Bytheway, did I mention I'm a stalker.

Friday morning came much too quickly. I slept better in part, due to the fact that I chose to sleep on my camp cot that I brought from home, instead of the slanty air mattress I had the night before. Also my sister Kris bought everyone ear plugs. This was to combat the few people who snore in our group. The snoring did not bother me very much, but the earplugs helped me sleep through most of everyone getting ready in the morning. Thankfully my sister shook me and woke me up or I think I would have slept through the morning session.

Sister Beck was the speaker Friday morning. She is great and I love to hear her speak. She said that sometimes we complicate the gospel while forgetting what it is all about - a testimony. Also sometimes we think only about the big events. She said we are accountable for our half of the plan and how will we account for what we did. She talked about thinking about nurturing as influencing. That seemed like a different way of thinking about nurturing than I had thought about it before. She said that influencing is more lasting than managing. Another thing she said is that there is no "they" only "you" to get things done. We can't just hope that "they" will do it. We need to daily do the things that show we know who we are. Also we should put our greatest resources where we are weakest. That is interesting to think about. This one was good for me - she said our own life should be our favorite reality TV show. All in all it was a great talk. I'm glad I got to hear it.

After the morning session my sister and I went down to the Smith field house with my Aunt Shauna. We went and heard a talk about strengthening marriage. This was also good because we got a seat for the next class that would be taught by John Bytheway. The marriage class was taught by a husband and wife who were both excellent speakers. The wife told a story about when she left her nine year old son to babysit her two year daughter as she went next door for a short meeting. She gave her son two rules, 1. he could not play video games and 2. he had to include his sister in his play. She left and when she came home twenty minutes later, there were several nine year old boys running out of her house. She came in and found that her son had turned his two year old sister into a video game. He did this by taking a permanent marker and drawing a round target on her diaper. Then he found all the toy dart guns in the house and charged his friends for the chance to shoot his sister and try to hit the bulls eye. Aside from being an entertaining story, she compared this to what Satan is doing to marriages today. He is shooting marriages with every weapon in his arsenal. So we have to battle to defend our marriages. Here is a picture of my two sisters and my aunt and cousin. We were kept busy during this class by winding yarn onto tongue depressors. This yarn will be used for service at EFY.

Like I said, aside from being interested in the class, I really wanted to be there to hear John Bytheway speak. He came in and started setting up for his class a half hour early. I recognized him and was astonished that no one mobbed the stage. I went down to get a close up picture from the stands. Then I dared to step down onto the floor in order to get just a few feet from the stand. When no one stopped me or even seemed to care, I got real brave. I thought "he doesn't seem to busy, so why not just see if he would take a picture with me." And guess what, he did. So yay for courage. I of course thought this was a very cool feather in my stalker's cap. He He He. John Bytheway spoke with his mother and they both spoke about the scripture "They that be with us, are more than they that be with them." Us being the Lord's people and them being Satan's team or the world as it were. I love that story in the old testament. This class was very good. He said that FEAR stands for:False Expectations Appearing Real. Faith and fear can not coexist. The only thing we have to fear is sin, and even that the Savior will save us from. Faith is not turning what we want into reality. We can not say "I only have faith, if it happens on my timetable." He shared with us the concept of having a "Hope Page" He started this when he was discouraged about not being married. His started with "What more can he say, than to you he hath said?" He then filled the page with scriptures that would strengthen his faith. Whenever he was discouraged he would read this page and never failed to have his faith strengthened. Funny how faith and hope are so intertwined. You can't really have one with out the other. This was a great talk to prepare to hear the prophet speak.