Day 34 - Alone

Today I'm Thankful For: For the village of people who help me with my kids.  We had stake conference today.  Elder Bednar from the quorum of the twelve, part of the head of my church, was there to speak.  On the best day stake conference is a challenge.  The kids are trapped on hard metal chairs for two hours of speaking.  It is like double sacrament meeting except the only part of sacrament meeting they actually enjoy, the sacrement isn't present.  Add the stress of the fact that I was flying solo and we had a general authority there and my stress levels were pretty high.  We avoided the gym, the seats were mainly full, and the idea of being in there with the kids...well it wasn't pretty.  Instead we headed to the relief society room where conference was being projected on a the TV and the seats were padded.  My visiting teacher was there and three friends from my old ward.  Their kids entertained mine.  They helped share toys.  They offered up other entertainment.  We made it until the closing song when I finally took the kids out into the hall, and then I jetted before the closing prayer....Peach was on the edge of a melt down.  It was an interesting conference.  Going to BYU I had several opportunities to hear general authorities speak but this was my first stake conference with one.  Our stake president focused on the ten virgins and Lehi's dream.  He pointed out that 5 of the virgins were at the right place, they were dressed correctly, and they had the right desire but they were not prepared and thus missed their chance to enter into the wedding.  His challenge to us was not be like those virgins.  Then Elder Bednar spoke.  He did something I've never seen done before in any meeting.  He essentially reemphasized our stake presidents talk.  He started by pointing out the right our stake president has to receive revelation for our stake and then went through President Lunt's talk, pointing out the words he gave that should have clued us into the fact that this was revelation for us and restated his main points.  This was the only part I was able to jot down:  This will sound counter intuitive to most of you but Testimony is not an ending point.  Instead it is only the beginning a place to step off of.  It is just the starting place.  True conversion is being true to what we know to be true, to our testimony.  Alma chapter 23.  He emphasized that like the five wise virgins to the five foolish, no one can give you conversion.  That is something that you have to work on for yourself.  He also said that the rock of our conversion must be Jesus Christ.  You can not stay truely converted if your testimony is based soley on a person, an event, or a program.  He ended with a blessing on the congregation to be in conjunction with the song How Firm a Foundation, but at this point I was pretty stressed out and my ability to feel any peace had left with my daughter's fuss to try to get to the drinking fountain.  Regardless his comments left me with a lot to think about and some ideas to implement in my life.  So end story, it might not have been pretty but we made it, thanks most in part to the Lukes, Jones, and Washburns.

Today I didn't:

-wash dishes.

-put laundry away...I folded the stuff I did on Saturday but it is still sitting on the floor.

Today I:

-explained to my daughter that she is only allowed to put on makeup when I'm in the room with her.  I was made aware of the problem when Captain E said, "Hey what is wrong with Gigi's face?"

-took my daughter out in the hallway and hugged her during stake conference when all I really wanted to do was spank her bottom.  The nice thing is she hugged me back.  Then I felt better and we got to continue on.

-heard Peach say, "This is a ball," while she was holding a ball out for me to see.  It was so freakish I said, "Um did you really just say that."

-had to tell my kids, "No guys, we only kiss people we are married to on the lips."  

-had Captain E read a verse out of the Book of Mormon for us.  We usually do a picture and scripture story for scripture study but I decided since Captain E is reading we should probably revert back to some actually scripture reading again.  I thought he could read a verse each night and then we would tell our picture story.  I helped with the words he didn't know and you could definitely see his excitement.  He said, "Mom I read more words then you, didn't I?"