April General Conference

I love General Conference. I always look forward to hearing our prophet and priesthood leaders speak to us. I'm sure as a kid my feelings were not always shared by my current state of mind, but in the end...it served as a great foundation for me to learn and get in the habit of watching, listening, and actively participating in all of the sessions.

I remember the first time I can honestly recall listening and taking notes during all 5 sessions, was when I was in the 9th grade...first year in Seminary. My teacher was Brother McClain, and he challenged us to make a personal goal to listen and take notes during all 5 sessions. Since this point in time, I have continued living up to that challenge my seminary teacher gave me. Now at the age of 30, more than 15 years later, I have come to appreciate and love General Conference. It is amazing to see that from a simple invitation, I have not missed a session since I was a 9th grader. I am grateful to my parents who encouraged me and my brothers and sisters to watch conference and also my teacher Brother McClain, who challenged me to participate so many years ago!

I enjoyed watching this mornings Solemn Assembly, where we all had the opportunity to individually raise our hands and offer our sustaining vote to our newly called Prophet, Thomas S. Monson and his other counselors and members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and other members of the Church Leadership. I forgot that during a Solemn Assembly, the sustaining is done a little different than other conferences. Each Quorum or group stood individually to sustain the Church Leaders. We were able to have Grandma Bird (Helen Bird) over to mom and dads house. It was nice to watch her and mom stand with all of the women in the Relief Society stood to sustain the church leaders.