General Conference

I look forward to General Conference more than a child looks forward to Christmas.  I hung my conference lights and I was able to procure a few ingredients for our traditional homemade Chex mix.  I made some homemade pretzels and we found a few American treats on Taobao to order (turns out, only a few showed up....) So we were ready for conference. 

 The Fruit by the Foot arrived in a See's Lollipoop box. 

But as we all know, everything is different in China and this was no exception. 

I was totally on board to kill my biological clock and watch it real-time.  However, our branch had regular meetings on October 2nd (no meetings on October 9th) so I knew I couldn't pull that.  I am not 15 any more, I knew it wasn't possible to do both (but trust me, I considered it).  

I was up way too late on Saturday night and as I finished my prayers I realized the first session was starting in a few minutes. I couldn't help myself.  I decided to camp in Greta's room (who was up watching a movie) so I wouldn't wake Tom having it on. (and told Greta to sleep with Tessa.)  My plan was to watch it until I fell asleep; I was pretty tired and figured I'd doze off.  

But suddenly I was so delighted to be joining live and was invigorated when I found out President Nelson was speaking later in the session that I just kept watching.  Then partway into Elder Uchtdorf's talk (second speaker), the girls came and joined me.  It turned into a bit of a party.  They wanted to get Tom up, but I wouldn't let them.  The only sad thing about the party was that we were fasting so we didn't have the usual treats. But we watched the whole first session.  It was good and it was awesome and made me so so happy.  But at 2:00am, I was tired so I went to bed.  

The next morning I joined in live for the Saturday evening session at 8:00am.  As a family, our plan was to watch one session that Sunday afternoon together.  I tried to convince everyone to watch Saturday afternoon's session so I could be 'caught up'!  But that idea didn't fly.  (ha)

Tom had the first few days of the week off for National Week and we watched one session each day.  I slowly finished up on my own, then we finished the Sunday sessions on Saturday and Sunday.  So by the end of the week, I had listened to the whole thing a few times.  It definitely wasn't quite the same as compacting into the same weekend, but awesome nonetheless.  I love general conference.  Listening to it frequently has changed my life for good.  I love my apostles and prophets.  They have led me to greater conversion to Jesus Christ. 

To make my delight even greater, Tom took me to a copy shop today and got this printed. I'm beyond thrilled! 

And I've begun! (Before you think I've already done much, I haven't.... My first step in studying is to highlight in yellow 1) all of the times President Nelson is quoted and 2) the truthfulness of a prophet is referenced. I use the Gospel Library app to help with that, so this is just my beginning phase.)