Public Speaking

I am very lucky. I say that because I am blessed with the gift of being a pretty decent public speaker. This is a great talent and am thankful to have it, but I will add that it is also a curse. Like when you get that call to speak and they say, "we can't wait to hear from you, you did such a great job last time, you are a great speaker." TALK ABOUT NO PRESSURE! I don't really mind speaking in public but I will say that I much rather do it for work or school that for church, it just seems a little more intimidating. My talk is coming from last conference and the talk is called, "Blessed are the Pure in Heart." Just putting that out there in case anyone has some great insight into this topic to help me prepare.

I once took a public speaking class in college. My teacher from the class had JUST graduated from college and rarely made it class on time. She was VERY liberal. I gave a speech once about "Keeping the Sabbath Day Holy" only I did it from a much different angle, more like just taking a day to rest in our busy and chaotic world. She didn't like it :( I had another member of the church in my class and was actually in my mother's ward. He told her that I was a great public speaker and in my first impromptu speach I practically bore my testimony and that it was pretty awesome. I won't go into that episode because impromptu made me sick to my stomach. Anyways, the point of the story is that I felt very confident with the class and was one of the top speakers in the class and that idiot, liberal, stupid teacher gave me a B!!! How could she! I was really mad at her and dumbfounded at that. I vowed to improve my public speaking and have worked on it since that point. So even though she unfairly gave me a B, it has been for my benefit.