I was sooo excited about it, as I always am. We have some friends who are interested in the church at the moment and when I was explaining what conference is to her I had to laugh at myself. As I explained that it is in reality 12 HOURS (8 for conference, around 2 for the women's meeting the week before and around 2 for the men) it seemed weird that I was so excited to listen for so dang long...and help my kids listen too. (And don't get me wrong, we are not so hot at listening on Saturday running from thing to thing, need to get listening to those sessions this week.) As I heard what I was saying to my friend I had to smile to myself that I love it all so much.
I love relaxing and being with my family.
I love taking notes.
I love pondering what needs to be pruned and changed in my life to make it better. To make it more pleasing to the Lord.
I love to contemplate where we are as a family and get uplifted and inspired by all the words of wisdom that fill up our home.
And I love the food for thought it gives to Dave and me as we discuss how to upgrade the deliberateness and "connection to Heaven" in our home.
Yes, I was so excited. But with all the hoopla going on around here (prom, dave out of town, cousins in town, "senior ditch day"...more on that soon), I didn't post about conference beforehand like I usually like to and I wasn't as prepared as I imagined it would be. We had no pictures of church leaders hanging up, we did little prep talk with our kids, as I scrambled to find our traditional "Bingo" boards to print out from Pinterest I got a little depressed. I came across everything from camping while listening, to "Prophet matching games" and family banners to make and dinners leading up to conference serving different leader's favorite dishes.
Phew! I was overwhelmed. So much to learn! So much to teach! How could I scramble to put some of that awesomeness together in time??
We waited up until the wee hours of the morning for Elle (and still fell asleep before she got home) and after a long week of very short nights on Sunday morning we slept longer than we thought and we scrambled to get kids up and listening (it starts at 9:00 here...should be plenty of time to sleep, right??), still with no prep.
I was so mad.
Mad at Dave for not miraculously reading my mind and helping with prep, mad at myself for not being more prepared, mad at the kids that I had to ask them so many times to get up and get going, mad at life because there are not more hours in the day, and mostly mad at myself for being mad at all. I mean, it was the Sabbath after all. Stomping around being mad wasn't going to fix any of the things I was mad at.
But guess what? As I huffed and puffed somehow this peace came over me and made me realize it didn't matter.
None of all the "stuff" I wanted to do mattered.
What mattered was that I was there with my family, watching conference, being "there" and letting those words offered from the conference center wash right on over me. As they washed they erased my anger and reminded me of what really matters: those people sitting around me and God.
Period.
We did still get our "conference cinnamon rolls" done...(I whipped them up while I was huffing and puffing while listening right at the beginning...I'm sure I got a LOT out of those first talks, Ha!...some day I'll go back and listen in a more calmed state). Yes, I could have let those things go but man oh man we love them (recipe HERE).
And by the end of the first session it was so nice to have some great families over for the brunch we had planned earlier. Everyone brought delicious things to share (which simplified meal prep),
My much-calmer heart loved pulling out the calligraphy stuff Grace got for Easter and taking beautiful notes together as we listened.
I loved Lucy's notes:
As we wrapped things up and had so many weights lifted from our hearts, I was reminded once again (something I need to be re-taught over and over and over again) that simplicity brings on so much joy. All those things on Pinterest are so wonderful and help teach and are so inspired. Maybe I'll be more prepared and on-the-ball next time around. But that day, right there, I realized all I really needed was my family (and some pens and paper:) and we were good to go as we soaked in such beautiful things spoken and felt.
Oh I sure do love conference. To watch or listen yourself, click HERE.
Love, Shawni