For the past two years, I've been working with the rest of our stake relief society presidency on the idea of bringing Sheri Dew to Seattle for a fireside for our stake women. Sheri Dew is an outstanding speaker and always has a strong, positive impact on her audiences. As the CEO of Deseret Book, she's also a great role model for women like me who don't find themselves staying at home with children. The logistics for getting her here were crazy and mostly out of our control, so we were thrilled when we finally had the date in place and could finalize plans.
Part of the work was in getting posters, handouts, and tickets for the event and inviting two other stakes and making sure everyone understood all of the details and where and when things were happening. It was a lot more work that I even expected it to be.
Then, just a week before the event, we found out that Sheri Dew may have had to postpone due to the sickness and imminent death of a very close friend. All we could think of was that we would have to figure out how to communicate changes out to over a thousand people and figure out how to reschedule and to what date. It was difficult not to think about the potential issues, even though there was only the slight potential rescheduling. We also kept thinking, what if no one shows up. Or, what if twice as many people show up as we can accommodate in the building? We all just kept the panic at bay and tried to go with it.
In the end, none of the "worst case" scenarios happened. We had a pretty full house, but didn't need any overflow. We also had everything fall into place just as we had planned and it turned out fantastic.
In the end, the other really great part of the event was the wonderful message that we heard from Sheri Dew. She talked to us about the importance of knowing who you are, how much influence you have over the many people you come in contact with, and how important both of these things are. Her presentation was outstanding and I really took her message to heart. She also talked some about how we spend out down time and reminded me how important it is that I spend my computer time doing things that enrich me instead of just waste my time. All good stuff!
2 comments:
That's interesting- I once heard her speak at USU when we were there and she gave a very similar talk. I'm glad it worked out for you guys.
I'm just a stranger who came across your blog. I have heard Sheri Dew speak before (on the same subject, it sounds like) and have read her books. She really is amazing. That is great that people like you were willing to work so hard so that many women could be uplifted and motivated to be better!
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