We had our stake conference this past weekend and it was great! I find it kind of hard to believe that I could enjoy 4 hours of church on Saturday and 2 hours on Sunday, but it was really something else. The presiding authority over all the meetings was Elder Bruce C Hafen of the Seventy. You know how sometimes people with tell a few jokes during their talks? Well Elder Hafen told several each time and made for a very entertaining event. Of course, we don't go to church to be entertained and that wasn't his main message. Read on for more...
During the Priesthood leadership meeting from 4pm to 6pm, he told us that he is involved in the creation of a new church manual. I'm assuming the Melchizedek Priesthood leadership manual, but I'm not sure. Anyway, after about 40 minutes of talks and testimonies, he broke from the norm and had as close to a one on one as you can with as many men that were there. He asked us as leadership what the problems we saw in our stake was. The topics that were thrown out varied from disinterested fathers to forgotten families. It was a pretty big eye opener as to what our stake thinks are major problems locally.
As for the Adult Session from 7pm to 9pm it was a fantastic meeting that centered around rearing children. This talk was interesting as well, as it was both Elder Hafen and his wife Marie taking turns talking, back and forth about the differences between toddlers to teenagers and their experiences raising their 7 children. Elder Hafen told joke about his oldest kid who was I guess a troubled child, and he said that the lord blessed him with their other 6 kids in payment for taking his oldest off his hands, lol! He also put the proverbial "parental curse" of making their kids have kids just like them... He said that he had triplets, and that it's been very good for his character, haha that got a laugh out of the entire crowd. They had some good advice which I'm going to take to heart with my own kids. Probably the biggest thing I got out of it is that praise is paramount, and it's very trying as I found out the last 2 days in testing it out on my kids. In particular Trevor is a major thorn in my side sometimes, he's got to be the most stubborn kid alive. I love him to death, but it's really hard to be as calm as I need to with him.
I'd like to tell you what the main session was about on Sunday, but... well those kids of ours really make it hard to pay attention sometimes. Even though neither myself, my wife or my kids really get anything out of the talks, I think it's important for them to be there and understand that it's a life choice that will benefit them in teh long run, and besides after they're grown, we'll be able to pay attention then. =]
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