In the Strength of the Lord

I had the opportunity to attend Womens Conference in Provo, Utah with friends from home. I went with Pam Gibson, Debbie Beuhler, Karen Christen and Stephanie Briggs. Karen use to be in our ward but has moved to Boise, Idaho. Pam is our Bishop's wife, Debbie and I have daughters the same age. Stephanie and I have been each others visiting teachers. We had so much fun. We left Wednesday at 1 p.m. After checking into our hotel in American Fork we went to dinner at a Thia Restaurant then went shopping at Kohls. Stephanie wanted a cookie from the Paradise Bakery but we got there just when they were closing. Debbie was determined to get us cookies so she walks right in and tells them we want cookies. They gave her a bag of all their leftover cookies for FREE. She says, "I told you I was going to treat you to cookies". We then drove past a small movie theater and saw that we could catch a movie. We watched "He Is Not That Into You". Total chick flick. After getting to the hotel and into our pajamas Pam showed us a website that tracks the Swine Flu epidemic around the world. We got to bed at 1:30 a.m. She checked every night.

The conference was Thursday and Friday. It was wonderful being there with 1000's of women attending classes, singing and working together. Thursday my mother joined us. It was nice to be able to spend the day with her going to conference. We weren't very smart...she bought new "comfortable" shoes and I wore heels and our feet were killing us by the end of the day. After classes everyone went to the fieldhouse to work on humanitarian service projects.....hygiene kits, school bags, fleece blankets, dolls, hats, newborn kits, quilts and much more. The kits and school bags are sent to third world countries. It was so exciting to work with so many women to help others.

Thursday night we went to dinner at Los Hermonos in Provo.
Left to right....Pam, Carol, Kathy, Karen, Stephanie and Debbie

Pam is always smiling and laughing. Karen is very health contentious and telling us what we should and shouldn't eat (but she did eat plenty of junk with the rest of us). Stephanie is always thinking of someone other than herself, she helped her daughter while down there, looked at the "Sharing Ideas" booths for her scouts and the class she went to was on "Reading to your Grandchildren". Debbie is just fun to be with.

Here we are putting flats of Spam in the car. There is a story behind the Spam. A couple of months ago I was sitting at a women's house that was dying of cancer and watching TV (I had two in-home health care patients). There was a program on the history channel on Spam. After watching that program I had a craving for Spam. I can't even remember the last time I had eaten Spam, but I knew I had had it before. I bought a can and when that was gone I bought four more cans. I was putting Spam in everything I fixed. One night Troy says, "Spam again?", "Do you have a problem with it?", "No!". I saw in the paper an ad for Spam on sale and asked my mother to buy me a flat ( I didn't live near a Smith's store). She calls me and says, "Happy Birthday, I bought you two!). I had 24 cans of Spam. Now I don't even really want to eat it anymore. Oh well, it has a 3 yr. shelf life I will put it in my food storage. Pam has Vienna Sausages because the company she works for takes her to Wal-Marts all over and sometimes they give her things they can't sell anymore.

We had a wonderful time. We laughed a lot, ate a lot, had chocolate and did a little shopping. All of our favorite things. I am grateful that I had the opportunity to go. I feel like that commercial for Claritan when they say, "I am Claritan clear". Sister Julie B. Beck spoke to us about the importance of family, the true pattern of family and defending it and teaching our children this pattern. Elder L. Tom Perry spoke to us about missionary work. He showed us a clip of people that had been asked if they knew anything about Mormons. There is a wide rage of misunderstandings about us. One person said that we don't eat chocolate, that was got a roar out of the women. He told us that we need to listen, be exemplary citizens, good neighbors and open our mouths and share the basic principles of the gospel. I hope I can go next year and I look forward to Sundi and daughter-in-laws coming with me.