs and sat down to wait for Michelle (sister-in-law) and her mom. I was reading a magazine and kept staring at a woman sitting across from. I knew I had seen her before but couldn’t place her and then it hit me! It was Marta’s cute Mother! I had met her at the Harvest Boutique Marta and some friends held last fall. And her mom has a blog that I love to read. Of course I just had to re-introduce myself and as we got to talking we discovered that we had lived in the same Stake for years and that her oldest daughter was just a year younger than me at Brighton. It was so fun to get to know her – she just has this way about her that is so warm and inviting – it is very clear where Marta gets that from. Luckily for me, she was there waiting for all of her darling daughters so I was able to see Marta again and enjoyed chatting with her, her cute sisters and darling cousin Kelly for quite awhile. They talked about doing another Boutique next fall and invited me to join in on the fun – I will have to come up with something crafty, cleaver and fun this summer – now that I have my studio almost done it will be fun to get back to ‘creating’.

I really enjoyed getting to know Marta better. She is just a genuinely nice person who is smart, creative, talented and original. We took a picture of the two of us – it is a little blurry but you get the idea. Is she not the cutest little pregnant thing? Brangelina has nothing on that baby bump.

It had been a full day for me at this point and my eye was bothering me (I had another stitch pop Tuesday night!) I decided to head back to Heritage Halls and rest until the concert. I missed out on the service projects and sharing stations but was ready to enjoy the concert – which was wonderful and which was the reason I just had to buy two new CD’s the next day. Hilary Week’s was the host of the evening and introduced all of the performers – how adorable is she!?!?!?! She was so stinkin’ funny and what an beautiful voice she has. I had to buy her CD along with Eclipse’s new CD, “Grateful Praise.”

Wow – it is late! I have to get my beauty sleep so that I look presentable tonight when I meet some fellow bloggers for the first time –

I will finish up my recap later --