Conference Accomplished!

Wow.

I did it.

Saturday I successfully pulled off three different presentations ( two 90 minute ones and one 45 minute one) at the LDS Holistic Living Conference!

I feel really good about how they went. I gave it my all and I had the Spirit with me… and in the end that is really all that matters because He is the only teacher who really counts.

Robyn captured some great moments from my first class, “Women’s Spiritual Gifts”. 

I look very patriotic in this picture!

Here women are coming up to the board to put sticky notes with the names of women they know (including themselves) who have different spiritual gifts

The finished board– and me doing something funky with my hands!

At the end of the class we did a “mother’s blessing”  for the one pregnant woman in the class. I gave everyone a bead and they wrote her a note with a thought about womanhood or a wish/blessing for her birth. Some of them had a chance to read them to her and there weren’t many dry eyes in the room. It was so sweet. Yet, the incredible part was that the night before the conference I told Sheridan that I really hoped the Lord would send a mother to my class who needed that blessing. So we prayed that God would inspire the right woman to come. I was a bit dissapointed when I started my class and there were not any obviously pregnant women in it. I hoped that maybe there was a new mother who might be willing to step up. Yet about half way through my presentation a woman came who had a big, beautiful pregnant belly and who was gracious enough to be the recipient of the mother’s blessing. After the class I found out that she was one of my blog readers and that we had  corresponded at least a dozen times in the last few years.  She lives in Nevada,  but late Friday night she felt inspired that she should come to the conference. So she got up at 3 AM, drove to the conference by herself, and got there just in time for my class and the mother’s blessing. It was nothing short of a miracle and was another testament to me that God hears and answers our prayers– especially when there are people who are willing to follow to his promptings!

Teaching was incredible but the best part of the conference was getting to finally have all of The Gift of Giving Life authors in one spot. It was incredible. We couldn’t get enough of being together (luckily we will have more at the Book Launch Party on Tuesday!). These are some of my favorite people in the world. We have become so close (emotionally and spiritually) the last few years that we feel like sisters. I will be forever grateful that the Lord brought us all together!

Robyn Allgood, Me, Sheridan Ripley, Felice Austin and Lani Axman– all together!

Everyone except Sheridan

Felice and Sheridan “manning” the booth

Our booth went really well. We sold a lot of books– way
more than I was expecting. We almost didn’t have enough. So that was
great.

I really should have got a picture of when I had to leave Jon and Felice’s
boyfriend alone at the booth to go change Abe’s diaper. They handled it great. If there are any
two men in the world who could advocate and “sell” the spirituality of birth it
is them! What fantastic men.

I also got to meet many of my blog readers and that was wonderful! It makes such a difference to have a real face to put to a name on a blogger profile. Thank you for coming up and introducing yourselves. I apologize if I didn’t get to talk to you as much as I would have liked. Turns out that three presentations takes a lot of work to set up and to do. By the end of the day I felt like my brain was a bit mushy. So sorry if you talked to me then.

Abe was a trooper.  He got passed around to Jon,  “the
girls”,  my mother-in-law, and random strangers for most of the conference. He did great but I think we were all exhausted by the end of the day.

Thank you to everyone who helped Saturday be such a success. I can’t wait to see you all again at the conference next year!

And I will be excited to meet some more of you at tomorrow’s book launch party!