General Relief Society Meeting

Last Saturday night I was able to attend the General Relief Society Meeting.  Our stake had a light dinner, which was soup and bread.  Yummy, I had cream of broccoli soup, it was amazing.  Anyway, you know how sometimes you feel like everything is ok and you are doing fine and things are on the right track?  Well that is how I have been feeling.  As always I love to hear from Sister Julie Beck and her counselors Sister Allred and Sister Thompson but then the concluding speaker was President Uchtdorf.  He is one of my all time favorite speakers.  I just love him.  So he talked to us about a flower called Forget me not.  With the forget me not flower it has 5 pedals.  He had a forget me not phrase for each pedal.  Each one was so uplifting I just wanted to take a second to tell you what they are:  1st:  Forget not to be patient with yourself.  Is that not hard sometimes?  I have a hard time being patient a lot but especially with myself.  This was a great reminder to take a step back and learn to be patient with myself.  I also love that he put in his remarks "Let me add:  God is also fully aware that the people you think are perfect are not."  2nd:  Forget not the difference between a good sacrifice and a foolish sacrifice.  He said that not all sacrifices are bad, it's just that some are better.  My favorite part in this portion was when he said, "Dedicating some of our time to studying the scriptures or preparing to teach a lesson is a good sacrifice.  Spending many hours stitching the title of the lesson into homemade pot holders for each member of your class perhaps may not be."  LOL how funny is that.  I think this is a good thing for all mothers to stop and think about.  3rd:  Forget not to be happy now.  WOW!!!  This one hit home.  I think so many times we all think we would be happy if......  His remarks for this pedal really made me think about my life and realize that there is so much to be happy with.  I so needed to hear this right now with going through the adoption process.  It is important for me to realize that I do have a lot to be happy about and although I can put time and effort and thought into this process and be happy about that, but I also need to be happy with my husband and my son and the joys that we share every single day.  Like I said this really hit home and I sooooooooo needed it.  4th:  Forget not the "why" of the gospel.  It is important for us to know "why our Heavenly Father has given us this pattern for living, when we remember why we committed to making it a foundational part of our lives, the gospel ceases to become a burden and instead becomes a joy and a delight.  It become precious and sweet."  I think a lot of times we can get to be so busy with our church responsibilities and we may think of it as just another thing that takes up some of our time.  When we think about the "why" of the gospel we will be able to better serve our family, friends, and neighbors.  Knowing the "why" can help us to spread the love of Christ everywhere we go.  5th:  Forget not that the Lord love you.  This is another one that I really needed at this moment.  There are times in everyones life where we feel so overwhelmed and busy and tired and have different trials going on in our lives that it is easy to think, does anyone know how I feel.  Does anyone care.  Feeling the love of the Lord is essential to keeping us going.  I have never doubted that the Lord loves me.  It may seem hard to understand sometimes why he does, but we need to remember that we are his child and just like with our own children, we love them no matter what they do, he is the same.  He loves us unconditionally.  Always remember that the Lord loves you and you will be able to accomplish anything your heart desires.
I am so grateful for President Uchtdorf and his very special message that I felt was meant just for me.  He is such a sweet man who was inspired to give this message to the women of the world.  We are so blessed to have such great leaders of the church who love and appreciate us as women.  I feel so blessed!  I look forward to conference every six months so that I can be spiritually uplifted and reminded of the little things that help me through the day.