General Conference

The Spillane's came over for FHE last Monday and we talked about conference. I told the story of the people from Rahyad and how their downfall would be to eat chocolate cake, and so they avoided it. Well, an evil man named Zadock had a plan to get them to eat the cake. He first introduced them to chocolate chip cookies. They rationalized that it wasn't cake and the chocolate was minimal and began to include these in their diet. Then Zadock doubled the amount of chocolate chips in the recipe. Still the people continued consuming the cookies. Next he made chocolate chocolate chip cookies (I really should have made Alesha's recipe for these because ALL the kids knew exactly what kind of cookies these were and started craving them.) The people once again justified that they were cookies and still not the lethal chocolate cake and starting to eat them as well. This is when a wise man stepped in and held a conference and pointed out to the people what was happening. The conference made all the people step back and realize what they were doing and immediately made changes. (That's the jest of what I told anyway, I kind of simplified it up from the original) Then we talked about General Conference coming up and how that helps remind us what we need to be doing. We also talked about how easy it is to slid into Satan's trap and get caught before we know it, but how conference can help stop that from happening. We ended FHE playing an apostle match game, where we had to find the person that had our apostle. It was a fun evening and got us excited for General Conference.

During conference the kids watched and did their little packets. I had prizes as they would finish a page. (Thanks to Kristy leaving her treats for the trip here!)

I had given my YW a notebook with really neat note taking ideas last year for conference and used one for myself this year. I had found this on one of my YW sites and put it on the inside cover:

Take notes of what the speakers are saying and write down your thoughts and impressions as they come to you. At the end of the talk, summarize it into what the talk means to you and how you can do better in that area. Include the songs in your notes. Listen to the song and see why they chose that song. Then at the conclusion of conference include your testimony of the things you have heard, seen, promptings you have felt, and things you are grateful for. Then use these notes as a help to your personal scripture study and goal setting over the next 6 months until next conference.

I was touched by the songs this conference because I was actually paying attention to the songs and lyrics. I grabbed my hymn book this afternoon to go over some of the words that stood out to me. In the hymn, "We are Sowing" there is a phrase, "Seeds that live and grow and flourish when the Sower's hand is cold" How true that is about all that is planted in little hearts and minds now, will live on in some way after we are gone. I just really enjoyed looking at those verses today, maybe it's because Spring is here.