Life is just a sequence of Reoccuring Events - Make them fun!: Part 2

So as I was following the crowd making it's way back up to the Marriot Center, I also finished the rest of my lunch. Making a quick call to my mom, I was able to find our meeting place. Everyone was a bit tired from the day so my Mom stayed outside with little Evie, Beth and Lauren. While the rest of us went inside to hear Brother and Sister Hafen speak.

Like with Sister Sheri Dew, they spoke on Grace and the Atonement. They team taught with one speaking on one point and then the other jumping in and speaking on the next. They covered the Fall of Adam and Eve and explained that without it there would have been no joy because we would have never known the difference between misery and joy. But because of the Fall we also had the need for a Atonement. Without the Atonement of Christ we have no way to continue to grow and progress in this life and the next. "Through Grace we are saved AFTER all we can do." God is merciful and if we repent our burdens will be lifted.

Their talk was pretty deep and some parts were hard to follow but I was glad we listened. A couple of us were falling asleep though, so we sneaked out during the closing hymn. And met up with everyone else at the Sharing Stations.

The Sharing Stations were a small little expo that had booth full of ideas to help with lessons or our community.

Lauren got to play with a little Violin

Little Evie had to hang out in the hallway

Since there wasn't very many Sharing Stations we decided to head out for dinner and beat the crowds. We walked down to the Brick Oven Pizzeria.

The May Girls

The Epperson Girls...minus me I was taking the picture

Dinner was so yummy, some of us even had left overs to take home and eat later. As we were eating we took a vote to see who actually wanted to stay for the musical entertainment happening that night. Most of us were pretty tired. So it ended up being Tricia, Kaytie and Aunt Geniel that stayed to watch the concert. The rest of us packed up and headed back to Kaytie's to relax. I soon fell asleep but everyone else stayed up later to play games and hang out.

Friday morning came early but we were all up and excited for another wonderful day at Women's Conference. Debbie and Mom had to take little Evie to a sitter in South Jordon so they left before us and the rest of us packed lunches and made a more leisurely way back up to Provo. Taking the route through Orem and up the canyon road. A lot less traffic than our route the day before. We made it in plenty of time to get good seats for the morning session. Mom and Debbie joined us not much later and we all sat down to listen to the three General Women's presidents for the church.


Sister Wixon, Sister Oscarson, and Sister Burton

Sister Linda Burton spoke first. She is the Relief Society General President for the church. And she taught about how even though we feel unpolished we can hear the Master whisper into our ear "don't quit, keep playing (going)." And she said "Our greatest joys, often follow our darkest days," and she concluded with that we need to "pay attention to the unseen arms surrounding us." We can keep going.

After Sister Burton, we heard from Sister Bonnie Oscarson, Young Women's General President. She spoke about the importance of the Atonement and how we need to make it personal for us. We need to study it and become familiar with it. Because we can't be saved without it.

Then the morning session was concluded with Sister Rosemary Wixom speaking. She's the General Primary President. She started by stating "Nothing will amaze us more after we die than to remember how well we know The Father and how well He knows us." He knows us individually, He knows our names. So we need to remember that when we face trials, He knows what we can handle. We need to look forward with hope.

Then we split up again to attend our first classes. This time Beth and Kaytie joined me for my class. It was called "Coping with Stress, through Healthy Eating and Good Sleep Habits." The first speaker focused on the eating healthy part.

She listed a few good foods that help with depression, stress, fatigue:
*Good carbohydrates
*Omega 3
*Vitamin D
*Iron
She also went through the food groups and explained that we need to eat from all five groups, eat different types of food in each group, and try not to eat too much of one group. Make peace with food, and respect when our body is full.

The second speaker was a psychiatrist, he called himself one of the Quorum of 12 psychiatrist for the church. He was pretty funny and explained that we are going to get stressed in life. We can't avoid it. It's part of the plan of salvation. We need to learn how to cope with stress. Stress is only negative when it last too long because then it causes our body to go into a fight or flight mode where we loose our appetite. He taught that we needed to form an emotional cushion. He listed off somethings that would help:
1 - We need to see life as a set of challenges and adventures
2 - Practice positive self talk - "I make good choices"
3 - Our brain is happy when you have a daily routine
4 - We can't focus on everything, tell yourself to worry about it tomorrow.
5 - Perfectionism - admit mistakes, we are not perfect, learn from them
6 - The avoidance of stress...causes stress

We need to get in a routine of exercise, a good healthy diet (Don't be rude, get some food) and have good sleep habits. He listed a few things that help us sleep:
*Give yourself a twilight time to unwind before sleeping
*Sleep in a dark room
*Don't eat a large meal before
*Go to sleep when tired
He then listed a few foods that can help you sleep: walnuts, almonds, warm milk, pretzels, corn chips and cherry juice. He concluded his section of the class by singing some entertaining songs about prescription drugs used by psychiatrists. We weren't suppose to clap at the end of the class but everyone did anyway.

Then I said good bye to Beth and Kaytie and ran for my next class which I was having with Lauren and Aunt Geniel. Luckily I had Lauren to keep a spot for me so I was able to eat my lunch without having to hurry. Which was nice. After eating and meeting up with them we sat down to listen to our next class.

