Stake Conference Sunday

This morning as Rachel was getting into the van she came head to head with a ginormous German shepherd. She quickly closed the van door and waited for everyone else to join her. The dog ran around the side of the house and disappeared "into the woods," as Rachel told us.

I asked her to say the prayer (because sometimes we forget to say family prayer on Sunday mornings until we've already piled into the van) and she promptly began even though Andrew said, "Wait a minute!"

Since Rachel was praying I was trying to listen to what she was saying. The line "please bless Mommy and Daddy to enjoy listening to the talks at conference..." stuck out in my mind.

Andrew, however, was completely ignoring her. He backed out of the driveway and kept backing up until he got to the neighbour's house. Mr. Lee was out with his three dogs (that my kids love) who were all barking wildly at the woods.

"Is there a big dog back there?" Andrew called through his window.

"HUGE!" Answered Mr. Lee, whose dogs I consider to be on the large size. "Looks like a German shepherd."

"He was in our yard earlier," Andrew said. "We need to find out where he belongs to."

"He's pretty timid for his size," remarked Mr. Lee. "He's terrified of my dogs!"

We bid Mr. Lee a good day, Andrew rolled up his window, and we headed off to church.

"Why don't you try again, Rachel," I said, giving Andrew a chiding look since he'd clearly misbehaved during the prayer.

"Alright," she said, and she began to pray again saying almost word for word what she'd said before until she got to the part about conference. "And please bless us all to enjoy listening to the talks at conference," she said with emphasis.


When she'd finished praying I said, "Hey, Rachel, you said everything exactly the same except for one sentence. Why?"

"I thought that's why you told me to try again!" she said.

"No, no!" I said. "It's your dad who was in trouble, not you!"

Silly girl thought I was upset that she'd prayed that only Andrew and I would enjoy conference.

Conference was actually pretty amazing. We got a new stake presidency and heard some awesome talks. And Benjamin fell over the back of the bench right into my pregnant friend's belly. She's got three boys of her own (and another one one the way) so she's developed pretty quick reflexes and she managed to catch him before anything too traumatic happened. He also fell off the front of the bench and nearly landed face first on the floor (both Andrew and I caught various parts of him, though, so that crisis was averted as well). So what I'm saying is that I'm pretty sure that conference was pretty amazing.

Elder Fred A. Parker spoke and he's always entertaining (he's spoken to us before). He's from Georgia and he doesn't have the cadence of a Mormon GA at all. It's more like...baptist, maybe. He pauses for the congregation to "Amen!" but, of course, no one does. Except for one person one time.

He said the main point of conference was that "we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins."

We also heard from Elder Bruce A. Carlson, who reminded me of The Stripling Warriors. I don't think he drew this connection (but if he did it was probably while I was preventing Benjamin from flipping off the bench) but he mentioned that he was raised Lutheran (his father's religion) until his family moved to an area where there was a branch of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (his mother's religion). She was so excited to go and take her children and her husband didn't mind because "he was a good Lutheran, which meant he only went to church about a dozen times a year and spent the other Sundays fishing or hunting." It was a fast Sunday and his mother got up to bear her testimony and when she did, he knew. He did not doubt his mother knew it. And it was a turning point in his life.

We also heard from the old presidency and the new presidency, the mission president, and the temple president. *cough*no women*cough*

Our lovely choir director went to the stake center to sit with the Stake President's wife since she had no one to sit with during the meeting, which was sweet of her...even if she asked us to stay for choir after conference.

But we started Christmas music and I love Christmas music. We're singing an arrangement of The First Noel by Craig Petrie and it's absolutely beautiful and I'm so glad Andrew picked it (even if the only reason was because the other arrangement our chorister offered had six flats).

My mom is in charge of a database of free LDS music (but not only LDS—because if you're not LDS the music is still beautiful) for choirs and I sent the link to our chorister and she was really excited about it. I love when people so willingly share their talents.

Free sheet music—like free crochet patterns—makes me happy.