SANDY — Alissa Parker, whose daughter Emilie died at Sandy Hook Elementary School, shared how her prayers were answered in a time of need, but in unexpected ways at Time Out for Women in Salt Lake City.
“God does not answer our prayers the way we think,” Parker said. “And it’s usually better that way.”
The Time Out for Women 2016 “One Heart, One Faith” tour concluded in Salt Lake City with a sold-out event at the South Towne Expo Center Nov. 18-19. About 6,500 women attended Time Out for Women this year, and about 1,500 girls 12 to 17 years old went to a concurrent Time Out for Girls event.
Both events, which are sponsored by Deseret Book, included several speakers, authors and musicians throughout both days.
Answers to prayers
Alissa Parker shared her experience on Dec. 14, 2012, which was her last morning with her oldest daughter, Emilie, 6, along with how she heard about the emergency at the school and then the long wait to get any information.
Their family had just moved to the area and a neighbor, who was also a member of their ward of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, offered to take her younger daughters as Parker waited. Her husband was able to join her, and she had waited for five hours before she was told what had happened.
As they planned a funeral and grieved and when “it felt impossible to go on,” Parker said she had the assurances that her Emilie was OK and that “everything your family needs to get through this will be provided for.”
In the ensuing days and months, there were many who came and helped them.
“My initial reaction to service was ‘no,’” Parker said. “I wanted to do it and do it myself.”
One woman helped arrange meals for their family and then would quietly deliver them. Another took her younger girls, who are now 8 and 6, one day a week. Another handled a Facebook page and other social media for them. The wife of her stake president is a counselor and came to talk to her soon after the shooting.
“We are all connected to those angels,” Parker said of both the physical and spiritual comfort and answers she received. “We are here to comfort each other.”
Lisa Valentine Clark, who has performed in the “Pretty Darn Funny” video series, pointed to a time in her life when she felt overwhelmed.
Her husband, who was in a doctoral program, was going with students for a study abroad and she had five children at home, ages 2 to 12 years old.
Clark said that she didn’t feel like she could do it. As she prayed about it, the answer was to go the neighborhood gym.
“The Lord answered my prayer in an unusual way,” Clark said.
She didn’t think she had the time or energy to go. But when she started going, she saw there were blessings, including getting out of the house, losing weight, gaining muscle and energy and also getting to meet new people.
“Sometimes following the Spirit means doing something uncomfortable,” Clark said.
‘Plant yourself’
The musical trio Mercy River sang several songs throughout the day on Nov. 19 and shared their experience. After their song titled “Move,” Whitney Permann shared how her family of six children moved to Rockland, Idaho, a few years ago, and they’ve been renting a small house as they’ve been deciding whether to build a home. Through scriptures and others she realized that she needed to “plant yourself in the moment” rather than wait to hang pictures.
“We can choose to be restless about change or trust in him who never changes,” Permann said.
'Never hold back'
Singer and songwriter Hilary Weeks did an experiment with the help of some elementary school students. She asked some of the students to come in and draw a picture of a house. For some of the students, she asked their classmates to be quiet and for the others, she asked them to cheer on the student who was drawing.
The results were obvious — the ones with the quiet classes drew simple houses and the ones who had a cheering section did more details and were more creative.
“The things we say to each other matters,” Weeks said. With compliments, “never hold back,” she added.
Finding living water
Tamu Smith and Zandra Vranes, authors of SistasInZion.com who also have a weekly online radio program, looked to the experience in John where Jesus Christ taught a woman at Jacob’s well and she went and shared about Jesus with others.
Smith and Vranes told of their experiences where they felt like they needed to drink from the well of living water, but didn’t realize they were dehydrated.
For Smith, it was when she went to school at Ricks College.
“I’m looking around; I’m trying to find my people,” she said.
As she was searching for what to do, she realized, “I don’t have a God problem, I have a people problem.”
It was in the stories of black members in LDS Church history that she was able to drink from the spiritual well, she said.
“I realized that I had to create my own filter and be the woman to get to the well for my own water,” Smith said.
For Vranes, she was asked to be a “ma” as part of a youth trek and walked in behalf of Jane Elizabeth Manning James, who was black and an early member of the LDS Church who came west.
“We must shore up our testimony so that no perception or policy will change or move us,” she said.
Finding peace
There have been studies done about the reaction of medalists at the Olympics and how bronze medalists tend to smile more than silver medalists, said Laurel C. Day, author and vice president of product at Deseret Book.
It’s about expectations and how there is sometimes a large gap with reality, she said.
“We all take turns having a gold medal,” she said. However, there are times when some people don’t have an opportunity to compete for a medal at all, using it as an analogy for when things expected or planned for in life don’t happen.
“There’s a gap and it’s sad,” she said. Be sensitive to those who may be mourning that gap, she said.
But there is peace in the gap of reality and expectations through the Savior’s Atonement, she said.
“Miracles do not come in the way we expect,” she said. “Miracles require our participation.”
Time Out for Girls
Singer Calee Reed asked the 1,500 girls ages 12-17 at Time Out for Girls to compare how their testimony is to getting a new pet.
Initially, it’s new and there is an excitement about it. When that honeymoon phase is over, there is the maintenance phase when it’s not as exciting, she said.
“A testimony is a live thing,” Reed said. And like any living thing, “your testimony requires maintenance to stay alive.”
Reed encouraged the girls to shift their perspective and to ask “how are you taking care of your testimony?”
“It’s easy to look at God and ask God where he is when we are the ones who have moved,” she said.
Al Fox Carraway told some of the challenges she faced when she joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
She initially felt happy in her life and wanted to prove to the missionaries that she didn’t need it.
“That happiness I thought I had, this (joy from the gospel) is so much better,” she said.
There were challenges — those she tried to share the gospel with didn’t accept it and her father wanted her to choose between him and the gospel.
Every time things got hard, she would read the Book of Mormon, she said.
“If we try, we really try, we will become better and will be blessed for our efforts for trying,” Carraway said.
Brad Wilcox pointed to the experience of Sharlene Wells Hawkes who was Miss America in 1985, but wasn’t expected to win. And she was aware of that.
At one point she wanted to leave the competition, and she received the impression there were three things she could count on: her family, her belief in herself and her faith, he said.
“Even when she felt like she was falling, she had a safety net,” Wilcox said. “You have it, too.”
Time Out for Women 2017
There will be 18 Time Out for Women events and six Time Out for Girls events that will be part of the “Arise” 2017 tour.
The first event will be in Layton and is scheduled for Feb. 17-18, 2017, and other spring events include Spokane, Washington; Idaho Falls, Idaho; Indianapolis; Pasadena, California; Kansas City, Kansas, Anchorage, Alaska; and Houston.
Next fall will include three Utah events — in Logan Sept. 15-16, St. George on Nov. 10-11 and Salt Lake City Nov. 17-18.
See tofw.com for registration and information.