First of all, I just want to thank all of you for all the nice comments you always make on my projects and musings. It means a lot to me, and I love hearing from all of you. I am excited to finish my chairs soon- hopefully this week!

This weekend was a really big turn around point for me, in a couple aspects of my life. I know that I am not “fat” or anything like that, but I haven’t been feeling well with my headaches, and I haven’t been feeling happy about myself. I am the heaviest I have been in several years, but I didn’t want to do anything about it. So I am starting a new diet regime. Not as much to lose weight as it is to help me try and eat healthier. I did the South Beach diet 2 years ago and I felt really great, physically and mentally. I had more energy. I slowly let myself slip more and more (like, there’s nothing wrong with ice cream, but it’s not good if you have a big bowlful every night). I also had a strong impression that this was a good thing for me to do last night when I was able to see Elder Bednar talk (more on that in a minute!). So I start today!

I also really feel more in tune with the gospel. I’ve been struggling with a few things lately. However, two situations have really helped me focus on the big picture. The first one was working on my talk. I went through a lot of church materials and read my scriptures a lot to prepare for the talk, more deeply than I have done in a long time. Doing this brought back a lot of memories I had forgotten. I also prayed so I would be receptive to what might need to be said for those in my audience. In the end, I felt so confident and prepared when I went up to give my talk (it was long… 15-18 minutes… hehe) and I have never felt like that before. I know that because I spent more than a couple of hours on my talk, I was blessed. Even if the general message wasn’t directly what I needed, getting back into deep scripture study and the discipline of writing was what I needed.

I think this first part with the talks also really helped me with the second part of my weekend. Elder David Bednar came to the Austin stake last night and did a fairly informal Q&A for two hours. I won’t go into the details of everything I heard last night, because I know that not everything I got from it was directly something Elder Bednar said, and a lot of it is very personal to me. However, I want to say that last night, I KNEW that Elder Bednar was truly an apostle of the Lord. He radiates of so much goodness and calmness… a calmness and surety that you don’t often get to see in the world today with all the bustle and confusion. I know he is truly a great man and loves God and has devoted his life to serve the world so they can also come to know and love the Lord. I also knew, without any doubt, that the church is undeniably true, and has more truth to it than any other source on earth. It was a truly amazing experience that I will not forget for a long time.