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Relief Society Retreat

On Friday, September 27th, we began our two-day retreat at the beautiful home of Julie Marriot. It was relaxing, inspiring and fun all at the same time.

We started with dinner. Crock pots of chili, taco soup, corn chowder and chicken soup covered the kitchen island. Julie made her famous and delicious rolls and there was molasses oatmeal bread. We had a divine salad made by Crystal Schreck - lemon arugula and capers with avocado, and lots of other yummy food.

 

Ginny Woodworth made some wonderful table displays! She is certainly an artist. Her displays are so colorful and unusual - truly the best kind of eye candy!

 

After dinner, we had a wonderful and inspiring talk by Sister Packard. She spoke about the Holy Ghost and its place and influence in her life over the years leading up to now, and how we can access and rely more on the Holy Ghost in our own lives.

We listened to Sister Packard's talk in the family room, which was decked out with quilts from Julie's collection, making a very colorful and cozy setting.

After Sister Packard's talk, we repaired to the living room for a musical treat - a cello and piano rendition of "If You Could Hie to Kolob." by Megan McQuivey on the piano and Amy Collins on the cello. It was stirring and relaxing at the same time. Great job, Megan and Amy!

After the beautiful musical number, we played a "speed dating" game to get to know each other. Crystal was our moderator, ringing a (semi-dysfunctional) bell to keep us on track and changing partners every 15 seconds. It was loud, it was fun, it was fast, and it was informative.

After that activity, we had dessert. There were many yummy selections. Instead of taking pictures of these delectable items, I just ate some and forgot completely about documentation. They were pretty distracting, as you can see. I did learn a useful tidbit from Darsi. Everyone was raving about these brownies that were topped with this divine frosting. She told us that she bought some store-brand frosting for a dollar at Stop and Shop and had looked up on Pinterest that you can whip it and it makes it go farther. Well, it might make it go farther, but it also makes it taste much better than store-bought frosting tastes. Thank you Darsi, for that little tip! I, for one, will be using it. And thanks for bringing the brownies!

After the dessert was served, we just visited and eventually drifted off either to our homes or to sleep in the basement.

The next morning, there was a walk around Lake Waban. I heard it was beautiful with the mist on the water, but I couldn't be there.

There was a breakfast of steel-cut oats and fruit and yogurt prepared by Crystal Schreck. And some of us had leftover rolls because we love them that much.

Then there were classes. The first one was taught by Kim Wilson and was about listening to our children. She taught from the book "How to Talk So Your Kids Will Listen and Listen So They Will Talk." We did some role playing with partners and learned some different ways to listen effectively so that we can help kids identify their feelings.

Here are the tips on how to listen. Kim also pointed out that this also works well with adults (husbands, even!)

1.  Listen with full attention
      full eye contact
Turn your body towards them.

2.   Acknowledge feelings with a word - -
     "Oh, mmm, I see. . ."

3.   Give them their wishes in fantasy -
     "Oh, I wish I could. . ."

4.   Give their feelings a name - -
     "That must be frustrating"

After Kim's class, we went into the kitchen for the next two classes, which were done at the same time. There was a class on making cute paper covers for miniature Books of Mormon. Preparation for this class was done by the amazing Ginny Woodworth, who prepared the paper, scoring it to make it easy and fast to make these cute covers.

The other class held at the same time was the felt flower-making taught by Jen Hopkin. There are so many beautiful varieties of flowers that she makes. She supplied us with all the tools and materials we needed to create our own masterpieces.

We came to the end of our retreat with minds full of ideas and hands full of projects completed. We all took hot chocolate mix with Tanya's handmade marshmallows to sustain us in the cold winter months ahead (or to drink when we get home - either way works!) with a bookmark to help us keep our place.

So many people helped to make this retreat the wonderful success that it was. Many, many thanks to Julie for letting us use her comfortable and gracious home.

Crystal Schreck, Ginny Woodworth, Tanya Rogers, Adrene Gorman, Jen Hopkin, Kim Wilson,Darsi Dowling, Megan McQuivey, Amy Collins, Mary Alice Hatch, Sister Packard, the Sister Missionaries - THANK YOU!

We had a great time!