My Heart is Inflated!

 

For the past 4 years now, I have received the best Mother's Day gift from my family. I get to escape for a couple of days to BYU Women's Conference and come back a entirely enriched and happy wife and mom. This year my Mom, Angela, Mother-in-law, and Kaylani accompanied me to partake in this glorious medicine for the soul! We were able to room together on BYU campus for two nights and enjoy our days of enrichment at various classes of our choice.
My classes included lessons on the Atonement & Personal Revelation, The Infinite Power of Hope, The Sweet & Simple Teachings that Create a Happy Marriage, I Have Learned in Whatsoever State I Am Therewith to be Content, Improving Our Perspectives Through Humor, and Stand in Awe & Be Still: Spiritual Receptiveness. Needless to say, they were all exactly what I needed to hear.

My most favorite messages were as follows:

1. Did you know you make a difference simply by existing?
2. If I'm sufficiently humble, which weakness can now become my strength?
3. He is preparing you to be a God.
4. If endured well now, 'all these things' can be for our good and can 'greatly enlarge the soul', including an enlarged capacity for joy.
5. Our most profound revelations will come in our most trying tribulations and trials. Endure them well & do not ask to forfeit the personal revelations that will come your way.
6. You can live life without love, but you cannot live without hope.
7. Your future is as bright as your faith.
8. In a marriage, our attitudes are far more important than the activities we do together.
9. Words carry messages that often outlast those who spoke them--so choose wisely!
10. On average, children laugh 400 times a day. Adults laugh 15 times a day...hmmm...
11. Humor is the most needed yet the most neglected in our families.
12. Find Joy in the Journey!
13. Laughter is the Draino for the soul.
14. Whenever we put God first in our lives, whatever comes second will ALWAYS be right.
15. When you walk into a room, you either add to the room or take away from the room.

There was much more, but these were my favorite. L. Tom Perry closed the conference with an incredible talk asking us how we perceived ourselves as Latter-Day-Saints and how does the world perceive us. It was a real eye opener for us all. He showed a clip of various people from all over the world being asked if they knew what a Mormon was and what they knew of them. The answers were shocking. Elder Perry wanted us to know we needed to be better in our missionary efforts. He taught us how to close the gap between how we see ourselves and how the world sees us.
1. Listen
2. Know the doctrine
3. Live the Standards
4. Be exemplary citizens
5. Be good neighbors
6. Open our mouths
7. Extend invitations
8. Use technology (i.e. youtube.com/mormonmessages, lds.org)
9. Be bold, but not overbearing.

May I always remember these simple, yet profound lessons.