Sunday, November 2, 2008

Stake Conference

Some of you may have been getting worried that I was going to fail on my pledge to blog everyday on this, only the 2nd day! But I am here.

Today we attended our Stake Conference. It was being broadcast from Salt Lake to 88 stakes in Arizona. It was pretty amazing that this broadcast that has been scheduled for 18 months as a trial thing turned out to be two days before an election that is crucial here in Arizona. Long before any of us had heard about proposition 102, the Lord knew that we would need to hear from some General Authorities that we need to do all that is in our power to save the sanctity of marriage.

Elder Bruce C. Hafen, Sister Margaret Lifferth, Elder Jay Jensen and President Boyd K. Packer all spoke to us. They all kind of had stuff to say about Arizona. Not all of it was complimentary - mostly in the form of pioneer stories of those that came to the dried out desert and thought it impossible to actually live here. Elder Hafen quoted someone saying something to the effect of the United States had gone to war with Mexico and gotten Arizona and they were just waiting to go to war with them again so they could give it back.

There were wonderful stories about Pres. Spencer W. Kimball who lived in Arizona until he was called to be an apostle. I was especially touched when Sister Lifferth (a member of the General Primary Presidency) asked all of the primary children to stand and repeat the 1st Article of Faith. She said "are you standing in Mesa? Are you standing in Show Low? Are you standing in Holbrook?" and all of a sudden I could just imagine the children standing all over Arizona repeating that Article of Faith together.

The best part about Stake Conference is sitting together as a family and seeing so many friends from other wards all together to be edified and built up. The worst part is arriving 35 minutes early, hoping to secure some soft seats only to land in the hard ones and sit there for an extra 35 minutes!

6 comments:

Shauna said...

How wonderful it is to be together and be uplifted! Happy Sabbath day :)

One Sassy Mama said...

Glad you had such a fabulous day!

Beeswax said...

We decided to sit in the cry room cause Jake was ushering in the big room, and I was pretty sure Tommy with no nap was going to cry a lot, but then the cry room was so loud, I actually could not hear what the speakers were saying, so we all had to move into the cultural hall.

What I heard was good, but wow, I sure wish they coulda put that on TV like general conference.

Maybe next time.

Julie said...

Jolene, thanks for the summary. It brought tears to my eyes to think of all the kids reciting the 1st article of faith together. And isn't it awesome to know that no matter where they live, they've all learned the same article of faith. Unfortunately, due to the happenings of yesterday, I stayed home and missed out on such wonderful speakers. But to answer your question, yes, when I woke up this morning the whole house was clean thanks to my wonderful family!! I didn't have to do anything.

Kurt, Christine and kids said...

Thanks for sharing about some of the talks. We missed it due to my niece's baptism in Cedar City. Darn, I just had to go to cooler weather. I love that all the primary kids were asked to stand and say the 1st article of faith. I can just see all of them doing it. Awesome!!!
Kacee was very sad. She really wanted to come and see everyone. Hope you all had a great Halloween. Don't eat to much candy-haha! The girls will have to get together over Christmas break.

Pam said...

It was a wonderful conference. Thanks for the recap. I was a bit distracted with noisy kids all around. It is so much louder in the hard seat area that is for sure. I was also wondering what they were getting at with all the desert, not liveable comments. Of course back then I probably would have thought that too :)