general conference...

I LOVE general conference and am prayerfully looking forward to hearing the words of the prophet and apostles. I have always loved general conference weekend. I know that as a child, sitting through the two hour sessions of conference was tedious and it was often difficult for me to focus on what the speakers were saying. But, every conference Saturday, my family would all dress up and drive into Mesa to attend conference with my grandparents and aunts. In between sessions, we went to a local pizza restaurant. At that restaurant, you could make your own ice cream cone for 10 cents! Well, you can be sure that we would fill that cone as high as possible! Surely, the restaurant lost money on conference Saturday with all the ice cream we ate.

But, as I grew older, I came to appreciate conference for the messages. It brings new meaning to the scripture "Feast Upon the Words of Christ." As I came to understand the significance of conference weekend and recognized that the prophet and apostles were inspired and directed to teach us exactly what Heavenly Father wanted us to know, I realized that just as I looked forward to that special ice cream cone, the conference messages really are a treat for my spirit.

Well, we with cable broadcasting conference right into our home, we no longer dress up and go down to the church, But, we do still have a family tradition of listening to conference. In fact, every year we buy the BIG container of "jelly belly" jelly beans from Costco. They sit on top of our fridge unopened until the first session is about to start. (We use the jelly beans for the conference bingo game.) Well, the girls can see the jelly bellies up there and they know what is coming. So, at least once a day, they eagerly ask me when conference starts and when I say we have ___ more days to wait, they tell me that they WISH it was conference today. Well, one day we had friends over for a playdate and as usual, the girls asked me when conference was and proceeded to wish aloud that conference could start right now! Well, I didn't even think about it because I knew that they were referring to the jelly beans on top of the fridge :) But, our visiting friends did not know about the jelly bellies. She was amazed that such small children wanted to hear the words of the prophets! We had a good laugh. I do hope that just as I started out looking forward to the ice cream cone and gradually started looking forward to the messages, that my children will recognize that conference is about more than jelly beans and will hear and implement the messages taught at conference. Amy posted a great idea on her blog that I thought I would share if any of you are looking for ways to help your children appreciate conference...I know what we will be doing for family home evening this Monday! Thanks Amy!

(http://mccallnapiers.blogspot.com/)