Part 1 - BYU Women's Conference 2014

We woke up early Thursday morning, to get a nice start to an extremely busy day. Everyone was grabbing a quick bite to eat and a few of us slapped out some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to eat between our classes. Everyone was going over which classes they were headed to and discussing where we would meet up afterwards. I snapped some pictures of the early morning chaos:

Can you guess who photo bombed this nice shot of Tricia and Beth? hehe

Tricia and Beth in back, Mom and Debbie in front

Little Evie enjoying some yummy breakfast.

Me and Kaytie getting our shoes on.

I'm going over my schedule again, making one last attempt to get someone to go with me.

The Epperson girls, I think I am mid-laugh...not the best picture of me.

After a group photo, we packed up into two cars and headed into Provo for the conference. The traffic was horrible when we got to University Parkway. So at a crawl we made it to an open parking lot in front of the football stadium. And made the rest of the way on foot up to the Marriot Center. Debbie had to drop Evie off with a baby-sitter and so the rest of us made our way inside and found seats. I have never seen so many women in one place:

Packed House!

As they were announcing the Conference schedules and service opportunities, Debbie rejoined us and we sat to listen to Sheri Dew, a famous LDS speaker:

She spoke mostly about Grace and what it is. She talked about four key points, starting with "What is Grace?" Grace is the healing power, it enables us to do things we couldn't do on our own. Second "What difference can it make?"  Basically she said if we are humble and ask for help, Christ is always there to help us climb our mountains. "How does He make His power available to us?" By divine gifts, like the Holy Ghost, Temple ordinances, and the Priesthood power, which both men and women have equal access too. And fourth "What must we do to have access to His grace?" She listed three things: 1- Love the Lord more than anything, 2- Have a change of heart, and 3- Become true followers of Christ. She ended her talk by saying that none of us are going to stay in this life long so we need to focus on the lasting things. And that it is impossible to be a disciple of someone we don't know.

I loved her talk it really got the spirit of the conference going. The theme of the conference focused on Grace. So with the morning session concluded everyone made a mad dash to their first class.

 

My first class of the day was in a really small room so I was happy I arrived early enough to grab a seat. The name of the class was "Steady to the End." Talking about how to keep going through life looking forward to a good finish. Each class was taught by two people. The first speaker made a few good comments. My favorites were that instead of focusing on having a "perfect day" try and look for those small perfect moments in your everyday life. And that if you are on the right path, you'll always be moving up hill. There will be challenges but Christ will always be there to help pull us up. Storms come and go but those little perfect moments keep us going.

The second speaker was fun because she used quilts to make her key points.

 Which were basically:
* Trust in the Lord
* Learn to recognize the promptings of the Spirit
* Sometimes you must go back to the basics
* You need to stand back and look at the whole picture
* Remember to rely on Faith
* Testimonies can be destroyed by discontent
* Remember who we are, let all words be uplifting
* Creativity is great but remember to stay within the bounds made by the commandments
* Remove the things that over shadow the good
* Accept callings, Be patient and be open to promptings

She ended the class by saying becoming perfect is an ongoing project. We have to keep working at it.

So after my first class I had to run across the quad to make it to my next class. Eating my peanut butter and jelly sandwich on the move. I made it in time and discovered I could have moved a bit more leisurely because my next class room was huge and I ended up on the balcony which never filled up.

My next class was about "Depression." Depression has been an interesting topic for me. There have been times in my life that I have felt depressed, not to the point of needing medical help. But just really really down days. So when I saw a class about it I was interested in attending. I wasn't disappointed, the speakers where very good.

The first speaker compared some one with depression to a clay pot, over time a clay pot will wear out and crack and eventually break. She taught that the Lord is there to pick up our broken pieces. She talked about an art form used in Japan called Kintsugi, where they take broken pots and repair them and make them better than they were before. She used this process of mending and compared it to Christ:

* Christ is the master mender. With His help we can transform brokenness into strength.
* Those destined to sink, just need to remember that Christ can walk on water. Just grab His hand and he will pull you up.
* We need to remember to pray for mending.
* Depression turns our mind inward to loneliness, service gives us courage and purpose to focus on someone other than ourselves.
* We don't have to be perfect.

* The key to over coming depression depends on our willingness to turn our broken parts over to Christ.
* The Lord loves us.
* We need to "look up from the weed patch and turn to the 'Son' "
* The Holy Ghost works through our thoughts and our mind, those with depression are effected in their minds and therefore have a broken link to the Holy Ghost. They in turn feel "bad" or unworthy of God's love. We need to trust in the Lord no mater what.
* We need to do whatever is nessasary to strengthen our faith.
*Sometimes our "waiting room" doesn't have a clock.
* We need to hold fast to HOPE!

It was a great class and I learned a lot. I hope I can be able to turn to Christ in my times of depression.

My last class of the day was luckily located in the same building as my second class. So I didn't have far to go to get there. By the time I made it in line, it had already wrapped around outside the building. When I got into the room it fill up within minutes.

 

The class was called "We never walk alone." It was all about how even though we may not know where our life is taking us, The Lord always has a plan for us. "We were not placed on this Earth to walk alone." The Lord knows who we are, so "why do we doubt?" He wants to teach us how to return to Him, so let Him! We may ask ourselves "when I've tried all my life to be good, why is this happening to me?" Life is full of tests and trials, if we look for them we will see the lessons in our trials.

What really touched me about this class was the video they showed at the beginning entitled: Mountains to Climb.

There wasn't a dry eye in the the room after it. This life is hard but we can get through it knowing that there is a God above that loves us and wants us to be happy.

After a great afternoon of classes, I headed back to the Marriot Center to meet up with everyone else and listen to the day's closing session.....