Here are some thoughts on this past weekend’s General Conference. If you don’t know what General Conference is, go here. It’s basically a meeting where we get to hear from prophets and apostles of God, on the first Saturday and Sunday every April and October. This one was probably the easiest one I’ve ever enjoyed.

If you are a mom like I am, you know that Sunday, the Sabbath Day, isn’t completely a “day of rest.” Maybe unless it’s Mother’s Day. On General Conference Sunday it’s even less of a day of rest. If you are a mom like me, on Sunday, you still get to fix food, or get people to help you fix food, then get people to help you clean up, or do it all yourself. You still have to watch the clock to make sure things happen. You can’t just lie down to the wild abandon of a nap whenever you want on that day, unless you are OK with certain things not happening. I like certain things to happen after church, like the following: home church with the Come, Follow Me curriculum, a bountiful Sunday dinner, some kind of visiting with extended family or friends, which may include Sunday gameschooling, listening/watching Relative Race while putting together a puzzle, some parent mentor/child meetings, and some kind of planning meeting with my husband to talk about the family’s needs, the family’s schedule, and the budget. (Needless to say, I can’t fit all that one on top of the four hours of General Conference on GC Sunday.) All that being said, and I hope that didn’t sound too whiny, I do get a break from some regular weekday duties on the Sabbath. I hope you as a mom do too.

When I was a young mom, General Conference was always a tricky time. I never got to take notes what with the baby or toddler always wanting to grab my pen. It was a battle to keep the seven kids quietly engaged in something not harmful while we were watching the sessions on TV. I always got out General Conference packets full of coloring pages and General Conference Bingo and such things, but that usually lasted only maybe 10 minutes for some of the children. The break in between sessions was never long enough to feed the family, put the baby/toddler or toddlers down for a nap and clean up after the meal. I often ended up feeling frustrated by the time Conference was over that I didn’t get to just sit, relax, and listen or that the baby didn’t sleep for all six hours from 10 AM until 4 PM. The solution: I hung in there and eventually my children grew up! I’m sorry the solution was not something magical. Five out of my seven children are out of the nest. It’s been a while now that I can take notes and not have someone grabbing at my pen or pulling on me.

This past General Conference Sunday, my daughter-in-law fixed a pumpkin pancake dinner for the family to eat between GC sessions. With that, plus the leftover charcuterie board items from brunch, and the snacking people did after the last session, nobody was hungry for the chili supper I had planned for 5 o’clock. I saw people snacking at 4 and asked if people would still be hungry for chili in an hour and they all said they were OK with not having it. So I ended up not fixing the chili like I had planned. Hooray, I finally got a true General Conference Sunday day of rest from fixing dinner.

Here are my favorite quotes from the 2-day General Conference. These aren’t exact quotes, but paraphrases. The text of the talks is not out yet for me to get the exact quotes. I’m not putting quote marks around these sentences, so know that I’m not quoting exactly. You will get the gist of what they said, even though I’m not quoting them word for word. I did find some graphics with quotes from the Instagram page of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints which I am sharing as well.

God is using more than one person to carry out His work. -Pres. Dallin H. Oaks

We need to be aware of others not of our church who are in the service of others. -Pres. Dallin H. Oaks

They who wait on the Lord will be renewed with the Lord’s strength.–Elder Uchtdorf

Before I share any more paraphrased quotes, I’ll share a few more random musings:

Someone besides Elder Uchtdorf did an airplane metaphor! It was Elder Dale G. Renlund. I love that he compared taking off on a runway that is not yours like receiving revelation for people outside your stewardship.

I’m going to get out my continent puzzles every time we have General Conference to keep learning the placement of different countries, so we can have a reference when different countries are mentioned, especially when new temples are announced. These puzzles are a lot easier to do than the world puzzle I sometimes get out.

Speaking of which, 18 more temples were announced! Yay! The list is here!

I love that Pres. Nelson invited us to focus on temples in ways we never have before. So I’m pondering on how to do that.

I am definitely going to see if we can hang out with my sis and bro-in-law at least once every Conference weekend, to watch it together and eat yummy food. They moved to live within 30 minutes of us this past May. So we got together for the first time this past Conference and had so much fun. It felt like Christmas! We had super easy meals of a yogurt sundae bar for brunch and pizza for dinner. Now that between the two of us couples we only have 3 kids left at home, it was very manageable to do this. Back in the day when all of our combined 13 children were at home, it would have been a zoo. Oh how life seasons change when one is a mother!

It is wonderful to have the brunch during the AM session, then go outside between the two sessions. We went to the park with my sis-in-law’s dogs during the break. The boys got to go “dog surfing” with the dogs pulling the boys on skateboards. So fun! I loved seeing the dogs so happy, running around so joyfully. See photo below. That dog in the foreground shows the picture of pure happiness.

OK back to the scheduled sharing of parphrased quotes.

Bless your children, whether they are 5 or 50!–Elder Hugo Montoya

Revelation is not like a nonstop flight, it’s done incrementally, line upon line.– Elder David A. Bednar

Let the standards of Jesus Christ be your new normal.– Elder Rafeal Pino

In marriage there should be no superior or inferior partner. Spouses are to be full, interdependent partners.–Elder Ulisses A. Soares

Nurturing and providing are opportunities not exclusive limitations.–Elder Ulisses A. Soares

As our church membership becomes more and more diverse, we as a Church must be more and more welcoming. –Elder D. Todd Christofferson

Elder Christofferson told of a story from author Rod Dreher who wrote Live Not By Lies. So cool!

Compensatory powers come to those who keep their covenants. –Elder Neil L. Andersen

The reward for keeping covenants is heaven’s power. –Pres. Nelson

With keeping our covenants in Jesus’ name, we can overcome this sin-saturated world, because of Jesus’ power. This includes overcoming: arrogance, pride, immorality, greed, jealousy, hatred, and anger. –Pres. Nelson

Growing to love God, and His Beloved Son Jesus Christ is more important than anything else.

The Savior blesses us with kindness, generosity, peace, rest, and self-discipline. –Pres. Nelson.