Conference

This last weekend was General Conference for our church. What that means is that instead of driving over to our local chapel, we watched church on TV both Saturday and Sunday. We got to listen to apostles and our Prophet. I always love listening to conference. When living in Utah, conference Saturday was usually spent in the mountains, or after we were married, doing house work or ward work while listening to conference blast out of the radio. The Saturday was our ward work day. We planted flowers and re-mulched out flower beds and I was able to blast conference from the computer speakers out the windows. It worked pretty well.

I had lots of favorite talks, but one of them just really struck me on what I need to be working on. Between Sunday sessions of conference, they showed a special on BYU working on creating Merry Go Rounds that generated power to be used for laterns so students could work on their homework after dark. They talked about how we sometimes take for granted that we go home and do our school work and then have light to do all our other activities and these essentially would end for these students after the sun would go down. During Quintin L. Cooke's talk he mentioned that we need to be teaching our children the gospel in our homes. It wasn't even the entire theme of his talk, but in conjunction with the special on the African students, this really struck me. These kids know that if they want to be able to go farther in life they have to come home and study. I can't expect my kids to survive or go farther in life if I only teach them the gospel on Sundays. I try to use things we experience as life teaching experiences. My mom taught me so many things by just explaining how our beliefs differed from some of my friends in every day life. I am not sure that is enough any more. We really need to sit down and teach them everyday, just like we practice numbers, alphabet, etc. Last night we pulled out "My First Book of Mormon" and chose a story to read with the girls. I plan on this becoming a nightly tradition. I know that not all my friends are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints. I had so many wonderful friends growing up that weren't members of my church, but were so encouraging to me any way because of their faith. It helped me strengthen my own. I hope my kids will have wonderful friends both in and out of the church they can look up to. And I hope I can teach them everything they need to know when they are ready to step out that door.