No more waiting for the golden ticket.

I’m sure I’m not alone in thinking that Pres. Uchtdorf’s talk from Saturday night was perfect. I could relate so much to it.

I loved the reminder that no one is perfect, despite how “perfect” someone’s life may look from the outside, or blogosphere for that matter. And that we can still be happy even if we don’t have the perfect hair style, wardrobe, car, or house. It is so easy to compare the best of someone else’s life to the worst of our own. Even though we blog about the happy things in our life (and what may appear to be a perfect life), we have our daily challenges that get us down and let me assure you, our life is far from perfect. I really admire those people who share what real life is for them. And I hope I can, too, be more open about our imperfect life, even though we are so, so happy.

I loved the advice he gave to not wait for the golden ticket.  Wishing and waiting that life will be better when this happens or that happens is such a sad way of living. I get caught up in this mindset often and know that if I will just stop and enjoy the roses (or the fall leaves this time of year), I will be much happier because there really are so many things to be happy about!

Lastly, I loved the reminder that despite how dark our challenges may be, we can feel the love of the Lord through them. Lately, I’ve been missing my mom a lot. I don’t know if it’s the fact that I will soon be a mom myself. Or if it’s the realization that the person my mom was to me is who I will need to be for our little one. Or the fact that the holiday seasons are coming and she got so excited to decorate and celebrate. If she were here, we would probably be exchanging festive recipes and making crafts together. But thankfully, I have the blessing of having so many different ‘mom’ figures in my life. And extremely close sisters who fill that void.

I’m looking forward to this conference weekend for even more inspiration. And, I’m looking forward to starting some of our very own conference traditions. What traditions do you have?