The way my school works I have two sessions each semester and my final projects and tests were all due either last week or they’ll be due in the next few days, which is part of why I’ve been a little scarce lately. I’m a little stressed over my oral final for Spanish, so I’m trying to spend a lot of time reviewing and practicing. This professor is more demanding than any professor I’ve had so far! I also had training last week to become a substitute teacher in one of the school districts here. Normally you would need to have a Bachelor’s Degree to do that, so I’m really excited to be getting this kind of an opportunity. It was a ton of training and I’ll probably be studying teaching techniques until the end of time, but it’s totally worth it! 🙂

Aside from studying and training, we had a lot of family time this weekend. This was Conference weekend, which means that instead of going to church on Sunday, we watch 5 different two-hour sessions of Conference between Saturday and Sunday. Different church leaders teach us about different gospel topics based on what they feel we need help with, and even if I don’t feel like every talk is relevant to me I always find at least one that touches my heart.

This time there were quite a few talks that spoke to me, that made me want to grow and be better as a person, but there was only one that touched me enough to make me cry…a LOT. Elder Jeffrey R. Holland spoke about mothers, and how a mother’s love is the closest thing to God’s pure love that anyone can experience on Earth.

He also talked about the struggles that mothers experience, and as a mom of 3 really young kids he made me feel like I’m not failing as much as I worry I am. I love all of my children, but there are days when life is a little bit difficult, especially with the two boys. Sometimes just hearing that we’re doing a good job and not failing our kids is enough to help us remember why we became mothers in the first place. 🙂

This talk also made me think about my own parents and siblings. We live on opposite sides of the country, and sometimes that distance (and the craziness of every day life) makes it easy to forget to let my family know how much I love and appreciate them. I definitely need to work on putting aside time to call or FaceTime them more often, no matter how busy life gets. There isn’t anything in the world more important than family to me, and they need to hear that more often.

What did you do this weekend that made you smile?

For anyone who watched Conference, what was your favorite part and why?