my favorite weekend

Last weekend, Oct. 5th-6th 2013, was the 183rd Semi-Annual General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Conference weekends are my favorite weekends of the year. They are our chance to listen to the words of the prophet and leaders of our church who received divine revelation from our Heavenly Father for the world to hear. Attending school at BYU means I am only a hop and a skip away from Salt Lake City, where conference is held and broadcast throughout the world, in hundreds of different languages. This meant I was fortunate enough to attend the Saturday morning session live with my dear friend Yuki. We did this exact same thing last fall, and I would like to make it a tradition for us. I feel like I need to be in slc for SOME part of conference weekend, just because I love the atmosphere and temple square is just so beautiful. Neither of us had tickets, but just like last year we worked one of the street corners by the conference center (and by worked I mean stood there smiling at people throwing deuces, signaling we needed two tickets) and managed to score bomb seats because Mormons are so nice and always have extra tickets to hand out. 

This session was in fact my favorite session of the entire weekend. Our beloved prophet Thomas S. Monson announced that we now have over 15 million members in the world, as well as over 80,000 full-time missionaries! It warms my heart to see the spreading of the gospel and the eagerness of young missionaries to serve all over the world, especially since I now know a fair amount from my freshman year. My favorite talk was by Dieter F. Uchtdorf and you can listen to it here. He talked about all of the wonderful reasons as to why people join the church, as well as why some sadly leave it. My favorite quote by him, and in fact from the whole weekend was "doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith." It was such a powerful message and made me feel so happy about my knowledge of this gospel and strengthened my desire to be a better missionary to those around me. Hopefully this blog post helps! :) 

Yuki and I hitched a ride to slc with Abby and her cousin, and after conference we all drove back to Provo in time to stop by the farmer's market to grab Jeano's Pizza and fresh fruit. This is a Saturday morning tradition for me and I am SO sad that the farmer's market will only be open for another two weeks :( what will I do on Saturday mornings?! Sleep. I watched the next three sessions in the comfort of my own apartment. Sunday was the best because we lounged around all day to watch conference together and made quiche and fruit salad for brunch, a tradition established by the four of us roommates last conference in April. 

We live in a technological world, and during conference weekend it is so great to see how easily the messages of these great leaders can be shared with everyone! For instance, the twitter world and other social media sites were blown up by quotes from each speaker (I contributed a fair share of those) and can all be found searching hashtags like #ldsconf. Here are a few of my other favorites from the weekend, some of which I couldn't help tweeting myself:

"Though we may feel we are a broken vessel, we must remember that broken vessel is in the hands of our maker" -Jeffrey R. Holland

"Man's law cannot make moral, what God has declared immoral" -Dallin H. Oaks

"God is perfect and His doctrine is pure. But He works through us-His imperfect children-and imperfect people make mistakes" -Dieter F. Uchtdorf

After conference weekend I am always so filled with the spirit and the love I have for this church grows even more. The key is to keep those feelings after conference ends, and to make it a goal to apply what I learned in my daily life. I am so grateful to attend BYU where I can discuss these messages in class with professors, as well as with my peers and neighbors. You can listen to conference in its entirety here. The fact that we get to listen and read these words again gives us no excuse to let the spirit of conference diminish over the next six months. Can't wait until April!

"Above all, never lose faith in your Father in heaven, who loves you more than you can even comprehend" -Jeffrey R. Holland