A Special Stake Conference

After being able to listen and see Elder Holland last year , we were ALL very excited ONCE AGAIN to listen and see Elder Nelson this morning. He too is a member of The Twelve Apostles of The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-day Saints. When Elder Holland came to visit last year in Mesa, we arrived at the church 3 hours early (7am) and still sat in the hard chairs! We were advised by many (in this area) that it would be much much different here. "There's no need to come until an hour before. Doors won't open till 8:45am. Etc. Etc.) Well, we wanted to get soft chairs, so we got to the church at 7:15am and were able to get soft chairs about 8 rows back - not bad! We were the first family from our Ward, the Frisco 6th Ward, at the conference!

Well, with a little over 3 hours till Conference started, what was a bunch of boys going to do? Ben was content to read a novel about The Hill Cumorah in the bench. Great! He could watch our seats! Thanks Ben! Zach and Nick and two of the Jensen boys began counting chairs. :) After we multiplied and added from each overflow room they came up with 1,503 seats. (We were putting 10 people in a bench.) Sounds good! Zach is Zach and while he was counting chairs, he spoke with a couple of the ushers... they were planning for about 1,500. They all agreed on his counting ability. Christopher and Emma were off going onto the stage and just roaming the halls and trying out each of the doors - some were open! Score!



Conference was about ready to begin and the Stake President kept coming to the pulpit asking that everyone, please, squish together more and more... tighter and tighter...

Elder Nelson entered and Conference began. The Stake Presidency spoke followed by a few musical numbers. The Mission Pres and wife spoke. The Stake Primary Pres spoke. Elder Martino of the 70 was accompanying Elder Nelson and he spoke. He spoke about "why bad things happen to good" and this was one of my questions that I came to Conference wanting an answer for. He based much of his talk on the book of Romans. At this time I had to do a RR run with Emma and realized just how packed the building was! When we pushed open the door we knocked some guy in the head that was sitting on the floor - I don't really know why he was sitting in the way of the door?!?! Probably because there wasn't much room elsewhere for him.

When we came back there were men doing head counts and President Roberts (Stake President) announced that there were 1,939 people present! Zach later informed us that the church is liable for 1,800 - maximum capacity that he read on a sign somewhere! Oops! No wonder there were people EVERYWHERE!

Elder Nelson spoke last. Of course he spoke about Hurricane Ike. When he and Elders Uchtdorf and Bednar were at the airport, airport personnel gazed at them conspicuously wondering why they would want to be going to Dallas when Hurricane Ike was on its way there too?

Elder Nelson spoke of "teaching our children" mostly. He spoke on missionary work and temple attendance too. He made it very very clear that we need to teach our children that we all come from a loving Heavenly Father. We need to be sure they are taught to pray with sincerity. We need to teach them about the atonement of Christ. We need to teach them to not fear death. Heavenly Father is also awaiting for our return. We will all be resurrected and continue to grow! If we're not thinking about Jesus and the atonement during Sacrament time, then we need to refocus our thoughts. We need to teach them the importance of Prophets, especially Joseph Smith. He taught us "as parents" to not be "quick to answer" our children. Listen to there thoughts. And most importantly to always, always, always have love and kindness in our homes! (I feel like that one HIT home! Glenn and I quickly glanced at everyone!)

He also told a few stories... about the time he went with President Monson to Brazil and they identified a child with cancer at a temple dedication. They were told of this young boy (about 9) who was battling cancer before the arrival. When they got to Brazil and began the work, the dedication began and at the end when they were outside putting some mortar on the capstone, President Monson asked this young boy to come forward. The boy, wearing a ski hat, stepped forward and one of the reporters asked if he could get a picture. He kindly asked the boy to remove his hat, so as to see his face better. When he did, of course he was bald. As he went back into the crowd Elder Nelson said that he leaned over to remind President Monson that it was time to get back inside, but President Monson told Elder Nelson that there was one more person that needed to dedicate the temple. He looked through the crowd, left to right, right to left and finally spotted a woman in the back and she came forward and then the meeting ended. Then went back to SLC and the next day Elder Nelson learned that President Monson had also chosen the boy's Mom. Elder Nelson asked President Monson, "How did you know?" But President Monson looked him in the eye and told him that he did not know, only the Lord knew. We need to have faith, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, that He can perform anything through us, his faithful servants!

With the closing of the meeting came the Stake President asking that we respect Elder Nelson's tight flight schedule back to SLC. Basically, please wait in your seats while we leave IMMEDIATELY after the closing song and prayer. A few people crowded the microphone and Zach looked at me and said, "Please, can I just go get a little closer?" I said, "Sure!" Ben and Nick took off to get to the RR, so we would be waiting anyway...

Zach came back beaming. "Mom, I shook Elder Nelson's hand!" "One of the ushers that I spoke with earlier in the morning (when he was counting chairs) gave me a quick shove right into his path and he shook my hand." He said, "I'll see you again in about 3 weeks at General Conference!" Zach said that his hand was a bit cold. Zach didn't think he was any taller than Dad either.