Monday Mom-blings

I love conference weekend.

I think I said that on my last post...but it's the truth.

I love everything about conference weekend...family activities, church in my pj's, Sunday morning breakfast, conference talks...everything!

This past weekend was no different. In fact, in some ways I think it was better. We had our same traditions, but this year we also did a couple of different things. I tried a couple of the ideas I posted about a few weeks ago (from the Ensign) to help the kiddies listen through conference, and they worked pretty well. Rylen has a hard time just sitting still and listening at church, so I didn't expect a lot from him, but even he tried to pay attention for one of the games. (It involved candy of course...but I'm not above bribery!) One of our key candy words for the second session just happened to be "temple." The kids definitely hit the jackpot on that word through Elder Bednar's talk and then the next speaker too. They were poppin' gummy bears left and right. My sister was keeping track of the number of times the key words were said, and according to her, Elder Bednar mentioned the word "temple" 61 times...that's a lot of gummy bears for one talk! (Thankfully, I don't think the kids caught all 61 times!)

The workbooks also worked well for the older kids. Ashlynn and Breven enjoyed doing the word search, and I think the space for them to write in 3 things that they learned and make up a question helped them pay better attention. It will be fun to have our little Conference Trivia FHE tonight and see what questions everyone comes up with. I know Jackson is trying to come up with the most obscure questions that he possibly can. He mentioned one yesterday..."What color was the choir director's (Mack Wilberg) tie?" Huh? Who pays attention to something like that? Guess I'll have to pay better attention next time! FHE should be fun!

What did I enjoy the most? I think there were too many good talks to rank them...or even remember them all. I'm looking forward to the next Ensign so that I can read them again. I did really love Elder Hales talk though. (First one out of the box in the Saturday morning session.) I had just been on a little spending spree for Easter and then I heard his talk about debt and distinguishing wants from needs...needless to say, I might be returning a few things. I loved what he said his wife taught him about wants and needs. The 4 little words (just behind, I love you) that mean the most..."We can't afford it" and looking at the things that you want to buy and asking yourself why you want to buy them...to make the person you're buying them for happy, to make yourself happy, to prove you can buy it, to have a status symbol, etc. Loved the talk! For me, I think the pervading message was that there will be tough times ahead, do what you can to prepare and get out of debt, help others, have faith, trust in the Lord, and the most important things in life are not material...they are your family and your faith/testimony.

How was your conference weekend? What did you learn? Enlighten me!