A Nice Evening...

The Ward Adult Conference was awesome! Duff and I drove over with our good friends and home teacher/lucky to also be neighbors, Brett and Kim. Lucky for us it was just outside the gate at the Dove Canyon Courtyard so all of 5 minutes to get there!

We had two speakers for the workshops, Brian Andre and Brad Wilcox, with dinner in between from Tutto Fresco, one of our favorite places. Yum, yum, yum!!!

Here are notes from the meeting:

Happiness, Trials, and a Sense of Humor
--If you can laugh, you can live with it.
--Humor is the healthy way to cope. It is a 'safety valve'.
--Humor can be developed.
--Problems and Happiness can co-exist.
Told a story of when he was a 6th grade teacher and had a deaf student being integrated into a hearing classroom. She was always angry and bitter. One day in the cafeteria during lunch she started yelling and signing at him that it wasn't fair that he was always happy, smiling, and didn't have any problems. He got down on his knees to look her straight in the face so she could read his lips, and told her he had a LOT of problems, but that he chose to smile to help him feel better and get though/overcome the trials. It was a new concept for her that she could be happy in spite of hard things. It changed her life.

--Sometimes we say: "I'll only be happy when....." the bills are paid, the kids are good, my health is better, my job is different, I find love, I go on this/that trip, etc. Don't fall into that trap: the list will always change and you'll never be happy because you will never arrive at a point when the list is complete.

--Abraham Lincoln: Suffered from serious depression. (Who knew?) Once said that if the whole world took on part of his despair there would be no smiles. (That's sad.) And yet, look what he DID. How we revere him. The place he has in history. Lincoln said he cultivated a sense of humor to balance his depression. That is how he survived.

--There is a difference between 'lightmindedness' (making fun of sacred things, of which his list of sacred things was very thought provoking) and 'lightheartedness'. Don't confuse the two.

--Don't lower our priority of responding to the Holy Ghost. Identify and act on promptings asap. If we do, we will be more sensitive to His whisperings.

--Raise our 'Gratitude Level'. The brethren are concerned we are not grateful enough, and ingratitude begins the 'Pride Cycle'.(hmmmmm.......)

--We are not in the "OC" by chance. We are 60 miles from 'Babylon', live in a FedEx and IG (instant gratification) world, 'Great and Spacious Building' stuff. The Lord led us and directed us here because He knew we could handle it and He needed us to do the work here. (Reminded me of a few Stake Conferences ago when we had a general authority here and he stopped in the middle of conference to tell us that we lived in a very unique area of SoCal and that we were not here by chance but had been directed by the hand of God to live here and He had prepared this place for us.)

--2 Timothy 3-4
--Deuteronomy 8: 4-18
--Personal and family scripture study--sharpen it!
--Temple Attendance--increase it!
--PPI's with children no matter how old they get. Return and report is an eternal principle. Doesn't always have to be in a formal setting.

Well, that's the jist of it. I have a lot to consider and work on. I wonder if I am too wordy because my posts seem to be so long. But this my journal for the time being so I guess it's okay.

Maybe this week I'll learn how to post pictures!