Education Week in a Nutshell

I went to Education Week with my mom this past week. I have been 8 or 9 times. I am not exactly sure. I love it, and I always come home renewed and ready to take on the new school year. This week was my favorite of all the Education Weeks I have attended. My husband is so awesome to take a week off work to be with our kids so I can go. I always stay in the dorms on campus, and it is a mini-vacation for me.

We went to Brick Oven twice, and Cafe Rio once, along with grabbing a sandwich here and there for lunch on campus. We do not believe in taking time off from class to stop and eat, so we are always eating on the run until we stop going to classes at 5:30 p.m. We also get to relax and play in the eveings. We spent our evenings going to Iron Man, The Hulk, and a musical production of Pride and Prejudice at BYU. One night we ate leftovers in the dorm and watched the Olympics on the TV in the lobby.

This year was my favorite because of the concrete ideas in my head and in my notes that I want to work on. I left very inspired.

Things I am Going to Concentrate on Now because of what I learned at Education Week... The Short List

1. I am going to create a list of 100 life goals. I had two different teachers talk about this. I know it may take a while to think of 100 different goals important enough to label as "life goals" but I am going to work at getting that list put together and keep it somewhere where I can be motivated by it.

2. My uncle, Wally Goddard, spoke at Education Week this year and he was probably the speaker that had the most profound effect upon me. He made the atonement come more alive and real for me. He also spoke of keeping a "Samuel" Journal where we record our spiritual feelings and experiences to show the Lord our gratitude of his hand in our lives. In 1 Samuel 3:19 it talks of Samuel not letting any of the Lord's words fall to the ground. I have tried to do this in the past, but not in a separate journal. Here is a picture of my new Samuel journal below.

3. Randal Wright actually made me feel fine about having not kept a journal all my life even though he said he was trying to make us feel guilty. He said that all experiences can be summarized into 3 words to help us recall the experience. He also mentioned that we could go back and record lessons that happened a long time ago. So I am going to record experiences into 3 word summaries to help me to recall them, and then I am going to write out the full experience when I can get to it.

4. Elder Robert D. Hales spoke on the Education Week theme "The Journey of Lifelong Learning." He said "The most important thing we gain from lifelong learning is not the degrees, recognitions, or jobs, but who it makes us become." "Nothing, absolutely nothing, could help a woman develop her talents more than being a mother." I just need to be more actively involved in learning and recognize the lessons I learn with my children and not just let life happen to me.

5. I didn't really attend a class on scripture study, but Wally taught the subjects for his classes using the scriptures. I felt inspired to find a scripture study program for myself and for my family that would make us yearn for our study time. I bought a book to help us in our family study. Dave looked at it one time, and said we need to buy the same books for all the other books of scripture (I just got the Book of Mormon one). After our first scripture study as a family, I have witnessed Lindsay trying to mark in her scriptures, and Bryce asking about important scriptures he can mark.

I can't wait to go again next year!