General Conference

This past weekend was General Conference. General conference is a semiannual gathering of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. During general conference weekend, Church members and others who are interested receive inspiration and instruction from Church leaders via satellite. You can listen to the conference by way of cable, radio, internet, or attend it live in SLC. I was shocked to hear that we currently have over 14 million members throughout the world. When I went to BYU, I went to the tabernacle (the old and new one) to see general conference in person. Since college, I watch it in the comfort of my own home. I recommend experiencing both. Either way though, you are left with a renewed sense of obedience to God. I also feel more joy as I know that the things I've heard are true. I am joyous because my testimony is edified. What is my testimony? In a nutshell my testimony is a solid foundation based on the teachings of Jesus Christ. My testimony is very personal, emotions of the utmost gratitude, happiness, and reverence surround my testimony, my testimony has deep, strong roots, it is tender, and I hold my testimony as a treasure.
For the past 5 years, since Sydney was born, listening to conference has been a little challenging as there are many distractions. However, this weekend, I was able to listen to about 95% of it. Of course there were distractions and I was unable to write down notes and feelings, but the girls were present for most of it. I say present, meaning they were there and listening as well as a 5 and 3 year old know how to listen for a 2 hour session. Saturday I presented them our new "conference buckets." Conference buckets have key words on them. When they hear a speaker say one of these five words (temple, prophet, family, faith, and scriptures) they go to the bucket and pick a piece of candy in each bucket. The girls loved this! I thought it would keep their attention for 10 minutes but it lasted at least an hour, for Sydney anyway. On Sunday we printed out packets from sugardoodle and they did the activities in the packets with our help. They colored, traced names, completed mazes and found hidden pictures, and we did a few crafts that were in these packets too. The girls definitely mastered the names of many apostles. It was fun to see my kids engaged, in their own way. It makes me glad that although I'm not getting as much out of it as I want, that we are setting an example to our children of what it means to listen and obey the words of the prophet and church leaders.I got the buckets for a dollar at Target. You can't see but they do have handles.
Peanut butter M&Ms anyone??
A mobile we made that now hangs in Sydney's room.
A craft Jordyn colored and made.
Cuddling, in pj's, is a must in our home over conference weekend.