General Conference

Once every 6 months, my church holds a General Conference for the membership world wide.  At these meetings, the leaders of the church speak to us.  There are 5 two hour sessions spanning a Saturday and a Sunday.  When I was a child, my family drove a long distance to sit in a larger church building that could hold multiple congregations all at once, so we could watch one session re-broadcast on a screen.  I hated it because it meant sitting still for two whole hours, listening to what I thought were boring old people, instead of just one boring hour in Sacrament meeting, then off to my fun age appropriate classes.

When I moved to Utah as a young adult (to attend BYU), I discovered that I could watch General Conference on the TV in my living room!  That was SWEET!  I could sit around in my PJs, listening to church while eating popcorn and candy!  My parents and siblings still had to drive to a meeting house.  Not me, baby!

Of course, nowadays, with all the amazing technologies available, you can watch General Conference LIVE anywhere in the world, provided you can connect to the Internet.  So, you can watch at home on the TV, the computer, or iPod/smart phone.  You can choose to watch/listen on the go while traveling, or while camping with the family... so long as you can get reception.

I missed yesterday's sessions of conference because we were out and about shopping and at Will's lacrosse game.  Sorry, but you can't really listen to church services and cheer on a lacrosse team at the same time.  So I made a point of listening to both sessions today.  Bill and I went on a 20 mile bike ride this morning (oh!  It was so beautiful out!) and got back just in time for the first session to start.

I won't give you a blow by blow of all the speakers, because truthfully, my concentration phased in and out and I didn't catch all of it.  Instead, I will give you some thoughts that stood out to me... messages that seemed to jump right out and grab my attention.  I have learned to pay close attention when that happens, because it usually means that it is a little bit of gospel that I needed right at that moment.

MESSAGE NO. 1

A message to the dads of the world.  How do you raise a daughter in this toxic world?  With all the miserable messages being pushed at young women in the media (men will love you if you dress a certain way, buy a certain product, act out in this way), it can be a scary thing watching your daughter grow to be a young woman!

The answer?  LOVE HER MOTHER!  Show her by your actions what it means to be a loving husband and father so she will know what to look for when it is her time to consider starting a family of her own.  The messages you portray daily in your actions as a husband will speak much louder than all the other crazy messages she gets elsewhere.  It will give her the confidence to know how her future husband ought to behave towards her.  And how her dates should be treating her now.

Of course, I took from this that I also ought to be modeling with my daily actions what a WIFE should be.  Both for my daughter and for my sons.  How I treat my husband will shape their perceptions of what a marriage should be like.

MESSAGE NO. 2

It seems like these days our cultural code of conduct has become "Anything goes, if you can get away with it".   But God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow, and our moral code of conduct has not changed.  The 10 commandments are still in force today.

1. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. OK
2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them. no problem here.
3. Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain.  This one has always bothered me.  Not because I disagreed with it, but because so many people break it ALL THE TIME!  I have always been so uncomfortable hearing people using God's name (and Jesus' name) as a swear word.  Don't get me wrong.  I swear more often than I like to admit.  But not those names.  I feel VERY uncomfortable hearing people abuse this very plain commandment just about all the time.
4. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.  Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates.  I am a big offender here.  I am always using Sundays as a catch up day on my laundry and if I'm really confessing here, I will admit that I didn't get the grocery shopping done yesterday, so I did it today.  I definitely need to re-evaluate my attitudes toward Sunday.
5. Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.  OK.
6. Thou shalt not kill.  Usually not a problem, as long as he isn't referring to those pesky spiders that keep sneaking into my house!  ;)
7. Thou shalt not commit adultery.  This is one that our culture in America is screwing up pretty royally.  Adultery encompasses the whole spectrum from pre-marital sex, to pornography, to plain old cheating on your spouse.  I am here to tell you all that there is something very pure and precious about being able to say that my husband is the only man who has ever 'known' me.  That is a gift that I gave to him years ago.  And that fidelity is a gift that I keep giving to him each and every day of our lives together.  A very precious gift.
8. Thou shalt not steal.  This is one of those 'duh!' kind of things.  But, really.  Stealing can be as small as taking office supplies from work for use at home.  Of course we wouldn't dream of walking in a store and stealing there, but what about that pen from work?  Can we be absolute about this one?  We should be!
9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.  No lying.  Check.  I've never been good at it anyway.
10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.  Durn it.  I struggle with coveting sometimes.  Not my literal neighbor, of course.  But I do love to look at magazines of beautiful houses and yards.  That's not bad, as long as I don't let it make me dissatisfied with my home.  And, yes, I will admit that as a child I giggled over the word 'ass' in the scriptures.  Really mature, I know.

The message here is that people seem to think that going their own way, making up their own moral  code of conduct will bring them happiness.  The truth is that there is nothing that can bring more lasting joy to our lives and more peace to our souls than following Jesus Christ.  

MESSAGE NO. 3

This one was a great analogy-story.  The speaker related something that happened to him while on vacation with his family.  There were warning signs on the beach of a rip tide.  He felt that he was a good swimmer, and if he stayed in the shallow water, all would be well.  He was enjoying himself in the water when he looked to the beach where his family was playing, only to discover that the current had taken him farther out than he had anticipated.  He struggled and struggled to return to shore, only to find the current too strong for him.  As he grew weary and began choking on the waves, he was in real danger of drowning.  Finally he called out for help and a life guard was there almost instantly.  Apparently, the life guard had seen him go out in the water, knew he'd get into trouble, swam around the current to the spot he knew the current would carry him, and waited for him to ask for help.

The Holy Spirit is like the life guard.  He is always right there for us, anticipating our need for help.  All we have to do is call out!

I love stories I can relate to!  I am a swimmer.  I have been in the surf during a rip tide (although I never got into trouble because I turned back when the life guard told me to).

MESSAGE NO. 4 (last one, promise)

This was another analogy.  Apparently they catch my attention.

This speaker was telling a story about his 3 year old granddaughter.  Her mother was giving her choices with consequences attached to them.  Choice/consequence no. 1, eat your dinner & get to have some ice cream.  Choice/consequence no. 2, don't eat your dinner, no ice cream and go straight to bed.  The granddaughter came up with her own solution to the problem...

Ice cream for dinner and no bed!

We chuckle over that, but how many times do we think we can choose, not just our actions, but the consequences, too?  If she could have it her way, she would end up malnourished and exhausted.  Consequences are not meant to be a punishment, but a way to keep us healthy.

My favorite quote of the day came from this message, too...

"Your eternal destiny will never be a matter of chance, 

it will always be a matter of choice."