Let me just say how much I love conference. Now I will be the first to confess there is always a talk...or two...sometime three, I tend to sleep through. Between that and keeping two little boys happy I don't catch everything. I am looking forward to reading through them again next month. You can read them here too! But I would like to share a couple thoughts about my absolute favorite talks. If you choose to read this please do not think I am being preachy, but read it as a journal entry and things I have been pondering, things I needed to hear.
Elder Bednar's about setting your families in order (Sat. morning session),
1. Express love and show it.
2. Bare testimony and live it.
3. Be consistent.
I suppose I am partial to him because I was able to listen to him speak often while attending BYU. He is such a great speaker! I think expressing love and showing is pretty simple, but I imagine how scary it can be for a child to never see their parent express affection, then witness an argument. Second, sometimes I forget that sharing your testimony doesn't always mean you start with, "I'd like to bare my testimony..." In a setting like in our homes I think these could be the teaching moments and then to show our children by example. Elder Bednar said, "Feeling the consistency of a testimony is a rich blessing..." Lastly, I have found consistency to be so important in every aspect of parenting. Elder Bednar narrows it down to 3 things: family prayer, family scripture study, and family home evening. If I can consistently do these things then I think this is a perfect way of sharing my testimony with my family and living it. I love the Book of Mormon. Time and time again I have found answers to my prayers, feelings of peace and happiness. I know it is true, if it were not the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints would not exist. Joseph Smith would have given his life for nothing. The pioneers would have suffered in vain. But I know this cannot be true. The Lord has protected the restoration of the gospel because it is true.
My other favorite talk was by Bishop Burton.
"We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men. In deed we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul: we believe all things, we hope all things we have endured many things and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous lovely or of good report or praise worthy, we seek after these things."
So pretty much Bishop Burton said the world is lacking in virtues such as fidelity, integrity, charity, civility, etc. We need to teach our children to have these virtues. Bishop Burton said, "Integrity is the mother of many virtues... it is the light that shows the discipline of our conscience." I would suspect that the lack of these virtues would be because people don't see how black and white it is. You either do it or you don't do it and if you know it is wrong then you have to make a conscious decision to not do it. Henry B Eyring said in this same conference, "It is the love of God that will cause us to keep his commandments." So does this really mean the majority of the world does not love God? Do they really not know him? I know I am not perfect by far, but I am trying to make conscious to decision to keep his commandment as well as many others. After all we have not been swept of the Earth yet.
I am grateful to have a living Prophet on the Earth and I know that he received revelation from the Lord to bless the world.
