Relief Society General Meeting

I don't know about you, but I generally miss this meeting due to family time, exhaustion, etc. But this time I knew I wanted to make the effort to go and see it instead of waiting for it to record and be available online.

I am SO glad I did. I was about 20 minutes late, but the point is, I MADE IT! As I walked in I got a little nervous as it was packed and I didn't see any open seats, or any of my friends. As women we like to be with others we know. But thankfully by walking into the room I discovered nearly the whole back row was from my ward with many of my friends! And there was one small space left, just for me! A tender mercy, I think so.

You know I'm not small, so part of the time I was worried if my pregnancy breathing was too loud and annoying to those directly by me, and I didn't want to scrunch them up as they had moved for me, so I sat with my arms in my lap, thinking "be small". Not sure how effective I was, but I must have accomplished being a little bit small as my heartburn kicked into high gear and I had to make noise pulling out my gigantic bottle of Rolaids. Anyway, even during all those thoughts and worry about the sisters next to me I was able to draw from being with them, and especially from what the speakers said. My favorite talk was President Ucthdorf's. I know I botched that spelling. Such is life.

It is always nice when a man praises the work of women, our calling in this life and understands that woman are far different from men. (however my cooking skills are far more similar to his than his wife's. =) He knows how to fry eggs and make toast while his wife creates amazing dishes and then always apologizes for something not being quite perfect, for those of you who missed it)

He taught us how to find Peace, Hope and Joy in our lives by living 2 principles of God. I love that there were only 2! That seems so much more doable than a list of 10 or more. I was encouraged. Then to hear what those 2 principles were, I was even more excited.

(1) Creating

(2) Compassion

Now this is my interpretation of what he said.

First, to create something new that did not exist before, not just creating bodies for the children of God, but cooking food, making masterpieces, gardening, making things beautiful around you, teaching your children, creating. To this I add, scrapbooking, bow making, card making, sewing, and all the things I enjoy in my spare time. This brings us joy as we are able to create.

Second, to give compassion. He mentioned that when we are grumpy to find someone worse off than us and try to lighten their burden, our blessing in return is that we forget our burden or gloom. I also loved that he said this isn't a quick fix for more serious issues that might need extra help, but that if we show compassion to others, we will be blessed. For by losing ourselves, we find ourselves. I loved the quote he used to convey this message:

"Those who bring sunshine to the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves."
-James Barrie , Peter Pan

I was edified. Then afterward they served us a wonderful dinner. I caught Danielle on her way out and made her come back in so I had another buddy to sit with. It was SO fun to sit with all my friends and visit and catch up with old friends from the stake I hadn't seen for a while while standing in the food line. It was so nice I didn't want to leave and was sad to see the tables being taken down one by one getting closer to us.

It was a wonderful evening and I am glad I finally mustered up the effort to go! I've been seriously missing out.

Waking up this morning, I found that my kids have also found joy in "creating" I was a little disturbed when I saw all the glue involved, but they were so thrilled with what they had made I was blessed to feel proud of them instead of steaming mad. Can you guess who's is who's?? Haven made a Doll House out of her boombox box, Porter made his own Crystal Skull castle (as the retail value is $70!!) Way to go Porter! and Maddy, well her's is just oozing art made from the boombox packaging. =)