(back track to April again) TOFW

Remember how I said this past April was super busy?  Well, I keep forgetting things, like going to one of my sister-in-law's baby showers in Pflugerville (I can't find any pictures of it though) or when I went to Time Out For Women (tofw) with three of my sisters-in-law [sils] in San Antonio the last weekend of April (I just got a hold of a picture of all of us that day, and the rest of the pictures of the event I just got from their website, so I could blog about it, lol).  Hopefully this will be the last post from April.  I just didn't want to forget about all this stuff I've done.

Preface to this post: this was my first time attending a Time Out For Women event.  I've heard of lots of ladies liking them, and my sils really wanted an excuse to get together without husbands or kids, just a girl's night out kinda thing.  The event, put on by Deseret Books, consists of inspirational speakers and musical numbers on Friday evening and then all day Saturday.  ... not to offend anyone who likes these events, but let's just say, I didn't know what to expect, and then it wasn't what I expected at all.

 On the weekend of tofw, Elena picked me up early from work that Friday and we drove down to San Antonio and met up with Kay and Jennifer at the hotel.  We grabbed a quick bite to eat at the mall next to the expo center, then headed on over to the main event.  This year's theme was "Choose to Become - All things are possible to him that believeth".  I suppose it was supposed to be an encouraging theme about how we can be whatever we want to be and about how we need to change how we act to actually live how we want to be, not just think about the changes we want... but sometimes it kinda felt more like the "secret" and if you wish it enough, you'll get it ... a little lame and a little too-good-to-be-true for me, I guess.

 We got to the main auditorium where I realized this event was HUGE.  It sat a full crowd of nearly 2,000 women and girls (this year the did a combined teenage girls and adult women, splitting up for different talks on Saturday morning)! crazy.  I wasn't expecting there to be so many people.  The stage was set up more like a conference I'd attend in college than a church meeting, and there were big screens so you could still see way in the back.

Friday evening we listened to Dallyn Vail Bayles and Sheri L. Dew.  Bayles is a mormon broadway actor/singer, so his presentation had a lot of really nice singing, though I felt like the message was only so-so.  Dew, president of Deseret Books, gave a fairly nice talk, but I guess I've heard so much great things about her, it felt lackluster, and also filled with promotions for the company and herself... not exactly fun to listen to.

 ... Friday was ... okay.  It was just so strange and unexpected.  I think the biggest thing was just the overall feel to the event.  It just feels wrong to have at the same meeting, prayers and applause, scriptures and advertisements, and hymns and pop rock while grown women jumping and waving their hands for both.  Maybe some ladies really like it, but I had a hard time feeling the spirit there, which I thought was supposed to be the point.

After the Friday session, all the sils and I stayed up half the night just chatting and laughing and snacking.  Elena and Kay had previously been to a tofw, and they tried to reassure Jennifer and me that this was different than the ones they had been to (I'm guessing now that it is a case by case basis on what to expect).  We decided to give the morning a try, but if it was really weird, we'd just ditch and go shopping at the mall instead, lol.  At least we had a lot of fun just hanging out and having a girl's night.

Saturday morning, we first heard from Amanda Dickson, a non-member radio morning show host from SLC.  okay, first it seemed strange to have a non-member presenting, but maybe it was just her.  It was a really weird talk all about how important friends were, but the way she gave it didn't feel like it had a point or any organization, and it made her seem to be either a psycho lady with a creepy laugh and big eyes, or possibly drunk, lol. ... needless to say, not very uplifting.  The next speakers were the mormon boy band, Jericho Road. ... They weren't bad, alternating between inspirational stories and songs, but for one, they were a good band over a decade ago and they just don't sound as good as they used too.  Plus, it was just too weird to see grown women standing up waving their cellphones like lighters at a rock concert during the music parts ... isn't this event supposed to bring the spirit and uplift us?  It felt like they were focusing on entertaining the crowd more than uplifting them.

During the morning break, Elena, Jennifer and I (Kay got sick and had to go home early) were definitely reconsidering staying for the rest of it after these presentations, but we did want to hear a couple of the other speakers, so we stuck out the morning.  Luckily, I enjoyed the next two talks quite a bit so that made up for the morning.  We heard from John Hilton III, an author and institute teacher.  He used a lot of scripture references (which I enjoyed) and talked about the theme "nothing shall be impossible unto you", and how, following the examples of the scriptures, we can overcome challenges and accomplish our goals by turning our weaknesses into strengths through God.  Very nice.

The next speaker was Emily Watts, an editor for Deseret Books.  She talked about habits for happiness, and making small and actually doable changes to help ourselves through life to becoming happier.  Some of her suggestions included loving yourself as a friend (not being so hard on yourself), developing thick skin, and pushing yourself to do seemingly hard things to help strengthen confidence.

Then we had a lunch break.  None of us cared to hear the next to speakers (one of which was just an encore of Jericho Road), but Elena did want to hear the last speaker, Kris Belcher.  So, we just took an extra long lunch break at the mall and did a little window shopping before coming back to catch her talk.  and it was really good we did, because it was probably the best.  Belcher talked about the hard times in life (she's had a lot of medical problems, including becoming blind as a teen) and how to have patience, a good attitude (she had a great sense of humor), and faith to keep going forward and to not fear because even when times get time, God is there for us and while he may not take away our problems, he will give us the strength to get through them.  A very nice end to an okay event.

the lovely ladies (l-r) Kay, Elena, me and Jennifer

So, all in all, I guess the event wasn't all bad... but I probably wouldn't have much interest in ever going to another one.  It felt too much like an evangelical service you see on sunday morning tv, and not enough of the spirit as I would've hoped.  And it's so hit or miss with the speakers.  Though it was a great excuse to get together with my sils, get to know them better, and have a much needed girl's night.

