I just got back from spending two days getting my bucket filled. I LOVED every minute of it.
Sheri Dew was the opening speaker and she is wondeful. She spoke about the influence that we as women have on others. She spoke about how we as women are our own enemies. She asked if we don't want our children (girls in particular) to be like the women and people in the magazines, then why are we? Why do we want to be like those in the magazines. Do we want to be like those in the magazines or be strong, spiritual women who our children look up to and who our children should be proud of and want to be with and who have taught our children what Heavenly Father wants us to teach them. She encouraged us to define LDS Womanhood and not let the world define LDS Womanhood. I thought that was very powerful. She encouraged us to pray and find out how the Lord speaks to each of us so that we can be ready for his inspirition at anytime.
I then attended a session on parenting for young families. I felt impressed that I needed to be at home with my kids as much as possible. They stressed that we as mothers need to be there for our kids....REALLY BE THERE. It is not enough to be there but be busy doing other things that fulfill OUR needs. It is o.k. to take a little bit of time everyday for ourselves to read the scriptures, exercise, say your prayers, but we need to really be there for our kids while they are growing.
The lady that talked about this said that she thought that even though she was at home with her kids and was present for her kids that was enough. She didn't realized that her time wasn't actually spent with her kids because she was too busy doing her own thing she was either scrapbooking, working on the computer, trying to make money selling things from her home and wasn't actually paying attention to her own kids. Because she was doing this her life things did not run very smoothly in her home and she wasn't happy even though she was doing things that should have been making her happy. After praying and feeling the Lord's guidance she knew that she had to change and stop doing what she was doing and spend time with her kids and once she did that then things were much better in her home. We don't need to fill our day up with the non-essential things. They said that when a hobby takes up too much of our time then that hobby is too much and we need to re-evaluate the hobby and make a change. We need to be at home and with our kids.
At the end of the session I felt that the message that I was to get out of this session was to not over schedule things and do things that will take you out of the home when you need to be in the home and paying attention to your kids. Reading the scriptures and praying everyday to know what the Lord wants us to do and to remember that he has plans for us.
I head the end part of the session with the Young Women First Presidency and they gave a challenge to everyone to do three things and if we did these three things then we would be blessed they are: 1)Pray every day 100%. 2) Read your scritures for at least 5 minutes everyday 100%. 3) Smile everyday.
Sister Julie B. Beck opened the Friday session and her talk was great. She talked about how to have more faith. She said that sometimes we complicate things more than what they really are. We chose to come to earth and how are we going to account for what we did here. One thing she said really stuck out for me. She was talking about pioneers and how we are going to account to them when we meet them. Are they going to say that the sacrificed and worked so hard only for us to try to get a good pedicure somewhere, or to have the better house than someone else, or to have the bigger car and the best clothes, or for us to think that we are entitled to what we have. Are we too caught up in the material things and not concerned about the spiritual things that we should be concerned about.
She talked about our homes being a refuge and how we as mom's need to teach our children. There is nobody else that is reponsible for that. It is us. We need to point our kids to the temple. Our homes should be a refuge for our family and kids and they need to feel safe and know that they are loved and accepted no matter what.
She also said that sometimes we are too worried about entertainment and not teaching our kids what we should be teaching them. She said that there is so much work for us to do in teaching and raising our kids and being a better visiting teacher. Do we serve at home, our neighbors, the women we visit teach? There is so much work to be done and it isn't fancy. We can't decorate it or center it around holidays we just need to do it and we need to keep in a place where we will be able to hear the Lord when he speaks to us.
The best thing in the world was during the final session when President Monson arrived. There were thousands of women sitting in the Mariott Center and gabbing like women do and it was fairly loud. All of a sudden it went completely quiet as President Monson walked into the arena. The spirit was so strong. Everyone stood up out of respect for the prophet and we started to sing "We Thank Thee O'God For A Prophet" and I couldn't even get a word out I felt the spirit so strongly. It was wonderful. It was great to be sitting among 20,000 other women who have the same beliefs as you do and listen to the prophet speak directly to you.
When Presiden Monson got up he said that as he walked in he had a thought run through his head that probably shouldn't have been there. He though about all of the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that had been served in households over the past two days while the wives and mothers were gone.
He spoke a lot about not letting the important things pass us by and to find joy in today. There is nothing like the present. We need to look at our lives and get rid of the things that are taking up too much of our time. Before long our kids will be grown and we will have missed things that we will no longer be able to have back.
He talked a little about adversity and how everyone has them and we need to rely on our faith in the Lord in order to endure through the trials. Faith and endurance in the best thing to help us through trials in our life.
As he left everyone stood up and he waved to all of us in the Mariott Center. He loves us so much and I could see that when he spoke and especially when he left. It was so wonderful and so awesome.
I feel so rejuvenated and feel like the Lord wants me to the best that I can. I need to work on saying my personal prayers and personal scripture study so that I can invite His spirit into my daily life so that I will know the things that he has in store for me and my family.
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