General Conference: SLC and 100th Post of the Year!!

This is my 100th post in 2008!! This is huge accomplishment for me, because looking at my archives, you can see that in the past couple of years I average about half that. I can't explain why the sudden change, but I love it. These past two and a half years since I started blogging--and especially the past nine months--have been the most regular and thorough record of my life. I love blogging! I really want to put my blog into books like I know Michelle and others have done. Where do I go to do that? Through my blog I've best been able to capture who I am. I have a record of what I think about on a day to day basis, what's important to me now, how I react to situations; I don't have to rely on an unstable memory of myself, but rather, I can read back through my blog to see who I was at any given point in time.

I was really excited when I realized that my 100th post of 2008 would be about General Conference: I think it appropriate for who I am and what's important to me.

Emily and I had the amazing opportunity to go up to SLC for Conference this morning, and it was incredible! It was Emily's first time to Conference, and I was really excited to share this experience with her. We had a parking voucher (fortunately), and that took a huge load off the stress! We parked by Energy Solutions and then just walked the few blocks to the Conference Center. We had seats in the terrace and we in the center section. This was our view:


It was raining pretty hard all morning, so Emily and I stood out in the rain for a bit waiting to get inside. I love the rain! It finally felt like fall!


We sat in our seats for about an hour and a half before Music and the Spoken Word, and we were both so tired from having to wake up early (Emily stayed up until 1:30 the night before and then woke up 10 minutes before I left to pick her up. . . .) and so we dozed for a bit while waiting. Emily dozed a bit more than I did, and granted, she did go to bed in the morning, instead of the night before. Good grief.

Once Conference started, we were alert and awake and took copious notes. My Conference notes are more the impressions I get and what sticks out to me rather than everything that's actually said. Highlights include:

• President Eyring's focus on unity
• Elder Hales's statement that opposition presents us with opportunity
• Sister Dalton's statement that through virtue we can change the world
• Elder Ballard and the emphasis that the work of God cannot be frustrated

and my favorite insight and talk from the morning

• President Monson's admonition to "find joy in the journey," to "relish life as we life it."

I had a harder time focusing on the afternoon session, because I watched it over at my friend's apartment, and there were a few people over who kept talking. Plus, I was extremely sleepy, resulting in accidental dozing.

Some themes I noticed from this Conference were

• Hope in the face of adversity and how we should react to adversity
  
• The need for us to show gratitude
• Unity in building up Zion

I loved it. I felt so uplifted and edified. I'm not really ready to return to my crazy, school-filled life again, but return I must, and I'm going to dive back in determined to "find joy in [my] journey."