ONE DOWN, ONE TO GO!
Well, ONE speech is pretty much completed--will need some refining & lots of oral practice later, but the basic info & organization is all done. Naturally, it was the easier one. :-) But still. It is somewhat encouraging to only have ONE left to write. Now, if I could just figure out what I wanted to say . . .
I had a moment during the RS re-enactment conference, while reading in the Book of Mormon, that seemed insightful at the time but now I'm trying to figure out what to do with it. Basically, I felt I'd been asking the wrong questions--I'd been begging "Lord, what do I say?" and felt I needed to respond more like Nephi--"Lord, where may I go that I might find ore to make tools?" So I've been asking where to go for "ore" but still am lost. So.
At any rate, I now have SOMETHING done, the sun is shining, hope is springing. I read for my Mother's Education Course last night, the conference talk "Perfection Pending" by Elder Russell M. Nelson. Below are some "hopeful quotes" to help me keep the sunshine all day:

We all need to remember: men are that they might have joy--not guilt trips!

The perfection that the Savior envisions for us is much more than errorless performance.

Endowments and sealings are for our personal perfection and are secured through our faithfulness.

"When he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is . . . And eery man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure." 1 John 3:1-3

"Come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness . . . love God with all your might, mind, and strength . . . [Then] ye may be perfect in Christ . . . holy, [and] without spot." Moroni 10:32-33

We need not be dismayed if our earnest efforts toward perfection now seem to arduous and endless. Perfection is pending.

Rambling on, last night for Family Home Evening, we played the matching game from the Friend that covered the Apostles' General Conference talks. The kids had a good laugh at some of the "artwork" we had to illustrate the talks. I ended up drawing President Monson's "Maka-feke" talk, and tried to draw an octopus, which induced great hilarity. LOL Anyway, we kept "quizzing" each other during the game, by holding up a picture of an Apostle and asking the kids who they were--we've been working on that this year. The older two are pretty good, but our 5yo kept us in stitches last night. Turns out the NAMES are pretty familiar to him, and he can even get the FIRST names matched with the pictures pretty well, but he tends to scramble up the last names. Hence, he'd give us answers like "L. Tom Nelson" and "Dieter F. Wirthlin" or "David A. Monson" It was hysterical! It's funny, he even gets the initial letters correct, just mixes up the last names. Too funny!