Sunday, January 17, 2010

Speaking in Church

Today Jeff and I spoke in our new ward. After almost six years of marriage this is the first time we've been asked to speak as a couple. Jeff and I had two completely different approaches to our assignment.
Jeff is the type of person who makes a broad outline of what he's going to be speaking on and done. He has the talent of impromptu speech. I think he spent maybe an hour on this talk. Me? I'm so embarassed to tell.
I'm afraid the perfectionist side of me comes out in full display when I prepare talks. The problem is I tend to overprepare. By that, I mean I fully immerse myself in research. I find one brilliant quote after brilliant quote that I HAVE to some how incorporate into my talk. WHen I'm finally ready to organize my talk two things happen. First, I completely forget what the point of my talk is and I have to refocus my efforts. Second, I'm forced to whittle down the piles of information that I've accumulated into something coherent.
This is where the funny part comes in. To our surprise we arrive to Sacrament meeting and find that there is not one but two more speakers on the program. Add on a congregational hymn and we have a full slate. By the time it was my turn to speak (I was the third and Jeff the last) we had about 15 minutes left.
After hours of preparation (and I do mean hours) I was forced to whittle down my talk so that I could give Jeff time to speak. How kind of me, right? Believe me, I was completely fine with it. The problem was I wasn't sure how to shorten my talk. I skipped a few things but I still noticed that time was running short. I finally, just looked at the clock and then abruptly stopped my talk and said, "You know - I want to make sure my husband has time to talk so let me end this." Next thing you know, I bear my testimony and sit down.
It was definitely not the smoothest transitions but it worked and I think everything turned out okay. Someday I'll be able to ease up on the preparation. Until then it just gives Jeff a reason to laugh at me.

2 comments:

Vero said...

Marcela vos me dejastes un comentario en el blog preguntando donde compramos la tela de le silla? si fue asi, te cuento que hay un lugar por 7200 S. y State Street que se llama home fabrics, y ellos ahora tienen muy buenos decuento y variedades. Espero la informacion fue util, y me encanta tu blog, ya lo pongo en mi lista de blog, espero esta bien con vos?

Misty said...

Yeah I way overprepare too-thankfully they only give us a weeks notice or I would obsess for however long in advance they tell me...I am glad I am not the only one! Although mine ends up being too short always.