Friday, July 24, 2009

Rough Draft of Talent Lesson in May

This is my ruff notes from my talent talk at the May homemaking. Thought I would add it for those that missed or wanted the quotes. Read as notes. It doesn't flow. I'm a quote person.

Begins with little skit.
4 ladies. I forgot something in closet. But first wanted to thank some ladies for helping me tonight. Kalei, linnie, rhonda, and marie.
Give bags. Leave
Kalei Eats
Linnie throws away
Marie shares
Rhonda hides hers behind chair

Come back. Upset, glad at helpers gifts I gave them

Relate to Master and talents parable.
Sometimes we partake and use our talent God gave us
Sometimes we waste our talent and don’t think it really is a worthwhile talent
Sometimes we share our talents with others and use them for the benefit of others
Sometimes we hide and keep the talents to ourselves.

We have been commanded to “Be ye therefore perfect even as your Father in Heaven is Perfect”, Develop talents even hidden talents.

Given talents “that all may be profited thereby.”
We are told that we should seek after these things. “anything virtuous, lovely, of good report or praiseworthy.”

We are all given at least one talent, and urged to seek after more talents. Develop more.

So that we all may hear “Well done thou good and faithful servant, enter thou into thy kingdom.”


We r all on a Quest for Exaltation, gaining important knowledge and talents at each stage of the quest.


And I have decided to show a few of these stages as times in our lives as we shop for and change our purse needs.

1) When we were Youth we had a small purse, because our needs were smaller and we were still learning what we wanted to be and do. It held maybe lipstick, a change purse, and now a days a cell phone. In this stage we were narrowing our talent options like, sports, art, music. We learned about Faith, divine nature, Individual worth, choice and accountability. Good works and integrity. And worked some on those. Some even got medals for improving on those talents.

2) As a Student our needs for a purse to carry all our interests and knowledge increased to a humungously heavy backpack. It had many pockets for different subjects we were learning, and a smaller one for our cell phone, lipstick and change purse, that now included a credit card, bc our needs (wants) had increased.

Just as we chose different classes and narrowed our choices, God gave us different talents. We have been told all have at least one talent, some more depending on how we study and use them. In this stage we refined our list and chose specific career paths and talents we wanted to develop. Such as the art or singing, math, science, drama, public speaking, social work. Some of were even able to work on Missionary work for 18 mths straight.

As we developed these talents we also learned that not everyone is an A student, or the best in the class or that Not all can be the Rock Star or the Famous Artist,
but we can have the talent to sing or paint, or teach those talents we learned.

Henry Van Dyke states it better when he says: “Use what talents you possess: The woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang the best.”

The world has need for back up singers.


3) The next stage I thought of was the Wife Stage. In this stage our purse shopping sometimes has lessened to a more manageable style. We have stored what we have learned and graduated to new state of learning. In this stage we may improve our cooking talents, our ironing talents, our communication skills, and our talent to just not let the little things bother us. We work hard at not only our happiness, but making sure our husbands are happy too, which is sometimes harder than we originally signed up for, but the next quote helps sum up how we do it.

Ralph Waldo Emerson: “That which we persist in doing becomes easier for us to do, not that the nature of the thing itself is changed, but that our power to do is increased.”

Our husbands haven’t changed, but our power to love and endure has increased.


4) Our lighter purse is traded for a heaftier diaper bag when blessed bundles arrive. They may not always be the stylish bag, but we look for our need for pockets and space. Our bags are now full of the knowledge that we can’t go anywhere without a diaper, wipes, passies, toys, snacks, butt cream, blankies, teddies, and anything else we need for our sanity, I mean toddlers.Angels.

In this stage we need to do as we tell our children, Do it bc I say so, or better yet we need to remember as Joseph Smith said, “ When the Lord commands, do it.”

We also learn “ Nobody’s a natural. You work hard to get good and then work hard to get better.” unknown
Motherhood isn’t easy, but some talents we cultivate could be: Patience, selflessness, empathy, parenting skills of all kinds, unconditional love. WE can also claim the ones listed in scriptures such as Working miracles (birth or magic to kids), or healing bo bos, or beholding angels (our little ones)., and interpretation of tongues , (translating babble).




Moving on

5) Mom of older children stage . Our purses depending upon where we go are either lighter, yet full of junk, or heavy and burdensome. Some items these purses may include if like mine are, cheerio, pretzel, or animal cracker crumbs, old passies, ds games, camera, cell phone, wallet which is bigger bc now has more id and health insurance cards to hold, more family pictures to show off, appointment book to keep up with schedules, a book to read when waiting to pick them up from school and activities, hand sanitizer, old gum wrapped in paper, sticky unknown substances, mounds of receipts from not cleaning out often enough, coloring books, crayons, pencils, pens, notebooks, activity books, snacks for them, snacks for me, legos, and if we are lucky, ants.


Our lives as hectic as they may be sometimes reminds me of a poem I first saw on my mother in laws fridge. It goes like this:

Get out of bed poem.

We put so much effort into our children’s future, forgetting that we need to also take time for ourselves and Invest in ourselves.
Some talents we can master in this stage are prayer, communication skills, computer, sewing, bow making,

IN Jack Weyland’s book “If Talents were Pizza, you’d be a Supreme, we learn that as infants/youth we received praise for trying new things, taking chances like learning to crawl, walk, talk, ride bike, learn to skate, read. Then as we got older we found out others judged us at school and all around, and taking chances became scary and not such a good thing. Developing new talents takes more courage and perseverance, like trying surfing when your afraid of sharks, or piano when you know it will take a long time to reach your goal.

Sometimes fear , envy, procrastination stop us from exercising the gifts we are given or seeking righteous things, but we need not let those things stop us, For we are commanded to put our shoulders to the wheel, and push along. Seek after …


6) Empty Nest purse returns us to alittle bit of femininity, organization, and sense of self, but this stage also includes things like our husbands wallet bc it weighs his pants down, or his medicine bottles , plus your own medicine bottles, pics book of grandkids, not just one, and an apointment book for a all your appointments not your kids.




Now that we have advanced through some stages of purses and our quest is ending, the time has come to return and report of our progress or great buys on sale. To the Master. Jk
We will have to bring our purses to him and show what we have done with the talent he has given us. Have we used it up, wore it out, made it do, or done without, have we added upon what he has given us, have we made him proud?


Will we return with just the talent that we have buried, or have we doubled our talents. Are our arms empty, or full of the knowledge and talents we have sought.
Hopefully we will return and say thank you, sometimes it was hard to bear, but look at all the talents I learned. Thank you. Are you Proud of me Father?

We are all daughter of God. In the councils in Heaven, we helped create and organize the world. Why then can’t we develop a talent for singing, or organization, or kindness, or scripture mastery, or whatever we desire? We can. If Wewant it enough to work for it. All things are possible.




“Our talents are the gift that God gives to us… What we make of our talents is our gift back to God.” Leo Buscaglia



Lets make this year count.
Let’s turn this recession into a profitable year?
Sisters, What will you do with 2009?


“If you have not chosen the kingdom of /God first, it will in the end make no difference what you have chosen instead.” Elder Neal A. Maxwell


Make sure in your shopping it is in accordance with the Gospel and will make the Master happy when He returns.




Talents are like blueberry muffins sometimes, can’t see blue on surface-but take a bite and there they are. Talents are the same/ make effort to find Godlike qualities.

Talents are like dirty purses. Have to search for what we want sometimes.

No comments: