Bonk on the Head...in novel form

the short answer is this post is the notes to the stake relief society conference i attended saturday so feel free to scroll down to the meaty stuff and skip all the bla bla bla...

Lately I have been stressing.  Stressing stressing.  Like so much stressing my brain has felt muddled and about to explode.  No answers, I had no answers.  What have I been stressing about?

Well mostly..

Summer.  Summer what the heck is my plan?  Haven't signed up for any camps or classes or swim lessons just pretty much been paralyzed with what to do.  Here's my trick..When I feel overwhelmed, I freeze.  its not good.  Freeze and stressing does nothing to help.

Also on my mind has been:

Our dang health insurance.  I could write a page on this but won't bore you. 
Paisley.  her September 1st birthday.  Had decided about a year ago we were gonna hold her back but have been doubting and wondering if not should I fight to have her in TK...again, could write a page on my worries and thoughts here.  Trying to look into the future to see whats best for her.
Jason's job.  The contract deadline is looming and coming closer and no signs what to do next yet.  (see above about worrying about paying for preschool vs free TK)
Fall sports.  Who gets to play what sports?  I have a very low tolerance for being overly scheduled and what I can handle.  Should the girls play soccer (Luke playing flag football is a given).

Anyway,  I have been feeling like I was drowning.  With just the day to day stuff and no break to just sit and think and organize what needs to happen next.  I needed some resolution on these bad.

Well short cut to Saturday morning and there has been this women's relief society conference in our stake planned for a while that I just planned on not going to (why?  I don't know, haven't gone previous years and didn't know anyone going and Jason's not one to say hey you should get out of here for four hours to go a church thing on a saturday and why the heck do I feel guilty leaving sometimes and just lots of weird reasons).  But then a few days before I was thinking I wanted to go.  And then I said my morning prayer that morning and was basically just like, What the heck Lord am I going to do about all this STUFF that just eating at me and my answer was just like, GO to that church thing and get the heck out of your house!!!!

So I went.  And it was so awesome.

Funny thing the topic of the conference was FINDING JOY.  Which I didn't think I needed but apparently I did.  And there were all these mini classes you rotated through and then the most delicious girl loving lunch of lettuce wraps and yummy veggie toppings that men would hate but felt like I was at a restaurant and had caprese skewers and lovely music and beautiful cakes.

I love being a girl.  Everything is fancier and prettier than the men do and we need it and love it.

So I took notes cause some of my favorite ladies weren't there and I was just thinking wow its so great to be apart of this amazing church where all these volunteers set up this whole wonderful morning to feed all these women's souls and every woman in the world needs these cause who doesn't need to feed their soul with good and lovely things so we can bring goodness and loveliness to the world around us?

again, I showed up late but here is what I got.  The ladies who presented were so relate able and loved the stories of their life they shared because we all struggle with these issues.  Satan is smart and he knows that what a woman thinks about herself is powerful. 

Sister Wiggins (only got half of hers but it was great and would love to find the video she showed on gratitude for each day if anyone knows where it is?)

When I walked in she was talking about praying over hang nails.  And feeling guilty that you are bothering God about your hang nail when there is death and disease and starvation in the world.  But to remember the Lord has commanded that we come to him and tell him about every thing.
Then she quoted Ether 3:2 (get a Book of Mormon people, if you don't have one I will get you one, will change your life!) 

"O Lord, thou hast said that we must be encompassed about by the floods. Now behold, O Lord, and do not be angry with thy servant because of his weakness before thee; for we know that thou art holy and dwellest in the heavens, and that we are unworthy before thee; because of the fall our natures have become evil continually; nevertheless, O Lord, thou hast given us a commandment that we must call upon thee, that from thee we may receive according to our desires."


Believe in yourself what Christ believes about you.  When we are baptized we take on his name.  So if we say, I am ...stupid. ...or dumb or whatever....we should replace it with Christ.  I am stupid.  Christ is stupid.  No thats not true.  We carry his name and He is not stupid or dumb or whatever negative thoughts we think. 

Faith = Believeing that what you cannot see will come to pass
Fear = Believe that what you cannot see will come to pass

What is the difference?  Which will we choose?  Faith or fear?  All in what we choose to believe.

GODISNOWHERE.  What do we see?  Do we see God is nowhere?  or do we see God is now here?  All in perspective

She told a story about someone hating her husband but then brought it back around saying that the Lord would say of course you would hate your husband if I saw him the way you did.  But we must choose to see our spouses and ourselves the way the Lord sees us.


Erin Wilson - topic ...Let it go  (can I just saw that I would be president on the Erin Wilson fan club she rocks)

She told the analogy of letting it go like when you give a child a plastic ball to play with while you are shopping at the store but then don't want to really buy it so at the check out the child doesn't want to give it up.  What our the plastic balls in our life?

