Last weekend was the Women Discipling Women Conference down in LA. 5 women from our church were able to go so we headed out early Friday morning to get down there to register by 5:30. It was such a fun trip down, got to spend time with some of them I don't get to talk to nearly enough and it's always fun spending time with my momma :-) I think between car and home sick I wasn't feeling 100% about half way through but everyone took great care of me and I was better in no time. We got there, checked in, freshened up and then we were at it. The speakers were Martha Peace and Elyse Fitzpatrick, really talented women in both their writing and speaking ability, a true God given talent. To our surprise there was about 1,400 women attending, and I think about 1000 were staying at the hotel with us :-) It was soooo amazing though, that first night being with all those women who love the Lord like I do and being able to sing and worship with them was just and awesome experience, I felt as if I could cry tears of joy during that first song we sang, it was amazing. The next morning started off bright and early, breakfast was at 7:30 and our first session at 8am. Elyse spoke that morning on the difference between what she called "The Glory Story" vs. "The Way of the Cross" and she was so right on. So many people just want to hear what makes them feel good and want to be given a certain number of steps to live their life but that's not what it's about and it was pretty fun to hear. Martha spoke again and then we went up to our room for lunch and then the next to "seminars," they were all different depending on what we each chose. My first one was on "Rest For Tired Moms: Moms with young Children" it was really good, Barbara Scroggins spoke on discipline and the proper way to do that and just gave a lot of excellent advice on how to discipline your children using God's word. She also had a lot of ideas on ways to train you kids to have their own quiet time and really to simply obey and love according to God's laws, so I've been really excited about that and have already been working on really my attitude towards my kids and how I deal with situations and boy does it make a difference when I stop and ask God to help me instead of being quick to anger and yell, I've already seen a change in the way that Mason responds to me and he's already starting to say "obey" when I say that he needs to obey momma, he has no idea what it means, but he know that he needs to obey :-) Then I had another class on biblical counseling and how to go about counseling someone, all using God's word and prayer, so that was a good one too. It was funny though, the title of the course was called "The means of biblical change" and I wasn't thinking that it was going to have anything to do with counseling and after looking through the notes I was feeling a little disappointed because I really didn't picture myself ever counseling anyone any time soon but afterwards I just thought that it's so amazing how God works because I've been talking with a friend who doesn't know the Lord and has dealt with so much in her young life and when were talking the other day before this class I felt like I had so much I wanted to share with her about the work of God but felt really ill-equipped to do so and I immediately thought of her as I walked out of that class, so anyway, it's fun to see how God works. Then we had our last session, a part two to Elye's first session and it was a wonderful way to end and day filled with learning more of what God has for us as women. Afterwards we walked across the street and we all had dinner together at PF Changs and that was nice, to reflect on our day together. We were back in our rooms early, me and my mom and Tricia were in one room and Diane and Kathy were in another, well my mom had given us these sweet little bags of a note book and a snack and she wrapped them up using a bandana. I don't think she ever intended on us wearing them, but she forgot who she was with... I put mine on and got she and tricia to wear theirs. It was pretty hilarious, you probably had to be there be we had a really fun time. We were all already in our pajamas but we got on the elevator with our bandanas and pj's and went down to diane and kathy's room, they thought it was great and we even got them to put theirs on too! It was really funny, luckily on our way down we didn't see anyone but on the way back up the elevator stopped and on got one of the hotel maids, let's just say I'm pretty sure she was somehow afraid of three cackling women in their pj's with their bandanas, she literally ran off the elevator when it got to our floor, we just looked at each other and started cracking up! We spent the rest of the evening talking and getting to know tricia better, they've been coming to our church for a few months now but I've never really had the chance to sit and talk to her so that was very nice. The next morning we got up early again and checked out and headed over to Grace church. It's always a joy to be there, and I was able to meet up with my Emily and Scout!! So that was exciting! I also saw a few of our other friends that are down there so that was nice too! After a little catching up with Emily and a few good bye tears (I miss her so much) we loaded up and were heading home. By the grace of God we made it home safely! I came home to a clean house, happy kids and dinner cooking, what better way to end such a fabulous weekend!
Us at breakfast
Waiting for it to start
Some of the women there
Us after a long day of lessons
You would be scared too if you ran into us :-)
Diane and Kathy being troupers!
Us at Grace
Kathy is braiding my hair here on the way home :-)
