The weekend of Saturday, March 17th and Sunday, March 18th, our area had stake conference.  It was a wonderful experience for so many reasons!

On Saturday, we attended the adult session and the topic was family history.  It was interesting because this is often something that’s discussed, but this time it was different.  Instead of focusing only on indexing and taking names to the temple, the focus was on how each of us can use our talents to do family history in different but meaningful ways.  Our final speaker was the stake president, and he went through his family history and shared a really powerful quote by David Eagleman:

“There are three deaths.  The first is when the body ceases to function.  The second is when the body is consigned to the grave.  The third is that moment, sometime in the future, when your name is spoken for the last time.”  This quote really hit us and gave us a renewed desire to ensure that the wonderful stories of our ancestors are never forgotten.  Tom does a wonderful job of helping his Aunt Vee with their family history and putting all the information she is collecting onto a website, and I had the idea to start putting together video interviews of my grandparents in order to capture stories of them and their parents.  While we both could do indexing, it seems these options are more fitted to our talents and we can make more of an impact.  It was neat to think about ways to do better at family history, from recording our own experiences (such as through this blog!) as well as teaching our children about their ancestors and ensuring their names are never spoken “for the last time.”

On Sunday, we went to stake conference and when we got there, there was a surprise visitor — President Russell M. Nelson, the prophet!  It was so neat to see him there and the spirit was so strong.

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Each of the speakers did an amazing job as well, and overall it was probably one of the best meetings we’ve ever been to.  The first speaker was our stake president, and his message was on sharing our light and serving others.  The second speaker was a woman who talked about how keeping the Sabbath Day holy had blessed her life and the life of her children.  Then, we had two youth speakers who spoke about how having faith and hope in Christ has helped them in their trials.  Each speaker did a great job, even though they found out at the last minute that they needed to cut their talks short so President Nelson would have time to speak.

After the intermediate hymn (which for some reason has always reminded me of President Nelson — #85, How Firm a Foundation), President Nelson’s secretary spoke and he mentioned that 1/3 of our stake membership is under age 12.  Sister Nelson then spoke and talked about the importance of properly preparing for General Conference.  She shared a story about how she had prepared for General Conference one year and had a question in her heart about marrying a certain young man.  Throughout that Conference, she repeatedly heard messages about marriage that made her heart and mind think that she should NOT marry the young man.  She called off the engagement and of course now, she is married to the prophet!  The interesting thing she shared, however, was that as she read back through the talks given during that particular session of Conference, none of them mentioned marriage!  She testified that it was the spirit touching her heart and helping her hear the message the Lord needed her to hear, and she said she was confident each of us could have the same kind of experience in having a question answered, if we prepare our hearts and minds to listen to the speakers.

After she spoke, President Nelson spoke and he began by mentioning again that so much of our stake was children.  He then asked all the primary children to stand up in the audience and sing together, “I am a Child of God.”  The children did so, and wow — it was such a spiritually touching moment!  I was crying (of course!) and it was such a wonderful experience.  President Nelson then said that for the remainder of his talk, he was going to talk about parenting and what we as parents need to be sure to teach our children.  Talk about an answer to prayers!  In my heart, I’d been worrying so much about parenting and how I can be the best mother to our little man, and so I felt like President Nelson was speaking just to me.  It was one of the most special experiences I’ve ever had, and it was neat to hear parenting advice from the prophet of the Lord!

These are the things that President Nelson shared and which he said we needed to ensure we are teaching our children.

  • Teach them what it means to be a child of God
  • Teach them to honor and take care of their bodies as special gifts
  • Teach them how to pray — nothing Father likes more than hearing their children say “good night father” and “good night father”
  • Help them to understand about the Son of God and his responsibility in affecting the atonement so we can have a second chance
  • Help them understand why we partake of two emblems of the sacrament on Sundays — we internalize those emblems to take into our lives those covenants
    What it means to have prophets and church leaders — in every dispensation this is how god has taught people about the savior
  • Teach them about the prophet Joseph and his being an instrument to bring forth the Book of Mormon— “The book of Mormon is a gift from God to man.”
  • Read the BOM to your children— Start with stories when they are young, then teach to read from the book because it helps them learn how to read — Children should hear their parents voices reading the BOM
  • Help them understand the importance of the scriptures — that the Lord has given us a heavenly guide for our lives
  • Teach them about the restoration of the priesthood and what it means, both Aaronic and Melchizedek
  • Let them know that through the gift and power of God, we are commissioned to function in our callings
  • Let family history begin in our own homes (pictures around the house)
  • Keep close to grandparents if possible
  • Ask parents and grandparents about their experiences and record these
  • Put a picture of the temple in your home
  • Help children to be worthy to enter the temple and serve there
  • Instill in children a love of their ancestors
  • Teach your children to be tithe payers — Take them with you to tithing settlement — Let them contribute and account to the bishop
  • Teach them about the Word of Wisdom
  • Teach them to defend themselves from pornography, and as parents we need to be immunized ourselves
  • Help them get an education and use their great minds — “For Latter Day Saints, getting an education is a responsibility. Education is the difference between wishing you could do good for other people and actually being able to do good.”
  • Prepare them to be worthy for a mission call and to be good missionaries — we need more missionaries!
  • Help your kids learn a second language if possible
  • Teach your children to be good citizens — “Let’s be the best citizens of countries as Latter Day Saints”
  • Teach them to volunteer in the community
  • Help them to be good citizens in the Kingdom of God too, as those who find solutions instead of create problems

These were my notes that I was taking as he was speaking, so they are a little scattered but I think I captured most of what he said.  It was so incredibly powerful to listen to him speak! It amazed us as well how he seemed to be so personable and concerned about the individual.  From remembering the chorister and organist’s names to hugging the speakers after, his love was so evident and powerful and amazing to witness!  Being in the presence of a prophet of God and hearing his advice to parents in this manner was surely a once-in-a-lifetime experience and we are so grateful we were able to be at stake conference!

Extra Note: As President Nelson was talking about the Book of Mormon, we thought it would be neat to read the book during the same time of year that it was translated.  The translation began April 7 and was completed by the end of June, so this would equate to about 65 days.  If we made a goal to read the entire Book of Mormon during this time, that would equate to about 9 pages per days, which means Joseph Smith was translating about 9 pages per day — incredible!  President Nelson shared that now, even with the best translators in the world and all the technology we have, translation occurs at best at a rate of one page per day.  This is just another fact that testifies that the Book or Mormon was translated through revelation by the power of God!  This year we’ll likely have a lot going on during April through June, what with the birth of our little one coming!  But, we’d like to accomplish this goal next year so we are keeping it in mind!