Lesson #5: Heavenly Father Always Helps His Children

This week I have been in charge of a large education conference for around 100 people. It has been months in the planning and many interesting things have happened along the way. Last week when I was doing the final "reminders" for instructors, two panelists for one of the panels pulled out. I managed to replace one of them, figuring that 3 on a panel would be fine. The panel was starting at 8:30 a.m. on Friday morning. At 8 p.m. on Thursday night, one of the three panelists called to say she'd had an allergic reaction to something and was very sick. I panicked, realizing that two people is not really a "panel."

I said a very quick prayer (while driving, because that is what I was doing at the time) and asked Heavenly Father to help me. The answer came: "call your Bishop, he can help." Yes, I thought, I bet he can... he is very well versed in the issues we were discussing on the panel. So I called. He told me he had just cancelled his 8:30 meeting the next day and would be delighted to help. Don't tell me that was coincidence; Heavenly Father answered my prayer BEFORE I even asked!

The kicker: Bishop did a FANTASTIC job and was very well received. Many people wanted to have him come back next year! So the Lord does not just answer our prayers with the minimum of what we need... he exceeds our expectations.

Lesson #4: Don't leave EVERYTHING to the last minute!

I am a huge procrastinator. I have found that although it's stressful, I work better when I have less time. But sometimes it backfires! For example, next week I am in charge of a huge conference. It's a week long deal with around 100 people. I have been working on this since last September and it's finally here. Being the procrastinator that I am, I left some of the "little" things until yesterday, thinking they would take me a few minutes. One of these "little" tasks was to print name badges for the instructors. There were only about 20 of them so I banked on about 15 minutes. Well, the packet of badges had the wrong instructions, the printer broke, and I made several mistakes on the names. It took me more like two hours. That really cut into my weekend. Not the end of the world, but I never learn!

Lesson #3: Always put more than $1.75 in the car wash

I hate those car washes that charge you a minimum of $1.75 to wash your car. That gives you about 3 minutes which isn't enough time to do anything. If you put $2.50 in, you can do it. However, I use them so infrequently that I always forget this fact, and so I end up putting in my $1.75, thinking I can totally wash all the soap off in that time, and end up with one side of my car covered in soap. Then I have to put in another $1.75 to rinse off the rest. Of course, I only need about a minute to do this, and I end up with 3. Lame. I think they know that people like me come along once in a while.

Lesson #2: Always Back-up Your Hard Drive

I made a lucky escape last month. My laptop died. I got the dreaded blue screen of death. One of my friends managed to fix it for me but at one point I realized that if he couldn't fix it, I was set to lose everything that was on there. That includes all my pictures, music and documents since August of 2005 when I bought the laptop. I had the feeling for several months beforehand that I should back up all my stuff but did I listen? No.

ALWAYS back up your hard drive. You just never know when it's going to die. There are many ways to do this. CD, flash drive, internet programs such as Google Docs. DO IT!

Lesson #1: Cake Baking

Never bake a cake at 3 p.m. on a hot afternoon in mid-July in Salt Lake City. It brings a whole new meaning to "baking heat."

Welcome

I often record things in my journal that I learn as I go through life. Today I felt inspired to create a new blog to let others share what I have learned. I intend for some of this to be practical, some funny, and some spiritual. I hope you will enjoy it!