TOFW

OK- now my update for Time Out For Women presented by Deseret Book. The music was awesome and the speakers were fabulous! A new group called "Mercy River" did the singing on Friday evening and Jenny Oaks Baker played several songs for us on her violin. (I wish Kaitlyn could have seen her!) Mercy River is a 3 women group that sing hymns and other songs with a contemporary style. The ladies I went with said the group reminded them of Dixie Chicks as far as the sound goes. But that's the only comparison! They sang a lot of familiar church songs with just a little different beat. It was almost hard to sing it the right way when I went to church on Sunday! They just recently released a CD and it's definitely I will be buying in the future. Kenneth Cope sang on Saturday. Beautiful voice and wonderful lyrics.

The speakers were all wonderful and I enjoyed the insights from every one of them. Emily Watts spoke and she seems to hit the nail on the head with her observations of life as a mother. It helps me to realize that we all pretty much struggle with the same things and that most kids tend to follow the same patterns of behavior. She just makes you laugh out loud! Chris Stewart was another speaker. He is an ex-Air Force pilot. I can't remember much of what he spoke about, I just remember what he said was good. (I waited too long to write this post.) The author of "The Christmas Jar" (can't remember his name) was also a guest speaker. He spoke about handwritten letters. In this day and age, anything handwritten is almost obsolete and mail is almost reserved for bills, junk mail and catalogs! He challenged us to write more instead of type or e-mail. In the last year or so, I have been trying to do more handwriting in my scrapbooking layouts. I want my family to remember my writing, not the cute popular font of the time. The page will mean so much more to them with my handwriting on it. (I still type some jouraling, I just try to balance it with my handwriting.) All in all, it was a fun weekend and it was great to have a time out away from my daily resposibilities and worries. I came back home completely refreshed.

Oh- Elder Boyd K. Packer is the one who said that quote about faith that I posted in my last post. Apparently Elder Bednar said it in a recent talk but I couldn't find which talk.