General Conference

This past weekend was General Conference, one of my favorite weekends of the year. I love listening to our Prophet Thomas S. Monson speak right from his heart, the things that the Lord would have him say to me. It amazes me that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is now 14 million strong and still we can all feel that the messages shared by apostles via satellite were meant just for us. I'm excited to replay all of the conference over again. (Hooray for DVR!)

I admit that conference at my house isn't totally reverent all of the time (big surprise), but we have our moments. As we listened to Pres. Monson talk about the contributions made in behalf of the Japanese people, Daniel turned to me and said, "I'm feeling really good inside." I made sure he knew that the Spirit was telling him that he did the right thing, when he fasted for and contributed his own money to the relief effort. Liam told me he felt good about it too.

Liam asked me during Saturday's session, "Is this real?" A few minutes later he asked, "Is this true?" I don't know what brought out the questions but I had a definite answer for him. "YES!" We are so blessed to belong to this church which is the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. It makes so much sense that it is organized as was the church during Christ's time on Earth. Later, Liam heard the choir sing, "I Know That My Savior Loves Me" and he said, "They're singing our song." I love his ownership of the music. I hope everyone in primary feels like that is their song. I was a happy primary chorister to see my boys singing along.

This year we tried to keep the boys excited for conference. A whole week before Liam kept asking me if it was the day we got to watch conference in our pajamas. (One of the things I love too.) We also printed out some fun activities to keep the boys' attention. On the sugardoodle web sight we found a first presidency that the kids could color and cut out. Each person was attached to a toilet paper roller and it also had a pulpit that they could stand behind. The boys worked on that for about 3 or 4 talks! They even seemed to be listening. (Daniel also made a cutout of himself to stand behind the pulpit! Dream big kid.) We also printed out some of the conference packet for primary kids. There are so many great ideas right at our fingertips. (My thanks to all of the creative people so willing to share.) Usually we try conference bingo, but this year I decided to change things up a bit (another idea I saw online). We picked out some of the boys' favorite treats and snacks. Each was in a different bowl with a different word on it. They had to listen for the words, when they heard them they got the snack from the correlating bowl. Sometimes the lunge for the bowls was a bit loud and distracting, but overall I think it was a success.

Between sessions we went on a bike ride by the river. This is the face I get when I tell Caleb to smile for pictures...

Saturday night I had another good laugh over Daniel's prayers. He thanked Heavenly Father that we got to skip church this week. I'm glad he enjoyed himself, so he thought he was getting out of something. Funny kiddo!

While Nathan was at the priesthood session, the boys and I picnicked and played at a park with friends. I was especially grateful for the sunshine after seeing snow on the trees at Temple Square.

So now that conference is over, I have my work cut out for myself, but I feel so blessed to have this gospel in my life and blessing my family.