Conferences and Me

Living in several different states through the years, I have never been able to attend a church meeting in the Conference Center. This year, I was doubly blessed.
A little background: I have been lucky enough to have a group of really wonderful friends. We go waaaaaay back to junior high and even elementary school. So every year, all of the members of the group are invited to go to dinner and watch the broadcast from some one's stake center. I have always been invited (at least, that's what I choose to believe) but I have never been able to come.

Marianne, Donna, Heather, Me and Laurie. We missed the people who couldn't be there with us.

All those years I sat alone in watching the broadcast I felt a little less lonely knowing that these women were listening to the same messages I was. This year, we were lucky enough to get tickets to attend the broadcast live. So after a great dinner at Sweet Tomatoes, we headed off to Salt Lake to watch the broadcast. We had fantastic seats and sitting with such wonderful people made it even more fun.

Andrew was thrilled to be at such an important event with his dad.

My very smart husband also got us tickets to attend the Saturday afternoon session of General Conference. Because Andrew was baptized one week earlier, he was old enough to attend. The tickets came in packages of six, so we let Andrew invite a friend. He chose our neighbor Isaac.
I brought everyone a notepad and pen. They were given instructions to take notes, draw . . . whatever they wanted as long as they were quiet.

All of us before the session began. We arrived an hour early and got great seats. Unfortunately, the children were ready to leave an hour into the broadcast. Oops. I guess two hours is their limit for a sit-and-be-quiet church meeting.

My plan worked well. The children all said they were glad they went. We had good seats. The children thought it was really cool to be so close to the prophet.

The rain seemed to keep people away. Seats were available for both Saturday sessions.

While we were in Salt Lake City, Ellie and Brianna were at grandma's house, eating lots of good food, coloring, watching t.v. and playing games. We all had a wonderful time. Living in Utah has lot of advantages.