Sunday, October 4, 2009

Another Sleepless Night

Well, I probably could go to sleep, and I really should, especially if I want to get up at 5:30 to go to spinning class, but I'm young right? I can get up....

Anyways, today and yesterday was the 179th semi-annual General Conference for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Can I just say how much I love listening to General Conference? It's such a spiritual and amazing experience. I'm glad that I can appreciate it now because I definitely didn't when I was younger. I remember my mom would set us in front of the television, while she would iron and fold clothes. I didn't really listen to the talks, I just figured out all of the things that the TV people do to indicate a talk was ending. For example, for each speaker, their name flashes three times, and I knew that after the third time, the talk was almost over. I also knew that each talk except the final one lasted for about 15 minutes. I also knew that I could fall asleep whenever the choir sang. But as the years passed, I'm really grateful for my mom doing that. It got me in the habit of listening to conference. I can't imagine not listening to conference actually. Like last year, I had work on the Saturday morning session, and I couldn't get my shift covered, and I just felt so wrong being there. Granted we were able to listen to it on the radio, but it just wasn't the same.

This year's conference was absolutely amazing. For all of you LDS members out there, you may remember the talk given by Elder Holland last conference about the Savior's Atonement. Wasn't it such an incredible talk and testimony of the Atonement? This conference, he gave a powerful witness of the truthfulness of The Book of Mormon. He is such a powerful speaker, and it's amazing that he has the testimony he has. I wish that I could meet him in person. He is truly an inspiration to me. Another remarkable talk that really hit home for me was Brent H. Neilson. His main topic was missionary work, but I loved how he talked about his prayers being answered. And how the rising generation is the answer to the prayers of those who have lived in the past. There were lots of absolutely superb talks, and if you want to read any, you can find them on www.lds.org.

I also happened to stumble upon another talk not given at this General Conference that I really enjoyed. It's main topic is about homosexuality, but there are so many amazing tidbits of inspiration within in that can apply to everyone. This is one of my favorite quotes from it:

"Elder Maxwell once taught a group of people who lived with really hard daily challenges. He had been watching the Olympic diving competition, where he had learned that the judges grade a dive not just by how graceful it looks to the public, but by how difficult the dive is—which only the judges can understand enough to measure. Elder Maxwell told this group that the Lord will judge their lives by the difficulty of their dive, which He understands in every detail."

I absolutely love this quote because it explicitly states that we will not all deal with the same trials. Not everyone will experience the same degree of difficulty. It makes you wonder why some people deal with more hardships than others. But at the same time, if you think of the story of Job, the Lord had so much trust and faith in him, that he allowed Satan to do his worst. And you know what? Job pulled through faithfully, and he was rewarded in the end for his righteousness. As the well known (LDS) catch phrase goes, "I never said it would be easy, I only said it would be worth it". Well, it certainly hasn't been easy these past few months, but in the end, I have faith that it will have been worth it.

1 comment:

Rach said...

I love that quote about the dive! I have been thinking a lot lately about not judging other people, because I really don't know what they're going through. And that quote just makes it even more clear. Thanks!