General Conference

General Conference is a semiannual gathering of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, held every April and October at the LDS Conference Center in Salt Lake City, Utah.   During each conference, members of the church gather in a series of two-hour sessions to listen to talks from church leaders. General Conference is an international event as the sessions are broadcast worldwide in many languages, primarily through local and international media outlets, and over the Internet.

To help our young children participate more fully in these sessions we added a "game."  In previous conferences, Neal and I had watched them on the computer while the kids roamed about and spent much of their time in the playroom unaware of what was going on.  Not this time. 

We set these bowls in front of them and explained they would be listening for specific vocabulary.  We instructed them they could take one piece from the bowl every time they heard the word.  I pointedly did not choose Jesus Christ or Heavenly Father as I did not know how into this game my kids were going to get and I did not want them disrespectfully shouting out our Savior's name in a greedy rush to get dried cranberries.

It was a big success from our usual conference routine.  Yes, they still took movement and play breaks, yes they still sang the ABC song during parts of the 2 hour session, yes they danced around the room like circus freaks during the hymns, and yes it worked better the first day than the second but they attended and sat for much longer periods of time.  We were very pleased with their efforts.

As an adult, I really enjoyed and was touched by 3 talks in particular:
Elder Russell M. Nelson, Saturday Morning Session
President Henry B. Eyring, Sunday Morning Session
Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, Sunday Morning Session