I love General Conference – Stephanie Richey Art

Today was the 192 semi-annual General Conference for my Church. I wrote about this 6 months ago, this time I thought I would tell you a little bit about it. There are 2 weekends a year that we hear directly from the Prophet of God, Russell M. Nelson, his counselors, the First Presidency, members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, as well as other general officers of my Church – The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We hear from them in less formal ways throughout the year, but this is a concentrated short space of time when we get to hear from so many of these men and women all together.

There are 5 different sessions each one lasting about 2 hours. In mountain standard time they are from 10:00-12:00 and 2:00-4:00 on both Saturday and Sunday, and then from 6:00-8:00 on Saturday evening, the Saturday evening session switches each time between a women’s session and a men’s session. This time it was a women’s session, although anyone can listen. I often listen to the men’s session, just because no matter what they are speaking about, and to whom, it is always good! All the sessions are for anyone in the world who would like to listen. These conference weekends are looked forward to at our house for months. We love hearing the Lord’s servants, and my kids love all the snacks!

I enjoyed all the talks, but a few stood out to me. Elder Neil L. Anderson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles talked about being a peacemaker. He talked about the anger and divisiveness that exists everywhere in the world. He said, “No one or no subject is immune from this social phenomenon of polarized voices, including the Savior and His restored gospel.” But how do we deal with it? I loved his response, “How does a peacemaker calm and cool the fiery darts?” Elder Andersen asked. “Certainly not by shrinking before those who disparage us. Rather, we remain confident in our faith, sharing our beliefs with conviction, but always void of anger or malice.” We can dictate our side of any conversation as well as our attitude and the way we react. I loved his message of peace.

I also love the humor that all of these awesome general authorities have and enjoy listening to their personal stories. Elder Holland, in the Saturday afternoon session, talked about a letter he received from a child asking him why conference was necessary, and informing him of how boring it was to sit and listen. He apologized to the child and told the child it was still going to be boring. I love how real our general authorities are.

There were a number of talks about missionary work and the gathering of Israel. That seemed to be an underlying theme throughout these sessions, or at least a number of people spoke about either missionary work, or the gathering of Israel, or how they are intertwined. We also learned about the gathering of families. Elder Gong talked about learning about our families and connecting the roots to the branches. He said, “Learn and acknowledge with gratitude and honesty your family heritage. … Celebrate and become the positive and where needed humbly do everything possible not to pass on the negative. Let good things begin with you.”

I am so grateful for these inspired leaders. I am also grateful that these sessions are available very shortly afterward to read or listen to again and again, and I look forward to studying these messages from now until October when we have our next conference. If you would like to read the full talks, you can go to this link – General Conference. The sessions are already loaded to watch, but if you wait a couple of days, they will have the talks loaded in script so that you can read them if you prefer.

I have two favorite weekends every year. The first weekend in April and the first weekend in October. These are what we call Conference Weekend in my Church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We have the opportunity to listen to the prophet of the Lord, as well as the Apostles He has called, and a number of the general leadership, both men and women, throughout the five – two hour sessions. There are 3 session on Saturday and 2 on Sunday. When I was a child, I didn’t always watch the Saturday sessions, and when my kids were younger we often allowed school activities and things to interfere with our Saturday watching. Fortunately, all of the talks are available on the Church website, usually within 4 or 5 days of the conferences. If you would like to read any of them, you can do so here. As I have gotten older though, I really like to listen to all of them. They bring peace to our home, guidance, and comfort, as well as much needed instruction in these crazy times we live in. My kids haven’t always enjoyed watching all the sessions, but the comment this year was, “Wow, this went by way too fast!” They enjoyed it as much as we did. So today, I will share several of my favorite quotes, and then one in particular that I really enjoyed the talk, as it’s something that resonates with me and is one of the things I wrote about in my first book.

These were some of my favorite quotes, but the one that struck me in particular was the last one on the right. There were a couple of similar talks, but I’m pretty sure it was Elder Dunn’s talk (I’ll find out in 4 or 5 days!) He talked about the British cycling team, and how they went from being the worst in the world to the best. It didn’t happen over night, and they continue to work on improving. But it did happen through consistent, incremental changes to every aspect of what they were doing. Not just equipment, or how they rode, but diet, how their time was spent, training, gear, everything was looked at and changed in it’s time. I would encourage you to go read the talk when it becomes available later this week.

We too have that same opportunity to change in our lives. We don’t have to make monumental changes. Those types of changes cannot always be sustained. But through consistently work on 1% changes in our lives, we can make huge changes in who we are, what we are, and where we are going over time. Amazingly, it doesn’t take as much time as we think it will, but often we have the perception that it will take a lifetime so we don’t even try. Don’t do that! Have the courage to make small change, because it is in fact, by small means that great things actually happen. If you haven’t read my book, you can check it out in the link above, and be watching for my second book, “Gratitude: Becoming a Happier You” to become available on my website this week. This book covers one of those small changes you can make in your life that will make a monumental difference in the very near future.

What kind of changes do you want to see in your life? What kind of small change can you start making today to achieve that change? I would love to hear your thoughts.