Time Out for Me and a Primary Program

This last weekend (Friday night and Saturday) I went to Time Out for Women with my mother-in-law and some of her friends. It's kind of like an EFY for women. I've never been before, but I'm so glad I went. And boy did I want to back out on it this last week! If I hadn't already paid $47 to go do it, I probably would have too. Ric encouraged me to go do it, but then it turned out that he had a camp out with the young men Friday and Saturday... during my thing, of course. So I had to get babysitters, which is always a pain - and I'm cheap so I hate paying for babysitters (Especially when all they seem capable of doing is sitting my children in front of the t.v. from the moment I walk out the door until bedtime - forget putting away the dinner, clearing the dishes, or picking up the toys!! - Argh! This is my latest pet peeve.) Anyway, Friday night Sheri Dew and Wendy Watson Nelson spoke. That was fabulous! Sister Nelson spoke on our roles as women. Some of my favorite thoughts from her were: "Stop trying to make your husband into your girlfriend.... Just enjoy him being a man." "If we could look at our 'premortal DVD' for just ten minutes and see who we really are, all of our present problems would fall away." And, "We, as women, need to be hyper-vigilant about who comes into our homes - through cell phones, movies, t.v., music, and so forth." Sister Dew spoke about the power of influence. She talked a lot about how we need to go to our Heavenly Father and plead with Him for an understanding of who we are and what it means to be women of God. And then once we have that knowledge, go and find every teenage girl you can and teach them because they're not getting it from anywhere else. Teach them through the way we dress, how we act, and what our priorities are. Also, "[Living the gospel] is not always easy, but it will be much harder if we don't." Quoting Elder Jeffrey R. Holland at a funeral, "Sometimes we act as though we are going to stay here and we aren't and we can't and we won't." Saturday was Hillary Weeks, Mary Ellen Edmunds, S. Michael Wilcox, Emily Watts, and Kris Belcher. They were also powerful speakers and I learned a lot and really had my cup filled. Yesterday was the primary program at church. I didn't really think of it as a big deal, but my mom had asked me just last week when it was because she wanted to come see Stratton, so I told her and my mother-in-law about it. Well they both came, as did my dad and one of my brothers. It was fun to have them there. And can I just say, from a completely biased perspective, that Stratton was absolutely adorable! He sat up there with the rest of the sunbeams, just grinning away, totally thrilled to have such a captive audience. Oh how I love that big sunshine smile! And, due to our small primary, he had three speaking parts. Even though he couldn't really see over the podium, he said them just fine. And Creighton was absolutely enthralled with watching his big brother up on the stand - he was standing up on our laps with big grin on his face, pointing and saying, "Bubba! Bubba!" over and over. Lots of fun. I sure love my boys!