Hency Girls Take Houston! Siesta Scripture Memory Challenge...

This post has been over a year in the making!  Last year for Christmas (not this past Christmas, but Christmas of 2012) my mom challenged all the girls in our family to take the "Beth Moore Siesta Sister Scripture Memory 2013" challenge.  Every other year, women from all over the United States memorize verses with her.  To participate, we had to pick a memory verse on the first and fifteenth of every month.  We had to write our verse down in our little spiral scripture notebook and post it on Beth Moore's blog.  Over the course of 2013 we all memorized 24 verses.  Anyone who posts with Beth each month get to participate in her celebration conference that January.

All that to say...my grandma, my two aunts, all my cousin and "cousin-in-laws", my mom, my sister, and I ALL completed the challenge!  YAY!  Not everyone could go to the conference in Houston, but 6 of us could go and we had A BLAST!  We did a lot of driving, visiting, laughing, eating, and just had a BLAST having a girls weekend together.  And hearing Beth Moore speak and teach RIGHT in front of us was truly a HUGE blessing and something I will remember forever.

We left Thursday morning (I should probably pause right here and just say a HUGE thank you to my husband.  I don't know many dads that would willingly keep a fourth month old baby for over three days ALL by themselves, but he did awesome!  I wasn't super worried because we have pretty good sleepers and the girls are on a good schedule, but to know that I could go spend a stress-free weekend catching up with my family, hear a WORD from the Lord through Beth Moore, and have a refreshing mommy break was wonderful!).

Okay...so back to Thursday morning.  We left Thursday and drove to Dallas.  We hung out Thursday evening at Erika's house and just laid around and watched Young and the Restless (another Hency family girls thing...).  We were ready for bed by like 9:00 or 9:30, which was AMAZING.  My sister was like "seriously?? we're all going to bed?"  And I was thinking...HALLELUJAH...a full ten hours of sleep ahead of me sounds like HEAVEN!  HA!

Friday morning we got up and left around 10:00 to drive to Houston.  We played some FUN car games and chatted about EVERYTHING, including ex-boyfriends (my grandma had a few more than I thought! HA!)  We stopped for lunch at Cheesecake Factory.





After checking in at our hotel in Houston, we headed to this amazing galleria nearby and shopped.  SO FUN!  We even tried on some swimsuits...not sure if that was a good idea though...HA!  One of Erika's good friends is Schaffer from the blog "Pinterest Told Me To."  Well...earlier in the week she had posted this swimsuit from Nordstrom.  Erika and I both thought it was so cute and we wanted to try it on.  Let me just say...SHOCKINGLY when I put it on I didn't look NEARLY as cute as this model.  HAHA!  I took a picture of me in the suit but I'll spare you that picture.  I really thought it would be great at hiding the "mommy tummy" but the tummy just kind of squeezed itself through the mesh in the middle of the suit instead.  WE WERE DYING!  But let me say, it was so much fun even though it made me want to eat celery sticks for the rest of the winter and spring.  (Which, if you ask my Aunt Tina I clearly DID NOT let the swimsuit debacle slow down my eating...my appetite while nursing is out of this world, and my aunt was joking me about it all weekend!  HA!)





Saturday morning we got up and headed to First Baptist Houston to CELEBRATE with Beth Moore and 500 other "Siesta Sisters."


One of the coolest parts was that since there were only about 500 women who could attend (10,000 started the challenge in January of 2013, and 1000 finished in December.  Of those 1000, about 500 made the trip to Houston) we got to have the celebration conference in a smaller room at their church instead of the huge sanctuary.  We were so close to her and we found out it was actually the room she used to teach Sunday School in!


We had a morning session where Travis Cottrel led worship with his praise team and then Beth did a session of teaching.  After a break (I got to spend my break pumping in a nursing room, while hanging out with Linz and Erika) we had another session with Beth.  Then it was lunchtime.


They had a big meet and greet and groups took pictures with Beth (yes, we are clearly on a first name basis...ha!)  We were at the very beginning of a group picture, so we got to sit down right next to her.  Of course we told her how all the girls in the family did the challenge and she was so funny.  She was yelling to her staff "oh Y'ALL...listen to this!  These girls are all family and everyone from grandma down to her granddaughters did the challenge!"  She was so excited for us and she was SO GENUINE.

The lady who took this picture on my phone totally cut Erika out...WHOOPS!

I am so thankful that my mom challenged us to do this.  Learning 24 verses has been challenging but we all did it!  God has brought those verses to my mind MANY a time over this past year during hard times, during times of thanksgiving, etc.  I KNEW my mom wanted a picture with Beth Moore, so I just asked her to take one with my mom and she was so sweet!  I know my mom was THRILLED!  She always jokes that she wants to be a "christian women's motivational speaker" as her "dream job."





During the last session Beth finished her teaching and then we said some of our verses to partners.  It was an incredible sight seeing 500 women saying verses to each other.  I saw Beth on the stage closing her eyes in praise and thanksgiving and she was crying as she was watching everyone recite their verses.  It was amazing.

Everyone was holding up the spirals we had to record our verses in.

Reciting our verses...

Then she asked people to stand up and share what their verses had helped them get through this year.  The very first lady explained how she had made it through Stage 4 breast cancer this year as she was memorizing her verses.  Then Beth had a time of prayer over ANYone in the room who was struggling with physical disease and illness.  She did this multiple times and used whatever the person had talked about to pray over that situation for anyone in the room (family issues, younger women, divorce, etc.)  I really can't describe those few moments...they were just incredible.  She is truly anointed of the Lord.  Her prayers were so mighty and powerful.  It was AMAZING.  It has really really challenged me to be more of a prayer warrior.  WOW!


We drove back to Dallas and then home the next day.  What an incredible weekend of hearing from the Lord and celebrating with our family.  I would encourage EVERYONE reading this to participate the next time around (she will do it again starting next January)!!