... okay, one more rant.  Every year, apparently, they give out free totes.  Elena was super excited and raving about them the whole time... and then we are handed these.  Okay, I'm sorry, but who actually thinks these are cute?!?  the whole event's color scheme was a dark purple with a puke-y light green paisley.  I can't stand paisley.  what is it with ugly greens and paisley? so hideous.

Gonzales' baptisms

Over the past year, we've had the chance to get to know the Gonzales family.  Danny met Ritchie first through the missionaries as he was investigating the church.  Over the next few months, I began joining them in their missionary discussions as well as the rest of Ritchie's family, his wife Sonia, and their children Andrew and Heaven.  Eventually they decided to get baptized.  Due to extenuating circumstances, only Sonia and Andrew could be baptized at first (Heaven was only 7 at the time).  It was a lovely service.  Danny gave one of the talks, and I provided the music.  Then, about a month or so later, Ritchie was able to get baptized along with his daughter who had just turned eight.  I've never seen such an excited family to join the church and be baptized.  Again I played piano for this service and this time, Danny had the opportunity of baptizing Ritchie.  It was a pleasure to be able to be with this sweet family as they begin the rest of lives together and with the full gospel.  They really had such amazing spirits and Danny and I both had begun to look forward to visiting with them and the missionaries because through their small but earnest testimonies of the gospel and eagerness to learn more, we in turn learned so much.  Now they are preparing to be able to next summer go as a family and be sealed in the temple, and I can't wait.

(l-r) Sonia, Ritchie, Heaven (8) and Andrew (11) Gonzales

With one of the missionaries who had taught the family and baptized Heaven

Relief Society Conference

(forewarning: this is kinda just a long rant.)  This actually happened in April, but whatever, I'm behind in my blogging.

April this year was just crazy.  Work got really really busy, Danny's classes got really really busy, and all of our weekends and freetime seemed filled to the brim with people to see, places to be, and things to do (though looking back I can barely recall what we even did).  And one other thing that seemed to dominate April, for me at least, was a stake relief society conference and a ton of drama that came from it.  About a month or so prior, all the drama started with me being "volunteered" with out my knowledge for a musical number during the talks at the beginning of the conference.  The stake lady in charge of the conference called me, told me that my wonderful RS pres had offered my services since I was RS pianist to help with a musical number.  I wasn't even planning on going to the conference since it was going to be my only Saturday off that month, but I'd already been volunteered, plus it sounded easy enough, she'd send me the music that week and I had weeks to learn it, no problem, right? -_- I should've said no.

Basically, it all came down to horrible miscommunication, but the weeks that followed were absolutely miserable.  Over the next few weeks, I'd come to realize a few things.  First, I wasn't just playing the music for our number, I was in charge of it.  Second, it wasn't just ladies from our ward, they wanted to combine all three wards from San Marcos (ours, the spanish ward, and the singles branch), so I had to coordinate with all of them.  Third, our song wasn't just a number between talks, it was one song of a dozen songs that comprised an entire stake-wide program (each ward had been asked to do a song).  And fourth, what I learned the week before the conference, the practice they said we'd have right before the conference (aka the one I figured we'd practice our song with all the different wards together, since I had just been practicing with each ward separately due to conflicting schedules) was actually just a run through of the entire program ... ie. we had to already know our song, which at that point we hadn't even had any practices yet.

On top of all these miscommunications, there was just a lot of drama trying to get people to join the performance at all.  Now, for me, I always hate being forced to do something I don't like (um, like this), and then made to feel guilty if I didn't want to or couldn't even go.  So I tried to make it absolutely clear that I only wanted people to sing with us if they were already planning on going to the conference and if they actually wanted to.  Granted, with that, you don't get many people to volunteer, so we had like two from my ward, five or six from the singles branch, and none from the spanish ward, but whatever, we'd make it work... however, our RS pres insisted that *everyone* participate, and kept going behind my back guilting everyone into going.  She coerced ladies to sing with us on the day of the conference who had never even seen the music before.  She even brought our poor RS chorister to tears right before the performance because our chorister, who works nights and hadn't planned on going, felt like she wouldn't be fulfilling her calling if she didn't join us despite having not slept in over a day and having always been great at fulfilling her calling every Sunday.  ... And on top of all this drama, the week before the conference, I got a horrible bout of stomach flu or food poisoning or whatever, leaving me horribly sick that entire week and missing all of our practices and leaving everyone so confused and frustrated.

... but, all in all, I guess it went okay.  Even though we ended up with twenty-plus ladies on the stand when we sang our song and had never sung it together before and probably half and never sung it at all before, it went okay.  The program went on, and it was done.  ... though I must say, maybe because of all the issues and drama or being sick or whatever, the conference itself just felt lackluster.  They had the musical program first, then had four workshops you could choose from, then a lunch (well, sorta lunch... I don't know if you can really call a piece of sugar-free cake and some corn salsa with corn bread a lunch, but whatever)... I think the hardest part was just that I really didn't know anyone there.  I had only been in my ward a few months and was barely learning anyone's name, plus they already had all their own friends to sit with, so I was kinda alone.  but whatever.  I did what they asked me to do the best I could.  ... and I will never say yes again if someone volunteers me without asking me first.

... the decorations at the luncheon... I swear it was hideously overdone.  Do people really like this kind of stuff? though I guess they did, it seemed like I was the only person not drooling over all of the junk.  It looked like Barbie got married and the puked over the tables in hot pink and neon orange.  I don't even know what it all was supposed to be.  It felt like several different ideas for centerpieces all placed together when one would've sufficed.  ... seriously, they should've put more effort and expense into the food.  ... can you tell how much I love relief society events? *eye roll*.