Sunday, April 29, 2012

BYU Womens Conference

Is on right now at Brigham Young University in Prove, Utah.

Two fun experiences I've had relating to the Womens Conference
in the last day or two have been.....

Firstly, I am not at Conference I'm still here in Nu Zild.
But I was included in Melanie Rewai-Couch's talk at Conference.
Some months ago a film crew came from Deseret Books,
the people who put the Womens Conference on,
to interview some of our Sisters about their experiences
relating to the multitude of earthquakes we've had.

They interviewed people like Liz who was in the
CTV Building that collapsed on Feb 22nd.
This is the same building that my friend Jo was killed in
as she was at work and the multi storied building sandwiched.

Liz was on the fifth floor at work when the earthquake hit,
Jo was on the second when the building collapsed.
Those on the fifth floor were able to climb
down the height of just one floor onto the street.

Today more than a year later,
you can see the trauma Liz carries with her.
She is still her intelligent,spunky self
just is weary and cynical,
well let's be more accurate,
she is more so than she was before the earthquake.
I love having Liz in the Relief Society classes I teach
because she adds so much to the content and
takes the lesson in direction I always hope it will.

My very small bit in this story is that I gave a Sacrement talk on the Sunday
the film crew were here.
Mel had asked me to weave in an earthquake experience or two.
So I did, which of course caused tears.
This is exactly what cameras want to see.
Excellent, my teary, contorted face on a huge screen
with 15,000 people watching.
Oh just another day in the parallel universe know as Mormon world.

Melanie is also like this an awesome woman like Liz.
Smart, tough, analytical, fabulous.
The perfect person to go to Utah and speak in front of 15,000 women
sharing our stories of survival and resilience.


That's Mel on the left with Sistas in Zion bloggers
Sista Laurel and Sista Beehive.

Yesterday morning I woke up to the Sistas tweets about the Conference.
On facebook Mel had posted about her pre-talk nerves.
I was so excited for her!
This is huge deal speaking at this conference.
Not just that but Mel is a supa wonderful speaker
cause she is by far the best speaker I know
but cause she gets to do this
and that we all get to share in her opportunity
via the film from a couple of months ago.

I tweeted back to the Sistas to go find Mel and give her a hug from us all.
And they did!

I love being connected to so many people.
I can't quite remember was it was like to not be connected to people across the world.
Now it's so instant and immediate.
Yay twitter!

The women in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
are awesome, diverse, powerful women.
I am honoured to count myself as part of that tribe.

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