Bad Experience

Yesterday was a more difficult day for me. I had been asked to give a talk in Sacrament Meeting on Keeping the Sabbath Day Holy. I had worked hard on this talk and was relatively pleased with it. I had tried purposefully to stay away from listing a bunch of Don't Do's and tried to focus on the positives of the topic. I was the second of three speakers and shook through the first half of the meeting. I had written my talk completely out so that I wouldn't forget something, but I was really hoping not to need to read it. When it was my turn I got up and asked everyone to pretend that they don't see how bad I was shaking. My shaking came and went during my talk depending on if I was talking from my heart (shaking gone), or talking from my paper (shaking back). I finished a sat down feeling pretty happy that it was done and that I had done what I considered such a good job. And then the final speaker got up. She went through a list of typical talks on this subject and said that it was beneath her and everyone there for her to give another of those talks. The problem was that she had just outlined my entire talk. I felt extremely deflated and like I had just wasted 12-13 minutes of everyones time. I just wanted to run off the stand and cry in Stephen's arms. I knew going into this that I am not a great speaker. I do not have a lot of knowledge on this topic that everyone else in the congregation doesn't already know. I did the best that I could, and it wasn't enough. Am I wrong to feel upset over this? Isn't the point of us fulfilling what is asked of us to just do our best? Why would someone so obviously put someone down for doing their best? After that I still had to stay at church and teach my little Primary class. It was hard to stay there, and my little boys were having such a difficult time being reverent. It was all I could do to teach them any portion of the lesson that I had prepared, but I got through it and was finally able to go home, where I was able to spend the rest of the day with my loving husband who told me several times how great I did with my talk. He is so great!!!! I began to feel better feeling the love that he has for me.

Also, off the subject, I have been playing around with altering pictures because Tina's always look so good. It has been a lot of fun. Here are some of the pictures that I have done so far. Enjoy!