One Hundred and Eighty-Seven Years of Goodness

One of my favorite times of the year concluded yesterday. This weekend, plus a session last Saturday, was the 187th Semi-Annual General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Every six months I look forward to my soul being filled by the messages, both spoken and sung. And with all of the chaos currently in the world, I think I was aching for words of comfort.

I felt that more talks than usual really spoke to me. There are always major themes in each Conference (which is remarkable because every speaker decides on their own topic). For me, the themes this time were: the example of the Savior, service, humility, The Book of Mormon, our ability to choose how we respond to trials, and kindness.

All of the talks are available online to watch, but they don't all have the written transcriptions posted. Because of this, today I'll simply share the two talks from the Women's session (which happened a week ago and the written talks for these are already online) that I loved.

Turn on Your Light by Sharon Eubank, First Counselor in the General Relief Society Presidency, was the first talk of the evening. She quoted and elaborated on President Spencer W. Kimball's 1979 talk about women in the church and spoke with boldness about our need as women to be a "significant force" for growth in the church. She listed five things that we need to do to fulfill this: be righteous, be articulate, be different, be distinct, and do all four of those in happy ways. If you've been reading this blog for long, or have spent much time with me in person, you'll recognize that these five things have been important to me for a long time. To hear them spelled out from the pulpit was exciting and inspiring.

Three Sisters by President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, Second Counselor in the First Presidency, was the closing talk of this session. He told a story of three sisters, one who was always sad, one who was always mad, and one who was always glad. regardless of their circumstances. Then he explained the parable. I encourage you to read it (or reread it). This will definitely be a talk that we teach during an upcoming Family Home Evening.

The kids were all just as excited as I was for General Conference. We all enjoyed our traditional breakfast of waffles, whipped cream, and strawberries. I was pleased to see how delighted each child was when they opened their freshly stocked General Conference notebooks. And even better? They listened to the speakers and each child could tell me which talks were their favorite. That always makes my mom heart happy.