2008 BYU Womens Conference

This was my first of many years to come at BYU Women’s Conference!! I loved it. It was a nice refreshing get away for two days and one night. Next year we want to go down the night before so we don’t have to leave so early. My sister, Jenna, and my Cousin, Leslie who is like a sister and I were the ones to go this year. This year we didn’t really know what to expect and wasn’t sure where everything was at BYU, so next year we will be more prepared as we will know a little more where we are going. Well these are my feeling about the conference.
We left bright and early Thursday morning at 6am and we didn’t get home until about 10:30pm on Friday night. I know the conference got over much earlier then that, but we stopped and got a bite to eat in SL at the Old Spaghetti Factory, my favorite the Tomato Sauce and Mizithra Cheese. And before that we stopped and checked out IKEA. Good thing Mom wasn’t with us at IKEA, we would have been their for another hour or two. Hee hee, gotta love to shop with Mom.
The opening session was Sheri Dew and the biggest thing I got out of her talk was “Influence the world, instead of being influenced by the World.” “Am I the women God needs me to be?” Am I serving and doing all that I can for the Lord and I need to ask daily what he wants me to do today and if I listen he will guide me as to who may need served that day.
We then skipped the first call and got some lunch and then went to the next two classes. The first class was “I know the Scriptures are True” I got some good ideas of what I need to be doing better to help my children to love and appreciate the scriptures for themselves. One of the things that I realized is that I need to do better myself and have my personal scripture study so that my kids will see my love of the scriptures when I am helping them to understand them. I am good for a while, then bad at my personal study of the scriptures, I need to just be more consistent and make the more of a priority in my daily things to do. I got comfort that I was not the only one that is inconsistent, and not be discouraged by set backs, with my personal and family scripture study. When the kids are young I need to keep it simple. I got an idea to use the Gospel Art kit and put some pictures together and so I am going to do that and review our Scripture book daily along with reading a few scriptures even if we start out with only a verse a day. When the kids get older I am got other ideas as well. I want to do topic cards and each week search the scripture one on that topic and every day we will review the scripture and talk about the topic and the kids will have the scripture memorized at the end of the week and have a better understanding of that topic.
“We are as the Army of Helaman” Raising Righteous Sons.
This was more of a fun one that we went too of a couple that raised seven sons and ideas they had in raising their sons. They had five things that they felt was important in raising sons.
WORK-“Boys need wood to chop” “Without Hard work, nothing grows but weeds.”
RESPONSIBILITY-”Learn as they earn” Set goals with your children teach them to Earn, Save, Tithe, Spend & don’t spoil them too much.
RESPECT- Teach courtesy. “To be respected you must be respectable.” It is funny because I just mentioned to Jason a couple of weeks ago that he needs to start opening the doors for me again as he does if we go out together, but not so much if we are running around. I wanted Tanner to see that is important for him to learn.
EXPECTATIONS-”Let them know what you expect of them and be clear.”
REVERANCE-By example by going to church, the temple, service, prayer, & etc.
The closing session Elder & Sister Bateman spoke, they are the president of the Provo Temple right now. The spoke of the temple and a lot of what I got out of it was that I need to model my home after the Saviors (House of God) He touched on some things they practice in the temple and that we should in our homes.
Soft voices, House of Learning, Always Begin & End with Prayer, Love-Everyone is treated with kindness, Quality & Order-Everything is in its proper place
Gosh after the first day I thought, man I have a lot to work on as I was spiritually fed on Thursday, and I looked forward to another full day of the same. Thursday night we went to eat and we were going to plan on going to the concert they had that night, but Jenna and Leslie didn’t really want to go and then I got so sick, so we ended up going back to our room and went to bed early.
We woke up the next day and the opening session was with Sister Beck the General RS President. I wasn’t feeling the best still, and I didn’t take many notes, but I did write down my thought as she talked about our ancestors that made the trek to Utah, they will meet us after we passed on and ask us what we did as they made the path here for us. What have we done?
The first class of the day we sent to “Good, Better, Best-Simplifying & Unflattering our lives.”
“Instead of doing for our children, do with our children.” Take our 15 minutes to do our scripture study, & keep a journal.
“We neglect the things that matter most to do the things that matter least.” Fundamental Five:
Family Prayer, Family Scripture Study, Family Home Evening, One on One time, & Family Dinner.
Ways we can simplify our lives we can:
~Quit Decorating & re-decorating (Holidays be more simple)
~Don’t make Birthday Celebrations so Huge
~Invitations to parties, weddings, etc. it is only an invitation, not an obligation. We don’t need to go to everything we are invited to.
~Scrapbooking/Blogging-not a commandment. Of course I still love to do it!!
~Plan Weekly Meals-Save the many trips to the store we don’t need to make.
~Books-If you love to read, have you read your scriptures first?
~TV & Internet are big time wasters-don’t let them be.
~Shopping without a purpose
She asked at the end “If we knew Christ were coming at the end of the year, what would we be doing to simplify?” Be Ye also Ready!!
The second class was “Take a Deep Breath & count to ten” controlling anger. I really wanted to go to this class because I get frustrated easy. I just yell a lot, ok I got it out and admitted it. First step right!! I was actually disappointed with this one as I was looking more of ok, I know I shouldn’t yell and get frustrated and angry, but how do I fix it tell me what to do. So I did get a little out of it and realized that most of the time when I do get angry it is because I am frustrated, not at what Tanner is doing, but at myself for something. I think I expect so much out of Tanner, so then I get upset. I need to realize that he is only 4 ½ and still young and learning too. I would and never had hurt him, I just yell, so I know that is hurting him and hurting his feelings, so that is something I am really working on not doing, and I know if I pray that I will have a higher power to help me, and I can overcome this and not yell so much. This class was full, so at least I am not the only one that yells too much at their kid. Hee hee!!
The third session we were late as we grabbed a bite to eat on the way back to the Marriott to listen to the final speaker and get the seats we wanted for the closing session. It was a husband and wife speaking about marriage relationships. It was so good as I realize and they made a comment that you look at your grandparents and think they had such a great marriage and respect for each other. They probably didn’t start that way, it was many years of working at it and making it perfect. Everyone has trials in their marriage and I will keep ours. It works for us and I wouldn’t want to be married to anyone else other then Jason as I know we are suppose to be together and I do love him so much and he is such a great father and husband. No we are not perfect, but we are together and we will be forever!!
We were so blessed to have President Monson speak at the closing session of the conference, it was awesome!! It is amazing the love and spirit you feel from him. It is as if his words are poetry. I felt the spirit so strong before I could even see him as he was walking in. I know he is called of God to guide the church in these days!! Wow he is an amazing man. He was called to the 12 at age 36, I didn’t know that until a couple of days ago.
A few thoughts I wrote down as he was speaking:
“Find Joy in the Journey now!” “No tomorrow to remember if we don’t do today.” “Every Day of your life is a special occasion.” “Once you have missed out on something it is gone!” “Problem to be solved is not more important then a person.” “One day each of us will run out of tomorrows.” “Its not difficult to be happy on pleasant days!” “We learn, grow, and are refined through dark days, sorrows, and hard days.” “The real test is if we are able to ENDURE!! Will we falter or finish?” “When you get to the end of the rope, tie a knot and hang on!”
I was just soaking up all he said and wanted to write everything down then realized ok just soak in what you can and don’t write down so much I am sure I can see this in the re-broadcast or on the website after. I was so glad that I had the opportunity to be in his presence, I know he is the Prophet today and a man of God!!!
Over all we enjoyed and I look forward to next year. I know this was very long and probably boring to some of you, but I wanted to make sure I wrote my feelings of the few days as it has made me want to be a better person by going. I have things I really want to work on and hope that I can be better because of going.

