Conference on Saturday

I love conference. It is one of my favorite times of the year. Growing up there were so many things that my mom did to make sure it was an enjoyable and memorable experience for us. We always cooked something great, had the windows open to let the breeze in, and there was always some sort of candle going that made us just feel at home. These weekends twice a year are so special. Then moving away from home I tried to incorporate those wonderful family traditions into wherever I was. Being married a year and a few months out of high school, I started traditions and carried on these traditions from home into my family. What a great thing to have.

Then a few days ago I realized that I would not conveniently get conference on 45 channels, and the radio. Here in Colorado I had to work really hard to get conference to our home. We don't have a DVR or we cannot afford the top channels that get the BYU channel so we had to bring our internet downstairs, and hook up the internet...Sound easy...it was a little rougher than I wanted it to be. Those of you who live in Utah please be grateful for what you have and that those LDS programs are part of just normal TV. I miss that a lot and miss Utah a lot. I am grateful for technology though and that I was still able to get LIVE conference to my home.

Braeden has a lot of fun playing with the kitchen chair while Ben and I made some fettuccine Alfredo, green bean casserole and peach cobbler. It was really good. I miss my family this time of year, but I know that I have my own family now, and that is priceless.

The talk that probably hit me the most out of the Saturday sessions was Elder Hales talk on debt. It was not the normal talk on debt and money. It was much sweeter and had a great message. He told us even if we have the money to get something we want,"We can't afford it." This year Ben is in a Nursing school in Denver, CO. It is an accelerated program that costs more than I even want to say. That said, we both cannot work. He is gone all the time as it is with school and I being a stay at home mom had to make a sacrifice to start my own business. It is really hard. We literally have no money coming in. We do have a little in savings and have some set away for food, but we are living on loans and all of it goes to school. I don't want this to sound like a pity party because it is not. You will see why I am telling you this in a minute. We have so much love in our home, and we have to sacrifice a lot. We have to say, "We cannot afford it," all the time. We have literally no money to give. By hearing Elder Hales talk, we will have the strength to get through this, and not get so down when we feel that we need something. We both need new shoes, but we will patch them up and live a little longer with what we have. It gets really hard sometimes not having money and not getting any assistance from the government, but it makes us such stronger people. I have been praying the last little while that something from conference would help me with the things that I have been struggling with. Well that talk was truly inspired. I am sure it helped a lot of people because of the economic crisis. We are going to be grateful that we didn't get into TOO much debt for things that we really didn't need right then. They can wait a little while.

I know that everything will be okay if we keep trudging on and having the Faith that it will all work out. I hope everyone takes to heart this wonderful talk and maybe we could all frame it in our homes and realize that we don't need everything new to get into debt. And just because we have money doesn't necessarily mean we have to have it either. I also know that these times of hardship in our family will not last. We will make it to some better days. Ben will hopefully be able to get a job this December. We have each other as an eternal family and the gospel of Jesus Christ.