On Sunday we had a pretty awesome experience. We had an not-normally-scheduled stake conference over in Suffolk (35-40 minutes away) and Elder Russell M. Nelson was presiding. Apparently He had been in Virginia since Friday, meeting with the missionaries, the YSA's, and doing Bishop/Stake President training, all before our stake conference session. Jeremy had to be there kind of early for choir, so we decided to make it a little earlier and see if we could get soft (close) seats for such a neat occasion. We left our house at 7:20 and got there just after 8. The soft seats were already about 1/3 full (for the 10 o'clock meeting) and within 15 more minutes they were almost completely full! It was a little exciting trying to keep 3 kids under 5 happy(ish) and quiet in the 4th row by myself, but it was neat that Jeremy got to sing in the choir, and they actually did pretty well. (The kids, not the choir. They were awesome!) It was really neat when Elder Nelson came in. After he sat down he kept waving to all the little kids and making an obvious effort to see everyone there and did a lot of smiling. I'm sure he was tired from his crazy schedule, but he didn't show it.
The talks were really great. Our stake president gave a neat talk on temple marriage and celestial marriage. It seems like a lot of the talks addressed children, and Elder Nelson talked a LOT about children. He had all the primary children stand up and asked them to sing for him. The first suggestion was "I Am a Child of God," and I definitely cried. Reilly and Jaina both cooperated and were so cute. These are some of the things he told us to teach our children:
To love God, to
understand about His son Jesus Christ through the scriptures.
That Jesus is the son of God, and that we will one day stand before Him.
That Jesus is the son of God, and that we will one day stand before Him.
That we have prophets, how important the
scriptures are, about the restoration of the priesthood, and about the importance
of tithing.
He told us to encourage them to get an education, and to help them
want to be missionaries.
He said when he would work long hours (medical school, surgery, all that) he would come home and wake his kids up to read the scriptures with them, because he didn't know how much time he had on the earth, and he wanted them to KNOW the voice of their father reading the scriptures to them. It was pretty neat. (It made me feel grateful that we had (finally) gotten in the habit just a few weeks before of having family scripture study every morning before Jeremy leaves for work.)
I don't know how impressed the kids were, but we were able to get them all up to shake an apostle's hand. Katy wasn't really into it, and he gave her little hand a kiss instead. :) When we finally left the building like 40 minutes after the conference ended, he was still standing, greeting people.
It was a really neat experience, and I'm glad we went early enough to be close enough to see all the little details and watch his face. Jeremy was a little sad that he couldn't see everyone's faces during their talks, but he still enjoyed singing in the choir. What a neat experience. I'm so grateful we weren't sick or anything. I really shouldn't say this, but we've all been pretty healthy lately... (and I don't know why this text is white... by the way)
2 comments:
WOW, that was awesome, thanks for sharing!!
Very Awesome! That is so neat that you got to be there, and so close too. I loved reading about what he talked about. And he kissed Katy's hand...how sweet.
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