I am feeling so nourished from the feast of a weekend we just had with the October 2024 General Conference. We had a great family gathering after the Sunday afternoon session with the three children who currently live at home, my married daughter, her husband and two little boys, and my husband’s sister’s family, including her mother-in-law. It was especially fun to see her! It’s been a while. She is a great conversationalist! We had a fire in the firepit and roasted hot dogs and marshmallows (not the latter for the carnivores, including moi).

Some of us also dined on crustless quiche and beef smothered with melted Grueyere and Swiss cheese. The latter happened because my fondue plans fell apart when it turned out the xantham gum, the thickener needed to hold the fondue cheese together, was not in the Walmart order I placed on Friday. (Does that happen to anyone else? You think you put an item in your cart online and then it turns out you didn’t?) A fondue recipe without xantham gum or alcohol is as elusive as a turquoise unicorn. I was so happy to finally find one at least without wine, but it did have xantham gum, which I guess is OK for low-carb/carnivore in the small amount called for, but then to not be able to make the recipe, I was so disappointed! I will have to make it soon after I finally get the xantham gum.

Anyway, I loved hearing the announcement of 17 new temples. See the list below, copied from here. I am so excited for all these people who live in these places! That makes 367 temples in all, announced and operating. President Nelson has announced 0ver half of those, 185. Amazing!

• Juchitán de Zaragoza, Mexico
• Santa Ana, El Salvador
• Medellín, Colombia
• Santiago, Dominican Republic
• Puerto Montt, Chile
• Dublin, Ireland
• Milan, Italy
• Abuja, Nigeria
• Kampala, Uganda
• Maputo, Mozambique
• Coeur d’Alene, Idaho
• Queen Creek, Arizona
• El Paso, Texas
• Huntsville, Alabama
• Milwaukee, Wisconsin
• Summit, New Jersey
• Price, Utah

I loved noticing a few promises of the speakers. I especially loved President Nelson promise to each person with four points:

1. Every sincere seeker of Jesus will find Him in the temple.
2. We will find mercy in the temple.
3. We will find answers to our “most vexing questions” in the temple
4. We will find the joy of the gospel in the temple.

Because of those promises, that one by President Nelson was my favorite talk. My second favorite talk, containing my favorite story of the whole conference, was Elder Jorge M. Alvarado’s. He shared the story of a guy who robbed a woman of her purse, in his home of Puerto Rico. The purse contained a copy of the Book of Mormon Another Testament of Jesus Christ. It was wrapped up in pretty paper to be given away as a gift. This man was disappointed initially to unwrap the gift and not find an expensive worldly item that he could sell. His heart was changed as he read the Book of Mormon and prayed about it. He wrote a letter to the woman apologizing for stealing her items. In the letter, he wrote that he felt that he had come to learn that the book was a holy book, that he was a changed man for reading the book, and that the woman had a light emanating from her.

This story is amazing! Here is a copy of the man’s letter, copied and pasted from here.

“Mrs. Cruz:

“Forgive me, forgive me. You will never know how sorry I am for attacking you. But because of it, my life has changed and will continue to change. That book the Book of Mormon has helped me in my life. The dream of that man of God has shaken me and I thank God that I found you in those circumstances. I am returning your five pesos for I can’t spend them. I want you to know that you seemed to have a radiance about you. That light seemed to stop me and I ran away instead.

“I want you to know that you will see me again, but when you do, you won’t recognize me, for I will be your brother. I am not from your city. But here, where I live, I have to find the Lord and go to the church you belong to.

“The message you wrote in that book brought tears to my eyes. Since Wednesday night I have not been able to stop reading it. I have prayed and asked God to forgive me. I don’t know if He will but I ask you to forgive me. Please forgive me. I thought your wrapped gift was something I could sell. But it has made me want to make my life over. Forgive me, forgive me, I beg you.

“Your absent friend.”

I just love that story! I testify that the Book of Mormon is true. When one reads it, one can feel the power of Jesus Christ. It brings a man or woman closer to Jesus Christ than any other book.

My third favorite talk was Brother Brad Wilcox, addressing the question many youth have, which is, “Why does God command us to live differently?” Then he compared covenant people to the crew on a cruise. The cruise is our mortal journey, and people who have made covenants with God are like the crew. They are not better than any other people, but they have more responsibility and more privileges. I love the way he closed his talk by saying, “Change the world, don’t let the world change you.” Oh it was soooo good! You can read summaries of all the talks, and watch them all, here.