Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Eat my words Stake Conference

I have been known to be a stake conference hater.....I know, I know, its great and wonderful.  But its double the time that my kids need to be quiet and that alone has caused me some stress and anxiety and anger trying to coral the herd.  Its nice to have a week off our normal Sunday assignments but that means we have to conquer two hours of stake conference. 

The adult session the night before always rocks.  No kids, amazing speakers. Always feel spiritual fed. 

But the Sunday one, oh man, seriously I have really struggled going to something that makes me want to pull out my hair and dislike my family!

That said, I was raised by Nancy Evans, and we do not skip.  Never have I skipped stake conference, crap, just remembered one time when we had family in town...okay, so like 99 percent of the time .  But by the end, I'm like cursing and my kids might have nail marks in their arm from their mother who is trying to squeeze their arm into submission (that doesn't work by the way).  I have tried many tactics and nothing works...food, coloring, special toys, seriously you'd think we were camping out if you saw us there.  This past Sunday each girl had their own backpack and I had a big bag too for them. 

Thankfully stake conference is only twice a year.  i don't actually know how often it is, but for all you non- MoMos, its when all the local congregations get together in one massive meeting with like 1000 people.

But they always put the guest speaker last and by then I've turned off my brain.

I am really good at not getting to the point.  is there a job for that?  Shoot, i could drum roll a story for eternity, its a talent.

The freaking point is this one I got something out of it.  I let go.  Tiny candies fell all over the floor, who cares.  most kids took off their shoes and kept having to go to the bathroom...whatever.  At one point Paisley was pulling on all the cords that connected to the thing-a-ma-gig that was showing the speaker on the screen for those seated too far away to see.  At least she was closer to Jason than me at the time.

Partly because I felt like the speaker was just talking to me and telling me things that I had been pondering for weeks and been on my mind.  I even took notes, because child wrangling.  

And sometimes I show a slight genius, if I do say so myself.  Like on the way there when I'm telling the kids, hey we only have 2 hours of church and the rest is for play, so can we try to read our scriptures....oh by the Lukes, want to race to finish the Book of Mormon, I'm almost to Ether.  Well, guess what, that kid finished it during stake conference :)

okay, crap back to the point.  Anyway, this is from my notes.  I'll type as long as Ivy is still sleeping and your welcome for giving this to you instead of me doing the dishes or the other millions of chores that are calling my name.

My notes aren't fabulous and who knows if they will make sense to you but I felt like I should keep them to remember.  there were many good speakers that said lots of good things.  The best before being...THERE IS NOTHING MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE TEMPLE. 

Okay, so the speaker, whose name I have no idea what it is and don't think I heard said...

WHAT IS THE ONE THING WE WANT?  What wakes us up in the morning?  What do we put our effort toward?  Think about it.  Are they the same as the Lords?  well if not, we need to align ourselves to His.  For when He says, my thoughts are not your thoughts, my ways are not your ways, it is the goal.  To make our thoughts like his thoughts, our ways like his ways.

Is there nothing we want?  Well that is drifting and never good to drift.  Life is so fragile, so little that we can hold on to...death, job loss....he literally said that in one year there will be 3 or 4 of us who will have died.   But the most important things are the ones we can hold onto.  The gospel and our families through the Plan of Salvation.

We are more effected by our environment than we can imagine.  He spoke of a study where these people analyzed these words like old, elderly, graying...and then they measured how long it took them to walk to another building and just by looking at these words they subconsciously walked back slower than the other group without even realizing it.

There is a scripture that says, many are called, but few are chosen...and why are they not chosen?  Because they fail to harness the powers of heaven.  They become distracted by the things of the world. 

What is the most powerful thing of all?  The words of Christ.  So if a group of people in a study looking at some words can be affected by a group of words they looked at for a few minutes, how much more are we affected by the words of Christ...which is why we should treasure them.  The Scriptures should be our standard and dominate our thought process.

So then how much more are we affected by being in the House of the Lord, the temple.  He said he used to fault people who went and weren't learning or weren't concentrating but now since and decided that just being there, is so powerful we can't understand.  Being in a holy place, to be out of the distractions of the world.

WHAT SHOULD WE WANT?  to partake of the best things, the fruits of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

WHO ARE YOU?  and WHO ARE YOU BECOMING?  He then asked what will be our greatest accomplishment when we are done with this life.  Think of it.  (I was thinking of the amazing people I know my children will become).  Then he basically told us whatever we were thinking was wrong.  YOU, ME.  We are our greatest accomplishment.  What we become.  Only ourselves. To make our lives as close to the Saviors as we can.  Every day choosing will we be kind or unkind.  Honest or dishonest.  Loving or selfish.  Everyday choosing who we are becoming.  Which is why we are trying to our align ourselves to the Savior.

He then said he could divide the congregation into two groups.  One would be people who believed in good and bad. they don't want to be bad, they want to be good.  But they want to know where is the line between good and bad and they will get as close to the line as they can but they won't cross it because they don't want to be bad.

Then he said the other group, is full of people who are no better than the first group.  But they are trying to think of what the Savior would do.  And live more like him and that is how they base their decisions and because of that they stand much farther away from the line.

The scripture references he gave over the two days were 3 Nephi 27, d & C 121, and D & C 109.  I should go look them up tonite.

Okay, well thats all I wrote.  I don't know if I summed it up well enough.

The church is true and Jesus Christ is at the head of it.  When I cling to His ways and His teachings I am happier and live a more full, vibrant life.  And I happen to be pleasant to be around.

Hope it helps.  


Holy crap I forgot the best part!  Went to the Bathroom, ran into Becky O (there is always a friend in the bathroom!) and was chatting.  Baylie and Paisley run full blast away from me and are about to run full throttle into the very quiet room where their shoes are going to make a racket so I yell in the loudest voice that is still firm but won't cause attention, get back here RIGHT NOW or you are in BIG TROUBLE.  and so then they come back and I say you need to stand RIGHT NEXT TO ME.  you can't run in there, yadda yadda, bla bla bla lecture, and I poked my pointed finger right at Baylie when I said it.  Well Baylie looked right at me and said, "You have a lot of sins Mom. A lot of them."
 ahhaha I was dying.  and I yes, Baylie that is very true, but don't ever tell me that again.  ahahah still dying over that.  pretty awesomely terrible to hear at church, the girl speaks the truth. 

5 comments:

RachelAA said...

Yep, helped! Thanks :)

Brandon Walter Evans said...

first so awesome luke read bom am so impressed 9 these kids are so much better than us u should tell him I was 15 also would love to hear what he says when you asked him what he thought about it . second loved quote about few are chosen hit home third I laughed out loud and alvhild too about Baylie

Nancy Jo said...

Loved the talk! Makes you really think how you spend your day. Thanks for sharing.

Nancy Jo said...

That was REALLY FUNNY what Baylie said : )

Anonymous said...

I love to read whatever you write. It always makes me smile. THANKS! KE