Sisters Retreat

This weekend our ward had a sisters retreat. And Kyle was sweet enough to get the night off and make the necessary arrangements so that I could go. 🙂

It was a wonderful weekend. I left the house just before 1 in the afternoon, and headed down the street with my pillow, my sleeping bag, my camping chair, my jug of water and my backpack to load up my stuff on the trailer in front of my ride’s house. The drive to the Heber Valley Camp was beautiful. This was the PERFECT time of year to go, there was no snow although the weather is cooling off (so it wasn’t HOT either), and all the leaves are changing colors. The campground that we had was REALLY nice. There were three cabins (each had 16 bunks), 2 bathrooms (with flush toilets), 2 showers, and our own pavilion, which had storage closets to store our food, and there were even a couple of refrigerators. There was also a fire pit, with logs positioned all around it for sitting on. We didn’t get to have a campfire though. 🙁 The day had been considered a ‘no burn day’ issued by the State of Utah (so there were no campfires statewide). Oh well. We had a great time anyways. There weren’t any planned activities, so that everyone could just sit and do whatever. We could chat and visit, and get to know other sisters. There were a few baby quilts to tie and all but one of them got done. A few brethren from the ward came up to do the cooking, so that none of us sisters would have to cook or clean anything, which was just so nice. They made Navajo tacos (scone base, topped with chili, onions, olives, cheese, sour cream….), since there was so much scone dough left over from the Stake Harvest Festival that had been canceled (they made a whole bunch of scones for the impromptu ward activity that night but obviously they still had tons of dough left!). There was also watermelon, and also some honey butter for the scones.

After dinner there was a guest speaker, Sister Elmer who is a member of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir that lives right here in Eagle Mountain. She talked about her life and how being in the choir has supported her though the difficult situations in her life, and she told us all about how Heavenly Father speaks to her through good music. She talked of her travels with the Tabernacle Choir, and she told us how the audition process works. She has been in the Choir for 17 years now, which is just amazing. A comment that she made during her talk caught my attention. She said “Nothing is impossible with the Lord”. Now I KNOW I’ve heard that before, but that really caught my attention right then. Lately I’ve been feeling so overwhelmed. Kyle works two jobs five days a week, and so he’s never home to help with the kids or the house, or really anything, so everything is left to ME. I’ve been really tired lately, and I’m finding things are slipping. I’ve just been letting things go because I’m tired, or just don’t have the energy to keep up. I’ve been TRYING to get the kids involved with cleanup more, just to help myself out a bit. After all, I am mortal, and I am not perfect, and therefore I physically can NOT do everything for everyone. Some days I feel like what is required of me is simply ‘impossible’. So when she said “Nothing is impossible with the Lord” that really caught my attention. It reminded me of when I was a child, I remember my mom had this saying that she would quote every time we said something was impossible, she would say “Nothing’s impossible, except the impossible. But that’s impossible, because NOTHING’S impossible.” She drove us nuts saying that, but thinking of that reminds me of something my dad always said: “Whiners aren’t winners”. Which I totally and completely believe. If you are too busy whining, you aren’t doing what it takes to be a winner. So all of this just tells me that I need to rely more on my Heavenly Father, so that when things seem impossible I can continue on and be a winner. 🙂

After our main speaker, our ward’s high council member spoke for a few minutes, and then our bishop spoke for a few minutes, and after that our Relief Society president, opened the time up for testimonies. WOW! That was just awesome, we sat there and had a 3 1/2 hour testimony meeting. It was just so awesome to sit there and listen to everyone’s stories, and really get to know each other better. It was simply wonderful. And of course, since we were all women, there were times when we were all crying with each other, and other times when we were all laughing with each other.

We didn’t get back to our cabins until about 1 in the morning. And I don’t know about the other cabin full of women but our cabin didn’t stop talking and turn lights out until 3 something!

I woke up about 8 in the morning, and breakfast was supposed to be at 9 so I was excited that I hadn’t woken up WAY to early (when I get super hungry I start to just feel sick). Bishop and his buddies, made pancakes, eggs, and bacon for breakfast. There was also honeydew melon, oranges, hot chocolate and orange juice.

After breakfast we had a morning devotional, where a couple of sisters spoke, and we raised the flag on the flag pole that our campsite had. We said the pledge of allegiance, a few of the sisters sang a beautiful song about being a daughter of God, and our Relief Society President spoke to us a bit.

It was a great retreat, and I got home between 2 and 3 in the afternoon. Everybody missed me, but things went back to normal soon after that….. 🙂