Pride Goeth Before a Fail

How awesome was the Women's Conference Broadcast on Saturday night?
(Want to watch it again? Click HERE!)

The music was beautiful, the talks were uplifting and instructive, and by the end I just wanted to drive to SLC to give President Monson a hug.

I also wanted to drive to SLC to give President Uchtdorf a hug but, to be honest, I usually want to hug President Uchtdorf. I mean, he's just so darn...faithful, you know?

After the broadcast, our stake had a post-conference snack-and-serve shindig. Diane planed yummy treats, Jolene prepared tables full of service opportunities, and Sue made the ward/branch rounds inviting the sisters before helping out with the color coordinated decorations.

My assignment was to gather up the photos the wards had taken of their service efforts during the past year and turn them into a video using our theme for the year: Sweet is the Work. The video, complete with photos, music, and clips of Elder Ballard's talk, turned out really well. Truth be told, I was quite PROUD of my efforts.

Unfortunately, when it came time to set up the projector, the projector FAILED to project. 

Our diligent stake technology technician immediately began making plans to acquire another, more projecty projector from other buildings in the stake. But I, having experienced ill-timed tech failures on an almost daily basis during my years as a public school teacher, decided to take a peak at the instruction manual.

Then I decided to get my handy-dandy tool-thingy that I keep in my purse and open up the projector. After following the suggestions in the manual, and poking around in it's guts for a while, I reattached the back panel and hit the power button.

And guess what?

It worked!

Our diligent technology technician was impressed, the Stake Presidency was impressed, and (most importantly) my home teachers were impressed. By the time the weekend wrapped up, I was feeling pretty proud of myself.

But, as any Pintrest GIF could tell you, Pride is the Gateway Sin. Luckily, I have a loving Heavenly Father who, along with blessing me in countless other ways, does a great job of cutting me off from the Pride Train when needed.

Fast forward to Tuesday morning. I was still priding high from my projector victory when I had a close encounter with a sharp-edged TV cart during second hour that resulted in an unfortunate pants failure. For those of you who have never experienced it, ripping a hole in you pants during class in a junior high is a very humbling experience.I taught the rest of the hour with my leg to the wall, or sitting behind my desk.

I was feeling pretty blessed, however, because I had lunch right after 2nd hour and could run home and change before the next group of kidlets arrived.

Then I remembered that I had walked to school.

So running home to change clothes became RUNNING home to change clothes.

Then me and a fully intact pair of pants drove back to school where I finished out the day with a very humble demeanor. I thought I was out of the Pride Danger Zone, and then I checked my mailbox in the faculty workroom.

I had done a favor for our awesome librarian the day before, and he had decided to repay me by turning me into an adjective.Then he posted his artfully created definition up for all to see. And just like that, I fell off the humility wagon again. But, I did learn something from my unfortunate pants failure; and now I keep an extra change of clothes in my classroom closet.

I'm pretty proud of that.