Discipleship

I love General Conference weekend. I start looking forward to it in January, at least I did this year. I tried to duplicate the success of the last Conference, but it didn't work quite as well. I'm not sure why. Maybe everyone just had more to say, and it was hard to hear the talks over all the chatter. I caught bits here and there, but not much.

I've already started listening to the talks again in an effort to catch what I missed the first time around. I'm starting with those that stood out to me. Yesterday I chose President Uchtdorf's talk Grateful in Any Circumstances. The whole talk was important for me to hear, but there were a few quotes that were especially profound. The first:

Commandments are opportunities to exercise our agency and to receive blessings.

I want that one printed and framed and hung on my wall. The second:

We are eternal beings, children of the Almighty God, whose name is Endless and who promises eternal blessings without number. Endings are not our destiny.

Tonight was Elder Holland's talk The Cost-and Blessings-of Discipleship. Elder Holland is one of my favorite speakers. His talk follwed one of the major themes of this Conference, that what we believe will not be popular, but it is still right and we must defend it. It was a bold statement and I loved it. He said:

Christlike love is the greatest need we have on this planet in part because righteousness was always supposed to accompany it.

Pure Christlike love flowing from true righteousness can change the world.

Be strong. Live the gospel faithfully even if others around you don’t live it at all. Defend your beliefs with courtesy and with compassion, but defend them.

I want to memorize that last statement and I want my kids to commit it to memory as well. Cooper and Peter both struggle with the question, "But what if my friends don't believe the same things I do?" I think this has been the biggest culture shock of moving out of Utah; they are no longer surrounded by members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and they're still adjusting to it. This was one reason we wanted Bryan to find a job outside of Utah, to give our kids the opportunity and ability to stand up for their beliefs. We often talk about how their friends say and do things that we don't, and that's okay, but we need to be examples and live what we believe to be true. We'll be studying this talk as a family.

Tomorrow I think I'm going to tackle Elder Oaks' talk from the Priesthood session, The Keys and Authority of the Priesthood. I did get to listen to most of that talk on Saturday and, wow, I am excited to hear it again.