Women's Conference 2009

I LOVE Women's Conference. In the past, I have had to leave my family to come, since we were in Manila. I would come, stay with Mom, play all day and sleep through the night. It was a wonderful break, but I was always so, so ready to be back with my family when the three days were up.
This year, my family was here every morning and night- I went all day, leaving Tim and others to watch the kids, but I got to see and be involved with everyone in between. I loved it this way. I got the break I needed, got to be spiritually fed... and fed... and fed... and I never had to miss my family.
As I listened to the speakers, I didn't take copious notes, but I did write down impressions that came to me of specific things that I need to do or change in my life. For the sake of recording my impressions and being accountable, here are those impressions:

1- I need to stop being critical of others. I have slipped into this bad habit in the last few months - mostly it concerns people I don't know (bad drivers, for example), but also the people to whom I am the closest- my family. One of the speakers said to pray for the gift of discernment in our dealings with our children- so that we know their shortcomings and strengths as well as our own, and understand them with the Lord's perspective.

2- Music matters to me. I know this shouldn't be a revelation, but I realized during the conference how much listening to good music helps me feel the Spirit. For years, I have avoided playing music around the house, or in the car, because I said that there was enough noise around me already. Maybe what I was really doing was keeping myself from feeling the influence of the Spirit.

3- I need to FIGHT against worldly influences in my home- so far, pornography hasn't been an issue, and I don't want it to ever be- and other influences on t.v. and through the internet need to be monitored better now.

4- I am going to read the Book of Mormon with Rebekah, and work on the Young Women virtue value with her. The General YW Presidency has asked mothers to earn the value award along with the girls, and reading with Rebekah is a great experience. We started the night I got home, and it has been really good.

5- I want to be a better neighbor to my friends outside the church- one of the things that Elder Perry said to do is to ask others about their beliefs, and then to LISTEN. This was something I had the chance to do in the Azores, in our Mothers of Preschoolers group. Every time we met, we would be given a discussion topic- and it was such a neat thing to listen to women of other faiths discussing their beliefs. We have much more in common than we would think.

6- This one was maybe the biggest "a-ha" moment that I had: I have been living here like I'm not staying. Does that make sense? We have been here almost a year, and I have avoided meaningful relationships and connections, and have lived mostly with the attitude that everything will be better when we move/ have our own house/ don't live in Utah/ have different callings/have more storage space.... Or whatever the current peeve was. What I finally realized was that there are many women in our ward and neighborhood with whom I would be good friends if we were here on our own. I miss my friends from Manila, but haven't really started making friends here. Even if we are here temporarily, living in Mom and Dad's house, knowing that we'll be somewhere else in 2 years or so, I can live "upon this land as if for years"- that's from D&c 51:17- when the Saints were in Kirtland, and had a lot of moving ahead of them before they would settle permanently. So I'm going to try. I want to love living here, and when we move I want to miss it here, just like I miss Manila.

Besides all of that stuff, I just really had a good time with our fun group- we had my Grandma, my Mom, 5 aunts and 2 of my cousins there. Thanks for a great time, ladies!