"Hang in there, you're gonna make it."

Today was a special day for our stake...Elder M. Russell Ballard invited our stake and one other to a special conference on Temple Square in the Assembly Hall. I had never been there before so I was pretty excited. We had already had stake conference, ward conference, and general conference, so it was a special treat to have another chance to be taught by an apostle of the Lord. We bundled up really good because of the 6 inches of snow that had piled up the night before and made our way over to the Assembly Hall. It was a wonderful meeting...full of great talks and testimonies. We heard a lot about gratitude and family. There was a beautiful musical number, and then Elder Ballard addressed us. It was so refreshing to see him in a new context...he was so relaxed and cracked I don't know how many jokes! He spoke a lot about loving your spouse and being strong. He said that he knew this was a hard time of life for many of us and that we should, "Hang in there, you're gonna make it." I loved that quote...it seemed to apply directly to me. The other thing he said that I loved was, "Never loose your capacity to laugh." That really reminded me of my mom. She is an expert at laughing. :) It was nice to be on Temple Square again...the Christmas lights weren't on yet, but you could see everything had been set up! I can't wait to go after Thanksgiving!

(PS: For the next few months I'm putting down my "big girl camera" to take a break from the hectic life of being a photographer. Instead, I'll be using a little point and shoot. It was so nice to just be a normal person again with a normal person camera this weekend!)