This class was entitled "Good, Better, Best" and it was about making good choices between good things. Something that is hard to do when you are trying to do all you can do. When making decisions we need to ask ourselves "Is this increasing my faith?" or "Is this strengthening my family?" How much time are we taking for stuff that is not really important in the long run. One of the speakers talked about this couple that bought an annual pass to Disneyland. Throughout the year they went to Disneyland 31 times and thought they had used their money wisely.

But upon looking back at that same year they noticed that they hadn't gone to the temple nearly as many times. And so they decided not to renew their annual pass and decided to focus on attending the temple more. They taught that we need to let the Lord help us decided the best choices. We need to keep our priorities small and only pick the most important. We need to have a "down time" where we can fortify our homes. The Lord expects us to choose between good choices, we are not expected to use ALL our talents ALL the time.

An idea came to me during this class and I got thinking about my mission. Every week we took time to do a weekly planning session to decide what we needed to be doing that week. And I thought it would be cool if in our families if we had a time to sit down and discuss what we were all doing for that week. And plan what needed to get done. I'm not married yet but I thought it would be cool to do with my future husband. Just have a time set apart in our busy weeks where we would just pause and regroup, let each other know what we are thinking of doing and plan what each of us could do to help the other make their week easier.

After this class I took off on my own for my last class, which happened to be my favorite class of the conference. It was called "Improving our Minds." I have a BA in History, so I love to learn and this class was so cool because it talked about how we need to always be learning something new.

The speaker started off by saying we needed to go on the offensive when teaching our children. We needed to be aware of what was going on around us in the world in order to protect our families from the evils in the world. Faith and learning go hand in hand, we need to seek out the best books. To be prepared in all things.

We learn something new from everyone we meet. There are no ordinary people. We need to develop a love of reading and teach our children at a young age the joys of reading. It will help them in all their studies. No knowledge is ever wasted. She said that Satan's theme is: Everything is acceptable. We need to teach our children virtues that say that is not true, everything is NOT acceptable. There are values and morals that need to be followed.

She said we should read something every night before we go to sleep. We become our thoughts and what we have learned. Music, Art, Poetry are great ways to learn spiritual things quickly. We need to learn our history to teach our children. We need to be women of learning, learning brings us closer to God.

And then the second lady got up and spoke about the trials she has had in her life. And how falling back into education and learning has helped her in her life.

She shared a diagram of how she thought her life should have gone but God had a different plan in mind for her. She taught that education is an investment that never ceases. There is nothing more fulfilling than learning something new.

She said to learn one thing at a time and learn it well. And she ended with this quote:

"Don't judge me because I fill the measure of my creation differently than you." We all have our own trials and test. And we can learn from each other if we open up.

Great great class, I wish I had been able to write faster because I wasn't able to take notes quick enough. I was so happy to make it to that class. I was really on a high when I made my way back to the Marriot Center for the final session of the conference. When I arrived I discovered I was the first one there. Everyone else had stopped at the BYU bookstore and were going to be late. I did run into Mom and Debbie who were on their way back to South Jordon to pick up Evie. So I got to chat with them for a bit before going in and finding a seat.

I was excited to hear from Elder Cook of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. He was our concluding speaker.

His lovely wife spoke first. She spoke about her difficult childhood and how it brought her closer to God. She learned three key things: 1-The blessing of having the gift of the Holy Ghost, 2-Living commandments brings happiness, 3-She wanted a good family after she married. Attitude was more important than anything. The desire to be happy will keep you going. We need to "be of good cheer."

Then Elder Cook got up and spoke. By this time Tricia had found me and I had a buddy to sit with. His talk was scary but comforting at the same time. He started off by saying that righteousness in the world is declining. Those of the "great and spacious building" are louder than ever. The world is in a moral decline. But together us saints are an island of faith in a sea of doubt. He gave 5 points in his talk:

*The reward of Spirituality: he asked us to ask ourselves these questions - Are we humble? Are we stripped of pride? Are we stripped of envy? Do we mock others? We need to focus on the spiritual.
*The reward of Families: No community is immune to evil. We need to create a Zion in our homes. Focus on strengthening our families.
*The reward of Happiness: Childhood happiness = happiness in later life. Family prayer, scripture study. Make sure others know you love them.
*The reward of Prosperity: Living commandments, living word of wisdom = longer lives.
*The reward of Peace in this World: Women of the world will be drawn to our church because of what we believe.
He ended his talk by saying that we will receive these rewards if we live faithfully.

It was such a great way to end the conference. I felt uplifted. At the end of the closing hymn, Tricia and I made our way up to where the others were sitting. We all took a nice rest and regroup outside on the grass. We all compared our notes from the day and then decided to head up to the Creamery for dinner. Mom, Debbie and Evie rejoined us soon afterwards and we enjoyed a nice meal.

Evie having her first bite of ice cream...she liked the flavor but hated the cold.

After dinner, Tricia had gotten us tickets to the art exhibit going on at the campus museum. So we all hiked back down to the museum.

They had some amazing paintings of Christ and his life. Some of them done by Carl Bloch. I wish I could paint as well as these great artist. It sure was fun to look at their works. Afterwards we went to the BYU bookstore and I was able to get a few things to take home. Then we loaded back up the cars and decided to call it a day. We figured we wouldn't be going back to Provo again so we drove around and looked at the temples.