It's Sunday night. Conference weekend is almost over. For those members of the LDS religion, conference weekend occurs twice a year, in April and October.
Going to get a little religious here...something I don't do very often.
It was the 193rd Annual General Conference of the church. I've been listening/watching/participating in conference weekends for as long as I can remember. As a child, it was the weekend we didn't go to church, but watched it on TV. Except for the two years I lived in Denmark, it was always something I could watch live. During the weekend, leaders of the church gather and give talks, instruction to the members, but not just to the members, to basically the whole world.
As I've gotten older, I seem to need conference weekend. Maybe it's because I'm a husband and father (soon to be grandfather...) that the messages given over the pulpit hold deeper meanings, have more weight, just mean more than they did when I was younger. I was especially looking forward to this particular conference because the world seems to be spinning out of control.
And because of this, I wondered what would be said in those speeches. Would the leaders call on the members to leave their homes and gather in a new place? Would they speak of the politics and culture wars happening today?
No, of course they didn't.
With a calmness surrounding them, they gave their messages, offered insight and suggestions, and proclaimed their beliefs in such a way that showed me that if the are worried about the future, we only need to follow their instructions to obtain peace. I think it's how Christ himself would act, how he would speak if he were standing at the pulpit.
I'm grateful for conference weekend. I'm glad I could listen and watch. I'm glad for the leaders's example. They make me want to be better, to act better, to do more for others. One thing I'm particularly proud of is that I stayed awake for almost all the sessions. That hasn't happened in a long time.
The weekend's over. In six months we'll gather in churches, in homes, basically any place where we can hear the words of council. It's crazy what's happened to the world in the past six months. I expect the next six months to be the same.
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