Single Adult Conference ~ Day 02

 I got home around 12:30 last night but was up bright and early this morning to go to WalMart to get some things we needed for today. The conference started up again at 9:00 am. We had 5 different service projects going on all at once.

500 thank you cards for veterans

500 autumn signs to go to a nursing home

1,200 inspirational brown lunch sacks

1,200 peanut butter & jelly sandwiches (going to the Salvation Army)

painting fire hydrants for the city

 While everyone was in there doing service projects I was in the other half of the gym setting up for lunch. We had gone with a luau theme and the centerpieces went right along with the theme ... random! The centerpieces I had weren't fancy enough so we used these glass bowls we found in my Relief Society closet, rubber duckies & flowers floating in the bowls, a Hawaiian plate under it for color, and Almond Joys thrown around for treats b/c they're coconut-based.

 For lunch, we had Hawaiian haystacks. Luckily the service projects took longer than we planned b/c the chicken gravy for the Hawaiian haystacks took a lot longer than we thought to heat up over the sterno burners. Everyone seemed to enjoy the food, which is great.

After lunch, everyone went to the chapel to hear 2 speakers. Staci Peters & Rod Morley. Staci is a single adult that writes music for the church. Rod Morley was a single adult for a long time and is a successful businessman. I didn't get to hear their talks b/c I was running around making sure everything was set up for the workshop speakers. But the feedback I got from Single Adults is that they did a FABULOUS job!

From 2:00 - 4:00 we had 4 different workshops going on so the singles got to go to 2 of the 4. There were a lot of things to do still, but I went to Dad & Britt's workshops. Dad's was about the physical suffering of the Atonement from a doctor's perspective. It sounds boring but was really great & actually very spiritually based. 

A super fun surprise was seeing Lori at the conference. She used to babysit me & the other 3 kids when we lived together in Colorado back in the early '80s. We haven't seen each other since then, so it was SO NEAT to see her again. I saw her last night at the concert, but Mom & Dad hadn't seen her and didn't know she was there until she showed up in Dad's workshop. They were both so happy & surprised.

After the workshops everyone got a 2-hour break to go shopping, go home & get ready for the dance, take a nap, socialize, etc. We got dinner set up, and Marty knocked it out of the park w/ the centerpieces. I'm glad she was in charge b/c she really helped to elevate things and make them nice. The baskets & sunflowers were from her house, we bought the glass bottles at the $1 store and put water in them to look like oil, the Italian hand towels were from the $1 store, and the Mason jars w/ lights were from Ann. We filled them w/ tissue paper and pasta to help take up some space. The bread was just the big $1 kind from WalMart. It all came together really nicely.

 Having dinner catered by Olive Garden was such a good idea! They came and set all of the food up so we didn't have to. It made things so nice and fancy. Plus, it was really yummy.

 Tamra (on the left) was worried about being the MC for the conference but she did a FABULOUS job! We couldn't have pulled all this off without Marty. I know we butted heads a few times, but she is beyond talented at what she does and made important things happen.

 While all of that was going on with me, Autumn was off with her friends celebrating Venni's birthday. First, they went to the Cheesecake Factory for lunch.

 Then they went to the mall to walk around and do some shopping. After that, it was off to Medieval Times.

 She had such a great time and I'm thankful she has such wonderful friends. I feel bad, b/c we were going to make a cool candy card for Venni but we ran out of time b/c I was swamped prepping for this conference. So, she just gave the candy to Venni in a cute basket.

 While all of that was going on, Frank was SUPER DAD & kept Bitters all weekend. He took her to Chuck E Cheese b/c he likes the salad bar there. I'm afraid that Bitters inherited my full-on phobia of people in costumes based on this picture. Poor thing! 

 I told Frank to stop by and have some dinner b/c we had A TON leftover! We had planned on 250 people and only had about 150. It's such a small world b/c Shannon was there from one of the other wards to help serve the dinner. She grew up w/ Frank and they attended the same small branch. Too fun!

 After dinner, everyone went into the chapel for a special fireside from Elder & Sis. Ellis (emeritus 70 & his wife). My parents knew them in South Africa when Elder Ellis was in the Africa Southeast Area Presidency. We even got to eat a meal in their home when we visited Mom & Dad in South Africa.

They both did a FABULOUS job and it was so great to see them again. After the fireside, everyone went into the gym for the dance. Marty had found an AWESOME DJ for a super great price. All the feedback I heard was wonderful. The dance ended at 11:00 and we got busy taking everything down, cleaning up, loading up our vehicles, and getting home. We had to take a picture together and this was the nice one.

This is how that picture taking went after about 10 seconds. LOL! We were all beyond exhausted that the only thing we could do to keep from crying was to laugh.

As I think back on all the planning we did and how everything came together, there are a TON of tender mercies. We only had half of the budget we thought we would have, but you would never have guessed it. The majority of it went to food.

We were so blessed to get Brent Brunson to come for free. We were so blessed to get Staci & Doug & the Ellis's to come for free. All of them had family or friends in the area that they were able to stay with for free. We didn't have to pay for flights or travel for any of them. Those are just a few of the huge blessings we experienced during this conference.

We finally turned off the lights, locked up the church, and drove away around 1:30 am!!!