General Women's Conference

Apparently, the church has a new video player available that never buffers, can be paused and restarted, and works better. Watching conference could be a whole new experience!

http://www.lds.org/broadcast/grsm/0,6220,285,00.html

Also, I highly recommend listening to President Uchtdorf's message from the women's meeting, even if you are a man. It gives, first, a suggestion that we stop focusing on the things we aren't good at and start focusing on using our talents to build the kingdom--focus on the things we are good at, just like a recent article from Orson Scott Card said. Then he gave a fantastic discourse on two ways the sorrowful or otherwise heavy heart can be gladdened without removing the trials that afflict us. This was a talk for me today, I guess. At least, I suspected he wrote the talk for me personally.

He said that the keys are creativity and serving others with compassion.

I really needed the lesson on creativity and it's value in our souls. Especially since I got a very nice rejection from an agent the other day that came on the heels of me deciding to start writing again without regard to the marketability of the story or idea. I think it was my 50th rejection on that manuscript, and, despite the incredibly nice and helpful nature of the rejection, I cried. It was the first rejection that made me cry, and I suspect it has something to do with my very pregnant state, but I couldn't write the story I wanted to--I was all hung up on marketability again, and the story was all tied up in Mormon culture, and the agents have informed me that Mormon culture, in particular, is anathema in novels. (Which is funny because Jewish culture isn't....).

Anyway, Pres Uchtdorf said not to let the critics--the external or internal ones--silence your voice, and talked about the value of doing creative things--not for the acclaim but for the doing. Not the value for the world, but for our own souls.

Sister Beck, who has been vilified by "mormon" feminists (who are not really Mormon, even if they were once baptised, and who are doing a great deal of harm to the cause of righteous women everywhere) gave a fantastic, intelligent, inspiring talk on the purposes of relief society and of women in God's plan, saying that God's work can't be accomplished without the women--and she wasn't talking about our wombs. She said something my dad has said throughout the years, but it was good to be reminded:

Without personal revelation, we can't succeed. With personal revelation, if we obey it, we can't fail.

President Uchtdorf echoed this, with the promise that if we live faithfully and obedient to God's commands, all things will work together for our good.

All together an inspiring meeting that I very much appreciated.