Time Out for Women 2010: Saturday afternoon - shortest and last installment!

Hillary Weeks
Sometimes we take on more than we're able to handle, but we don't realize it until we're in the thick of it.  When we are feeling overwhelmed with what is on our plate, do as Christ did with the 5 fishes and 2 loaves of bread for a multitude. 1. Give thanks for what you do have. 2. Your abilities and resources will be magnified and you will find a way to make it through the seemingly impossible.

We can finish what we start. Believe in who you are. Heavenly Father know who we are. Believe in what you're doing. Believe in who you are. Believe in who you're becoming. Believe in who you are. If you could see what he sees, you'd believe. He believes in you.

Wendy Ulrich -- I loved this talk
Ask yourself: Do I want to be happy? What do I love?

1. Stop worrying about your weakness.
1. People get more happiness from living their strengths.
2. Try it: What do you know by experience and the spirit to be true? What is a new and creative way you could use your strengths this week?
3. Each of us has been given a gift from God that we are obligated to share with others. It will bring happiness when you do.
4. Here are a short list of possible gifts: curiosity, love of learning, open-minded, creative, larger perspective, brace, gratitude, leadership, loyalty, loving and accepting of love, perseverance, appreciates music, creates music, etc.
2. Don't try to get motivated to exercize (or do other things you know you should do but don't want to)
1. Motivation FOLLOWS action. 
2. Start with 2 minutes of exercise, cleaning, etc. TODAY
3. Make it social
4. Trick your energy-conserving mind (I'm not putting on my sweats to jog, I'm putting them on because they're comfortable. I'm not going outside to run, I'm just getting the mail. I'm not going for a jog, I'm just going to see if the neighbors are out. By the end you may just find you've walked/jogged because you STARTED.)
3. Stop trying to find friends.
1. Instead, develop skills of friendship.
2. There are always people who need love.
3. Make and respond to bids (that just means, say SOMETHING. Just start to talk and ask people about themselves!)
4. The things that count a lot in the eternal perspective are interpersonal service and friendship. Smile at others. Say hi to someone. Thank others. Give sincere compliments when you think them.
5. Do I pass on opportunities to bless the lives of others?  Do I pass on opportunities to let others bless my life?
4. Don't try and feel happy
1. Instead, look for things to be grateful for.
2. Write down 3 good things each day and why they happened.
5. Celebrate failure
1. Failure often means we are taking necessary risks to grow, stretch, serve. 
2. Learn from mistakes. Become a better person because of failures, don't wallow in misery over not being good enough. 
3.  (There was a quote on our bullitin board all growing up that says, "It matters not if you try and fail and try and fail again. It matters much if you try and fail and fail to try again." Thought that fit in well here.)
6. Don't (just) endure to the end
1. "Life is to be enjoyed, not just endured." (Gordon B. Hinckley)
2. Savor every day delights: loved ones, nature, home, good, comforts, music, art
3. Find one thing you can try this week to cultivate happiness.

 Brad Wilcox
Our lives are interconnected and build on each other. 

He spoke on turning weakness to strengths.  His whole talk was centered on 2 Nephi 25:23 "For we labor dilligently to write to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and be reconciled to God; for we know it is by grace that we are saved,  after all we can do."


Grace is not just a finishing touch.  Grace is our energy supply. He is the enabling power that gets us through the tunnel. We may receive His grace before, during, and after all of our own doing.

Because God loves us, He accepts any offering, even if it's not our best or all because He's more concerned with the offerer.

Everyone must pass through mediocre (middle of the mountain) to reach the top of excellence. At least you're not at the bottom refusing to climb.

Geral Lund said, "Stan's strategies with some people is to make them thing if you're not perfect, you're not good enough."

Try putting emphasis on different words in the scripture.

After all we CAN do.  After all, what can we do without God?  Man is nothing. Nothing doesn't mean worthless. Moses is God's child/ Nothin doesn't mean worthless, but powerless.  Speaking of that poem footprints in the sand, he said, "there were never two sets of footprints. Christ carries us the whole way."

After all we can DO. We're not human doing, but human beings. Doing is to help us become. The song should go, "Teach me all that I can be, to live with him someday."

No unchanged being will want to live with God. Unless we partake in Christ's atonement and repent, we would feel far too  uncomfortable to live in the presence of God.  He often has friends who ask, "Have you been saved by grace?" And his response is "Yes! But, have you been changed by grace?"

Heaven will not be heaven for those who choose not to be heavenly through the atonement of Jesus CHrist.  We don't gain exaultation by a point system, but by who we are.
Those begging to enter the House of the Lord will not be the unrepentant sinners, but Jesus begging them to change and be cleansed.

We don't earn our way to heaven. We're in the business of preparing to feel comfortable in the presence of God.

After all WE can do. Not we as in you and me. We as in God and me.  Our individual works don't supplement Jesus' grace. It's a relationship that is greater than the sum of the whole. It's not about height, but growth.  We can't do our best without Christ by our side.

A student once asked, "If Jesus fills the gap between my all and the rest, who fills the gap between where I am and my all?"  It doesn't work like that. Jesus doesn't make UP the difference. He makes ALL the difference.

The miracle of the Atonement is not just that we can go home to live with Christ, but that we can feel at home with Him. 

He asks us to do things not to pay our debt to Him, but that we might change and become more like Him.

Without faith and repentance, there would be no desire to change.  We need to practice being heavenly.

How do we get to heaven? Holding hands. (Think of the Temple here) No one walks through the veil alone. Every one of us must take the hand of the Savior and together, hand in hand, we enter into His kingdom.  There will be no Him and no Me but only WE.

"For we know it is by grace we are saved, after all WE can do." We are not alone. We enter heaven held in His grip and there we will feel His embrace.