Stake Conference

Last night and this morning we had the priviledge of seeing and listening to one of the 12 apostles from The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-day Saints... Jeffrey R. Holland.

Oh, where do I begin... LIGHT! On Saturday night at the adult session of this spectacular conference Elder Holland spoke of a book he had read a while back. It describes the holocaust and speaks of when the victims rode the train into the camp. Men and boys were escorted to the East and women and girls were escorted to the West. At the end of the day they would "line up" to watch the sun go down (in the West). This young boy at the age of 12 could remember seeing his mother. And as the sun went down it always went down directly behind her causing her silhouette to shine through... until it was down and the camp was dark. He wondered if he would ever be with her again.

He went on to say that sooner or later in life we would all have this darkness (be it marital problems, drugs, educational battles, divorce, wayward children, financial, social, etc.) Some of these darknesses can last days, months and even years.

He said that many of us are out there with this darkness and continue to carry on. BUT, some are "jumping ship!" His plea to us was "YOU DON'T JUMP SHIP!" No matter how bad it gets, there is someone that loves you and sees your individual worth - it's our Heavenly Father! "Without the Gospel of Jesus Christ you will not succeed." On Sunday morning he reiterated this same message to the youth.

He spoke highly regarding President Hinckley, our prophet who is 97 years old. "Each day he comes to work, day-in day-out. Can you imagine being 97. His wife is dead. He has terrible health and is in much pain. He will continue forward until his time is up. He's not jumping ship on us."

Since it has been 19 years since we had an apostle come to visit in the Mesa area, our older boys really wanted to be at the conference. (The conference was being broadcasted to another building.) We arrived at the Stake Center at 7:45am and they patiently waited and took many walks till the conference started at 10am. There was no complaining! We ended up sitting in the basketball area, about 10 rows back from the last padded bench in the chapel. (Not bad.) We had friends that were 3 rows from the front. THEY arrived at 6:30am. (They only have 2 older children though!)

We ALL loved listening to this apostle of our Lord and Savior. I am so excited for Conference coming up next month and it's really really rewarding to see the boys getting excited too! I am very grateful for the teachings of the Church.