Seems like we were just at BYU! ha ha. One week after graduation is always the annual Women's conference. This is my third year to go and I love it! The first year, Donna flew out from CA and came with me. Last year, she and Kelly drove up for it and Randa joined us. This year, only Randa and I could go. Donna's daughter is getting married in a couple of weeks and Kelly has moved up here, but her husband hasn't been at his job long enough to take time off work and get the kids back and forth to school and such. Next year for sure ladies!! Thanks to my sweet friend Christi Judd, who was the chairperson last year for the massive service projects, we were able to get our tickets free by working one shift at the Marriott Center. We were thrilled! We got to wear the aprons and help sisters with information, directions, whatever they might need. What a wonderful opportunity to serve and we loved it! After arriving and parking out by the stadium, we rode the shuttle to the Marriott Center. We took a picture "with" Donna and Kelly to officially start our Women's Conference adventure! We miss them but we will still enjoy ourselves and get so much out of the conference. We were plenty early and it wasn't time for the conference to start, so we walked around the Marriott Center corridor (it's a huge oval) and looked at the service projects, checked out the vendors (FOOD!), saw Christi Judd and Coral Edwards already in their aprons helping! Randa picked up a service project, a burp cloth to crochet an edging on, and she finished it during the opening session! Some great service projects going on...wish I was more confident in my crocheting skills.
The opening session was Sandra Rogers. She is the lovely lady in charge of the conference every year! She and MEE (Mary Ellen Edmunds) always do a fun "etiquette" video each year. Sadly, this is the last year they are doing it! Apparently, the sisters all do so well that we don't "need" it anymore. But we will miss them. They were always so cute and fun! Sandra gave a beautiful talk and showed the most amazing video called "The Dutch Potato Project" about the Dutch people growing potatoes after the war and then being asked to give them to the German saints who were starving. Wonderful video! I believe it is on You Tube, maybe on LDS.org too. I am going to watch it again! After the opening session, it wasn't time for us to check in yet for our shift so we decided to walk over to the Wilkinson Center and see all the service displays. We have never taken time to do that before so took advantage of our window of time. I must preface this with the fact that I am a huge fan of Al Fox Carraway (AKA The Tattooed Mormon). I knew she was going to be in the bookstore signing her book, but that I would be working my shift and not get to see her. So, as we walked into the service displays, who should be standing there but Al Fox! I was so excited! I went up to talk to her (there really weren't many people around just yet) and the first thing she said was, "That color looks so good on you!" Started right off with a compliment! She let me take a picture with her and it was just so sweet to talk to her for a few minutes. I have her book, LOVE IT. I missed her fireside when she gave it one block away from my house because that was the weekend of my stomach sickness. Seeing her in person made up for that!
Walking back to the Marriott Center I took a picture of this beautiful blossoming tree. Up close the blossoms look like tiny roses! Hard to see in the picture, but they were beautiful. It still wasn't time for us to check in so we sat down in the Marriott Center to listen to the speakers that were on at that time. It was Neill F. Marriott and her three daughters. They were so cute and it was fun to listen to them. I saw a lady walk in and sit down a few rows ahead of us, she kind of looked like Lori Pope (from Clovis) but I didn't recognize the other ladies she was with and figured she would be with her sister-in-law Barbara Knudsen. No sign of Barbara. I thought no more of it. We went downstairs and checked in. We got a lovely box lunch! So good! I picked the Italian sandwich on ciabatta. It had fruit, chips and a BYU Mint Brownie! We had to take a picture of that with Kelly and Donna. Then we put on our aprons and were taken to our station. We were scheduled from Noon to 5:30. What a wonderful experience! I thought I would feel a little bad missing out on classes for the day, but I really didn't. Serving and helping was just such a beautiful thing! My next post I will just post about that experience. Randa and I worked together at one set of doors where the sisters come in from the parking lot/shuttle lot. It was cold and windy and even rained for part of it! Glad we were INSIDE the doors! That is also a reason my hair is out of control too! That kind of damp weather makes me into fuzzy head! The closing session was Sister Kristen Oaks. We weren't able to hear too much of her talk, but we could see her on the screens! There was a beautiful string number at the beginning and another one before she began her talk. We could hear that and it was wonderful! It had been a lovely day in so many ways. I am so thankful I get to be here for this annual "tradition."