She talked about Victor Frankle, a Jew in Nazi Germany who survived horrendous conditions...like living with 1500 people in a space that fit 200 people where there was only straw damp with urine and feces and bugs and yet he came out of that saying....The Power to choose cannot be taken away.  And how did he choose?  The sang and whistled while he was there to keep his spirits up.

There is never nothing we can do.  Erin's favorite saying is be a student not a victim.  Instead of falling pray to bad things, learn from them.  Then she quotes Mosiah 3:19...

"For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father."

Then erin talked about a weed vs flower (and she had a real nasty weed there to show us that she dug up and then also beautiful flowers).  Whats the difference?  If its easy to get out its not a weed.  But the weeds of our lives have big roots and are hard and painful to get rid of.

(I thought this was especially awesome since I just discovered the day before thanks to my neighbor Ofelia that the weeds I've been pulling for years are in fact edible and what she was raised on)

Then she said what a another way to say Let it Go?  Thy will be done. or Let go and Let God.

How do you catch a monkey?  Well in other countries (can't remember which one, spotty note taking) they put a hole in a coconut and put it on the ground with peanuts or trickets inside.  And the monkey would put his hand in and grab the stuff and the coconut would be stuck to they could catch him.  But if he would just let go of the stuff in the coconut their hand would be free and they could get away.  Satan tries to trap us too and knows what to  put in our coconuts (hehehe).

Erin told a story about wanting to go on a cruise with her family and how she just knew how great it would be for their family and fun and build memories and she even majored in tourism in college...but that family finances were tough and she knew she had to let go of that dream even though she didn't want to and had thought the cruise was so important for them.

She also told an awesome story about her sister but that one was long and ask me in person and I will tell ya about it but very neat and I remembered when it had happened and hearing about it.  Also probably too personal for my blog.

But the big finale of Erins was that Lisa Hall sang the song Let it Go to new lyrics Erin had written and it was so beautiful and we were all boo hooing (in a good way). 

Then I went to Eileens about missionary work and yes I agree missionary work brings joy.  Just was thinking about super cute Sarah Brown and her awesome conversion story and how happy she is thinking how happy its made my whole family too.

Eileen showed a picture of Christ and asked us what we noticed about it.  It was by Greg Olsen and of Christ grabbing a girl out of a river.  And how they were both making effort to reach each other.  And how He was holding another boy securely in the other arm.  And then Mindy A made really insightful comment on how it was in the middle of the river and how Christ probably had been making his way to her for years to reach her and be able to grab her and all that time He was coming toward for for miles away she didn't see Him and that she too also made steps to be in the middle of the river but Christ will go wherever we are to find us even if its in the middle of a river.

Eileen talked about faith and to have less guilt about missionary work.  And how can we have more faith?  More prayer means more faith.  And to use the Preach my gospel book (which lindsey and I were just talking about tonite and she says she has been reading and says has learned so much and how awesome it is she has convinced me to crack mine open again.  its is the book the missionaries use and study from).

We played a fun numbers game with Eileen that you wrote on the book and then hit with a fly swatter the answer.  Pretty neat stuff too.

So she just had numbers and then asked the question, but we played it tonite with the kids for family home evening so I will give you the facts if you want to play it too.  We used a spatula instead.

Number of missionary training centers (mtc)in the world = 15
How many missionaries serving in the world?  = 80,000
How many languages taught at the mtcs? = 55
How many missions in the world? = 405
How many countries letting missionaries in? 143 (which Laurie said Vietnam just opened a few days ago!)
Who said every member a missionary first?  David O McKay
Who has spoken about missionary work in general conference recently?  Elder Ballard
Number of convert baptisms in 2013 = 282,945
Largest MTC = Provo, Utah
Number of languages Book of Mormon is printed in = 82
Date announcing missionary age change = Oct 2012
Number of Book of Mormons ever printed = 150,000,000
Church membership today = 15,082,028

Last class I went to was by darling lady Sister Cook and she had a neat life story about having kids and adoption and ask me about it and I will tell you.  And then how later as skeletons came out of the closet in her family and she was weighed down with the heaviness of it she knew that Christ will carry anything that is too heavy for us.  So she taught her children to give their burdens to Christ and she did too.  And she showed some great videos like the kid president ones on You Tube which are darling and hadn't see the mom one before but really hit home.

Then she had these two beautiful sisters sing a song and the one looked so much like my friend Arlene to me it kinda hurt and just thought about the ebb and flow of life and changes and choices and who was once my dear friend who I don't see anymore.

Then it was over and wished I could have heard all the presentations.  But that morning just lifted me up and heard the Arlene lookalike say we have to thank God for our answers.  And so in the car I thanked God for the answers and lift I received that day.  And the answer I got was to Let it Go and be happy and not stress.

 Right before we left and the closing prayer the stake relief society president said....if you aren't having fun, you aren't living the gospel.  So thats what I will try to do.  Capture the fun and take charge of my happiness and simplify....even the mystery that is Summer.