General Conference

We did Guess Who is Coming to Dinner again.  We skipped it last conference due to crazy life.  Life is still crazy.  So we counciled together about whether or not this is worth continuing and practical for our family.  We decided we wanted to keep doing it, but only do one family.  So we did the Neilsen's, a new family that moved in quite a while ago (cousins with the Waudoupps) but we just recently became really good friends with them.  It has been awesome!

I wanted to do something different for conference this year.  Our conference prep consists of learning about the general authorities.  We have also been doing it for so many years my kids know every thing.  I wanted to come up with something for teenagers and focusing more on the messages than the speakers.  After many drafts and discussions with different people I came up with a March Madness type bracket system.  It didn't go exactly how I envisioned.  For one we didn't even finish.  And nobody ever followed the schedule of reading 1 talk everyday.  Most of the time they binge read an hour or so before the "competition".  However, the actual "competition" meeting went way better than I expected.  We had real discussions about the talks.  People really knew them and were able to compare and contrast with other talks.  I think they all liked it also.  We are going to do it again this conference but a bit different, mostly have more time.

One of the great things was learning how to defend your position and explain why you liked a certain talk and also to listen to other people give opposing opinions and see how spirituality is experienced different for different people  For example, Brock's favorite talk was Bednar's Last Wagon Train talk.  Jason and I, while recognizing it's merits, did not think it was a particularly moving talk.  Brock fought passionately for it and it often moved onto the next round because he went all out in defending it and finding new reasons why it was important.  It was so fun to hear him and also get a glimpse into how he feels and thinks about the gospel and what is important to him.
 

Dane made his own conference binder (like the girls) and drew spiderman on it.

Dane and Eve set up their table again

And Madison set up her desk, and very kindly let Eve come join her.  Maddie fights with Eve quite a bit.  It is strange, given their difference in age, but Maddie is a bit jealous of Eve, Maddie, having been the youngest for so long, feels a bit of competition with her.  So whenever Maddie is kind like a big sister it warms my heart!!!  

Dane and spiderman wanted in on the action for a bit.  We also did "conference fantasy" that the Ricks' introduced us to.  Where we make guesses about conference details beforehand and get points as we get it right.  We didn't do any buzz words, games, or bingo this conference which was kind of nice.  Just coloring.

I made a snacky lunch buffet that stayed out most of the day.

During the break Dane wanted to be in charge of a game/activity.  So he put together a Log competition where we had to build 2 pillars that would hold up the spaceship he built.   

Noah wasn't home to watch the evening session with us because it was the night of the spring musical.  So we sent this selfie to him telling him we missed him.

After the Sunday afternoon session we hosted "conference cookies" for all of our families we have done GWCTD for.  I made this little prophet/conference display and hung up some signs and a voting game - just to make the "party" a bit more conferencee.

Most of the teens play "5 second rule" while the adults visited.  And almost everyone humored me and voted on favorite talks and filled out my chart.

Then on Thursday I was able to get the booklets printed and delivered to those who wanted them.

And now it is time to study.

I don't think I have mentioned on my blog my study group.  Currently I am hosting a weekly women's conference talk study group at my house on Wednesdays at 1:15 (usually).  This is a combination of 2 different study groups over the last few years.  The first study group started by divine intervention in February of 2022.  Every week we would take turns hosting, we would have a yummy lunch and study the gospel topically.  We would pick the topic for the next week, share resources through a shared google folder, and then I would put together an agenda.  It was me, Christina Marriott, Mandy Ricks, Marisa Neyenhuis, Mollie Callister, and Whitney Olsen.  It was wonderful.  Mollie moved to England and Whitney got too busy and backed out.  It was mostly FOR them, so it dwindled.  Marisa was still needing something so her and  I got together almost weekly and invited people and sometimes we would hold successful study groups.  Then in April of 2023, after a RS lesson (my calling) Shauna Pearson asked if she could come over once a week and study a conference talk with me.  She wanted to learn how to really study and dig into them and felt like I could teach her how to do it.  She was busy and we had to work around her schedule at lot and it was just for her.  So for a while I was doing both of those.  THEN in October of 2023 Shauna asked if she could invite some friends to come to our study group on the same day Marisa said, "I am really struggling and need a consistent weekly study group, can you try and put something together?"  And this study group was born.  Some weeks it is just the 3 of us.  We have about 10 people that follow the groupme and on a typical week we have 4 or 5 women.  The regulars are me, Shauna, Marisa, Julia Neilsen, Leslie Prusse, and Becca Moser (from a different ward).  It is great.  I host and lead the discussion.  It has taken a lot of sacrifice since I also teach relief society so I am always prepping different talks, but the hardest part has been balancing Dane and Eve and wanting to take advantage of this last year with them before Dane starts school full time, and doing this thing I know the Lord wants me to do.  But it has all worked out, and I know it has blessed their lives.