MY Conference

Can I just say, I LOVE watching general conference at my own house? I get way more out of it when I'm not trying to keep my kids quiet so they don't distract every other person in the chapel. And sitting on the couch in my jeans instead of on a pew in a dress doesn't hurt anything, either.

If it weren't for the wonders of satellite technology, my husband surely would not have done all the laundry--sorted, washed, dried, sorted again, folded, hung up, and put away. Three kids produce an impressive amount of laundry. Something of a conundrum to me--their clothes are significantly smaller, why do they still take up so much space?

Chris's comment at the end was that our girls certainly have a lot of pink pants.

I had conference packets for the girls to color, keeping them at least in the same room for chunks of time during the sessions. Jane especially enjoyed practicing writing the names of the First Presidency and the 12 Apostles.

Megan just did whatever seemed amusing at the moment.

Ben pretty much slept. He was rather helpful in his part of letting me listen for the majority of each session. And I have no picture because I didn't want to wake him up.

There were a few talks that stood out to me. I loved Elder Scott's suggestions on and reasons for memorizing scriptures. Elder Perry's talk on proclaiming the gospel through social media spoke directly to a project Lisa and I have in the works. Sister Thompson's talk on scriptures was refreshing. Two particular moments, though:

Sister Elaine S. Dalton's talk was about what fathers can do to raise righteous daughters in today's world. She said the most important thing a father can do for his daughters is to love their mother. Chris, who was sitting next to me on the floor, said, "Done. That was easy." Ha.

The #1 talk I enjoyed is the same that I've heard many people mention already--Elder Andersen's talk on children. I have been quite disappointed by the fact that Ben was born by c-section. Honestly, it feels like someone else had my baby for me and I missed out. Elder Andersen's talk bore strong witness to me that I am fulfilling God's commandment to multiply and replenish the earth, regardless of how it all played out on that one particular day. I still have some ground to cover before I'll really be ok with it all, but I'm certain this talk has already been and will continue to be very helpful in that process.

I remember watching Conference as a kid and thinking about how insanely boring it always seemed, even if we were playing Bingo with m&ms. I'm glad I'm finally old enough now to really enjoy all that Conference is and can be for months to come until the next one. Thank you, Mom, for making us watch even though we were bored and for setting the example of appreciating Conference and listening to and following the prophets. I hope I can teach my kids something of the same.