The Girls "Betsy, Leslie, & Jenna"

SISTERS
OK-I want to just say I have an awesome Sister that is also my best friend. I really don’t know what I would do without her. It was so much fun to be with her for a few days with no distractions. It has been so much fun to live so close to her as well as we probably talk daily and see each other often as Dylan and Tanner are obsessed with each other. Tanner is always asking to go play, they have gotten into a little bit of trouble like thinking they were doing a good thing by covering a hole, little did they know it was the main sprinkler box shut off. Sorry Lyman-since he is the one that had to dig it back out. Thanks for always being their for me and helping me with the things that I am stupid on. Like sewing, decorating, and etc. Our relationship means a lot to me and I treasure it and if anything ever happened to my sister I would have a breakdown. Leslie is like a sister, she had no sisters, so we have adopted her as our sister. She was Jenna’s age growing up, but when you get older age doesn’t matter. I think Leslie is one of the most generous and giving persons I know. She is a great friend and we love going camping and learning from her and her family. In fact we need to get a camping trip planned, once I get the trailer un-buried. I also have such great sister-in-laws and cousins. (Marci, Jami, Laura, and too many cousins to name. Mignon-hee hee!!) I am so glad that I love and get along with all of them on both sides mine and Jason’s, I will brag about all of them later. Grandma Shurtleff always made sure the parties happened so we stayed close and it is so great to be close to my cousins and Tanner knows his second cousins as well as his first cousins. I think that is pretty cool. Whenever someone mentions not having one of the partied someone pipes up and says “Grandma would want us to have the party.” how can you not have a party with that being said!!! Grandma is still watching out for us!!!