Stake Conference Isn't Just For Old People :)

This weekend was our Stake Conference (a meeting of all the Mormon congregations in a particular area, ours includes Nanaimo, north on the Island) Conference is something I really look forward to....Although as a child and teenager I thought Stake Conference was just for old people (you know any one with grey, silver or blue hair or over 30 ;).

In the last couple of years I have come to love conference. Its gone from something I merely sat through to something I just can't miss.

Its a weekend I come away from with a renewed since of purpose, a hope in the future, and a feeling that I am needed, valued and loved. Making the six hours in the car and the four hours of sitting worth every single second.

Here are the points that stuck out for me:

"I doesn't really matter who gets there first"

(as long as we are working on it)

-a young brother who had never spoken in church before gave his first talk ever at Stake Conference. He spoke on the fact that we are all STRIVING to become better...he gave his talk with the use of a computerized braille reader. What an amazing young man.

"I feel like a ballerina in gum boots"

-a sister from our ward talking about making changes and learning new things.....I think its sign worthy :)

Then Brother R gave a presentation on all the positive uses of the Internet in our lives.....I learned tons. The following quote is one he shared that amazed me....(I had to look it up, I can't write that fast)

Spencer W Kimball said on April 4, 1974.......

Technology will help spread the gospel. We need to enlarge our field of operation.… The Lord will lay in our hand inventions which we can scarcely conceive whereby we will be able to bring the gospel to the peoples of the world…. I have faith that the Lord will open doors when we have done everything in our power. I believe that the Lord is anxious to put into our hands inventions of which we laymen have hardly had a glimpse….We shall use the inventions the Lord has given us to awaken interest and acquaint people of the world with the truths, to ease their prejudices and give them a general knowledge. We shall need to answer specific questions, and perhaps that can be done by two-way radio and TV perfected to a point beyond our present imagination. It is conceivable that such a program greatly perfected could be multiplied ten thousand times in ten thousand tongues and dialects in ten thousand places far and near…. Tens of thousands of young missionaries endowed with the power from on high will follow up the proselyting."

Internet, iphones, FB, Blogger....Yup pretty sure that has and will still happen. Its humbling, all the things we've been blessed with.

"Keep your feet moving!"

President VH says this often. It reminds me of something my Grandma Beena always said "The cure to any worry is work." Life requires us to keep moving forward on step at a time. Its going to be hard sometimes but keep putting one foot in front of another and things will have a way of working out.

"Living is a real luxury if you take the urgency out of it"

President VH encouraged us to take the busy-ness out of our lives....Don't live like you are always heading to a four alarm fire :)

"Stick to the Church, until it sticks to you"

President VH to the youth... I'm glad I stuck it out until it finally stuck.

Nope, Conference isn't just for old people anymore...its for me.