Kennedy Center Fun & Prayer

Photo above: Alan, moi, Jen Anderson at the arts festival. The 'carpet' behind us is made out of rice.
I went with a few friends to the Kennedy Center Arts Festival Open House on Saturday. They had different groups outside and inside. Some were magicians, bands, dancers, comedians, etc. They even had a flea circus said to be 'the smallest show on earth.' :) We walked around for awhile to see what was going on. It was nice day. On the way we saw a triathlon going on. People were swimming in the Potomac (gross) and we saw all the bikes lined up. It was cool.

This is the favorite group we saw. The whole program at the Kennedy Center was really targeted to small children so some of it, though amusing, was a little too young for us. This group did different forms of break dancing and hip hop. It was a lot of fun to watch!
They created a maze out of boxes for kids and their parents to play in. You could create your own building with the boxes too. I thought it was such a brilliant idea! What kid wouldn't want to go play in something like this? I even wanted to join in. :) This is what parents should do for birthday parties instead of spending so much money on those blow up toys or taking them to expensive places.

It was stake conference today. I really don't like stake conference. I think there are a lot of reasons why, but I'm not going to go into them. JD Evans is our stake patriarch and he gave a really good talk (the only one that I really paid attention to and enjoyed). He talked about prayer. He said that when he was asked to give the talk he prayed about it, perused the scriptures, went to the temple, etc., but nothing came to him. So he created his talk around answers to prayers. Here are a few points I thought were worth mentioning. He said that sometimes this is why we may not be getting an answer. (Please note that this is just a glimpse of what he said. He had stories and scriptural references to back them up.)

1) Faith--we need to be tested. Our character needs to be developed.
2) Patience--He gave the example of the people in Mosiah who had faith, but they still had their trials--they were not taken away.
3) Experience--He talked about Joseph Smith and gave scripture references to him gaining experience that would do him good.
4) Learn Initiative--Gave example of Oliver Cowdry trying to translate the plates and just expecting to be able to do it. Brother Evans told of when he was trying to decide if he should marry his now wife (of over 40 years). He said that he prayed and prayed about it, but did not get an answer. He said one day he changed his prayer and said that he wanted to marry her and gve his reasons why. Then he said if it wasn't right to please stop him. He went ahead and asked her to marry him and during his engagement he received his answer that it was good. He had to take the inititive first.
5) It doesn't matter to the Lord. This one surprised me, but he gave several scriptural references where the Lord said that it did not matter (i.e., whether they took a boat or went by land). We have to use our own judgement. He talked about a blessing he gave to his son once and part of the blessing said that 'he needed to move his feet.' In other words he needed to take action--he needed to walk to the end of the light and a few feet into the darkness before his prayer was answered.
So ultimately he said there are five things to do.
1) Pray over concerns whatever they are.
2) Study things out in your mide first.
3) Recognize that Heavenly Father may want you to decide.
4) Move your feet according to righteous principles.
5) Keep praying and doing your best even when you don't get answers. It may not be according to Gods time table.
I thought it was a great talk and it gave me a lot to think about.