General Conference and New Goal

As a child I loved General Conference because it meant that we got to skip church and watch TV while eating candy and conference Bingo. As I matured, I began to enjoy conference for something more than the candy and the Bingo. Each conference I seem to enjoy it more and more, and I am grateful that we have the opportunity to hear from living prophets and apostles regularly.

As with every conference there are some talks that stand out more than others (and that is why it is great that we have to Ensign to go back and read all of them). But today in particular there were a few I have to share.

One I particularly enjoyed was by Elder M. Russell Ballard of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. He spoke on the importance of marriage and family, and offered this challenge.

"Make time for prayer and scripture and family activity. Give children responsibilities in the home that teach them how to work. Teach them that gospel living helps protect them from the filth of the world"

At our stake conference a couple of weeks ago, our stake president challenged the members to "unplug" and reconnect with families, meaning that as parents we should limit the time we spend engaging with electronics and increase the time we spend with our families (funny that I am blogging then, Mikey is in bed though). I thought this went well with Elder Ballard's message. So this is my new goal, well not really new, but it reaffirms my commitment to teach Michael the importance of prayer and the scriptures... and work, but we'll let him learn to walk before we start on that one.

I also loved Elder Uchtdorf's address. I loved the message to "stop it".

“We are not perfect. The people around us are not perfect. People do things that annoy, disappoint, and anger. In this mortal life it will always be that way.

“Nevertheless, we must let go of our grievances. Part of the purpose of mortality is to learn how to let go of such things. That is the Lord’s way.

Too many good talks to mention! The only thing that would have made this weekend better would have been if we had been in Utah to bug Jared, Di and their kids, just like the good old BYU days.