Retreat

When our little LDS Branch was formed in late July and the RS presidency was called, at one of our first meetings we decided that we wanted to do an RS retreat. So we planned one for four weeks later. The theme:  Oil In My Lamp.  Well last weekend was the weekend we chose for the retreat, and can I just say we had a marvellous time and everyone loved it so much they want to do it again, and would like to extend it to 3 days. The presidency was thrilled with the way it turned out and the fun that was had by all, but we may need a bit of a break before we go planning a 3 day retreat, because we all went home exhausted after the little weekend retreat we had.  Below are just some of the photos that I took of the weekend.

 

Our fearless leader aka: President and her husband Rob cooking the bbq on Friday night.

The campfire, that would eventually keep me warm during my sleep out with a new friend.  This was a great gathering place for the sisters, including the two full time missionaries (in shorts) who came for the evening entertainment and then came back for Saturdays full activities.

Getting ready for dinner Friday night.

Good food, good friends and great laughs

Sisters in real life Joan and Marje getting ready for a restful night.

Toni (in red) is 80 and was our oldest participant, with Marje after a good nights sleep.  They were the first to come out and check on the two of us who slept out under the stars by the fire.  They were both so worried about us.  But we were fine and slept so well.  I love sleeping out under the stars!  It reminded me of when I was little and my brother, sister and I would sleep out on the deck under the stars...such fun memories!  The only difference between the time that I was little and last weekend, was that we were awoken by 15 kookaburras signing at 5:45am.  Loved it!!

The venue for our little retreat was the Spencily St. School House.  This little one room school house was once the school house for the Glen Forbes area.  They have long since built a newer, bigger more modern school, but they keep this for the school camps that they do each school holiday.  The first counsellor in the presidency was the old principle of the school and we were able to get it because of her connections.  Seriously such a fun place to have a retreat.  It's about 20 minutes from our house, even though it was only 20 minutes away we all felt that we were hours away from home.  I guess that is what a retreat is supposed to be like, right?

Saturday was a beautiful day, we couldn't have asked for better weather!  Remember we are just coming out of winter here, so the 70 degree spring day felt a lot like a Utah Autumn.  Beautiful!  This is Wendy, our president and her dog Cassie.  I love the picture, because it shows a lot about who Wendy is as a person, down to earth, kind, loving and just a really good fun loving person.

After breakfast we had a morning devotional given by Marg, the 1st counsellor.  Her devotional was based off a talk that Sister Holland gave at BYU Women's Conference entitled: "Many things...one thing."  If you have a chance to read it, do...you won't be disappointed!

After the devotional we played some games to get our minds working.

Sitting outside during the mini classes and being fed by the spirit, good food, the RS Sisterhood and of course the sunshine.

June, our Branch President's wife gave a mini class on spending less and nourishing more. Her daughters have a blog http://www.spendlessnourshimore.wordpress.com/ where they share recipes and ways to nourish your family by using what is in your pantry.  June's focus during the mini class was chick peas (aka garbanzo beans) and all you could do with them, from making hummus, felafel's, and chick pea curry.  It was fabulous not to mention delicious!  I'm so excited to use the recipes!

We also took time to get to know each other by writing something we admired about each person. 

And what is a retreat without food?  We should have called it an eat-a-thon because seriously, it seemed like all we did was eat.  We have so many good cooks in our branch, all so willing to share  their talents.  See the cake on the bench with the cream center?  That is a brown sponge (cake), which was heavenly!  We decided that we need to put a branch cook book together show casing every sisters talent.  Hopefully the brown sponge recipe makes it in the book! I have a friend who is not in our branch who heard we were going to be doing a cook book. This friend asked me if I would make sure to get her a copy, "because you have some of the best cooks in the Stake in your Branch."  It's so true!  We have fabulous cooks in our branch!  So excited to see what the cook book is like...it'll be a while, we just started gathering the recipes.

And of course we had left time for the sisters to chat and socialize during the mini classes. 

We also had a craft and service project to do.  These sisters are embroidering their names on what will be our RS table cloth that we will use each Sunday. You know that RS wouldn't be RS without a tablecloth.  See the sister in the white top standing up watching?  That is our Stake RS president.  We invited her down to be our closing speaker.  She gave a wonderful talk about the Ten Virgins and being prepared with oil in our lamps.  It was a great way to end the day.

We also have a darling sister who is due with her first baby any second, and so for our service project we tied a quilt for her new son.  The sisters had a great time laughing, talking and being silly.  Everyone had so much fun, we were asked several times if we could do this again.  We were thrilled with the feed back and look forward to putting the next one together. Overall the retreat was a wonderful success!!  Sure am loving being in our branch!