October 2015 General Conference Thread

I missed watching it live this go-round. It’s not currently available on lds.org but it is available on youtube. I haven’t found a transcript yet so I’ll mostly paraphrase.

They asked a laurel to give the opening prayer. That’s cool. I think of myself at that age and the emotions I would have gone through if I were asked to pray during a session of general conference. I wonder if that’s the sort of thing that you sit down and hash out in your mind over and over again until it’s behind you or if you truly try not to think about what you’re going to say before hand and hope your nerves don’t cause you to say something stupid.

Rosemary Wixom: Babies are cool. We each have a spark of divinity within. We should look for validation vertically from god, not horizontally from the world around us. Lots of focus on being a child of god.

She related the contents of a letter written by someone “It’s either right or wrong, there’s no in between.” I always get nervous around that kind of language because I feel like the path should be a funnel; a wide, open trail head that is accepting of everyone that only narrows as people perfect themselves. Sometimes it feels like the way we present the right or wrong dynamic would have us starting our journey on a razor’s edge with no space to be ourselves. If we start our journey by cutting our feet on a razor-thin path we might be less likely to continue to follow it. The rest of that story was focused on praying to gain a testimony of being loved by god.

Videos (general comment): I always say it, I’ll say it again. I love the 90 minute format with a video (or two) to break up the monotony. As good as conference is, during most sessions there’s this moment where I check my watch and sigh, “there’s another 45 minutes.” The General Women’s Session hits that sweet spot. I’d rather find myself at the other end of the session thinking “What, it’s over already?” and wanting more than the talk heavy sessions where I’ll sometimes think “mercy, how will I survive another four sessions of this?”

I hear they do the videos and keep the meeting short because 8 year olds are expected to attend. I guess I have the attention span of an 8 year old. I’m just doing my part to become as little children. Besides, if that is indeed the reason this would be the perfect moment to clue people in that there are kids that are even younger than 8 that attend the other general conference sessions.

P.S. If they make the change I still reserve my right to complain that church leaders treat adults like children. 😈

Video 1: Melony wrote a surprisingly “heavy” letter to a kid. No “what was your favorite part of Frozen?” it was all “Life is full of disappointment…” Jeez lady. 😥

Linda Reeves: Babies are cool (déjà vu). This talk may be the one to skip for most of us here. The talk has the potential to hurt people that can’t have children. “The power of procreation is not an incidental part of the plan, it is the plan.” It’s a chastity talk. Here’s the quote that people are probably going to gravitate towards.

Sisters, Satan has raised a Korihor-like banner in our day with increasing success. What are some of his tools? Seductive romance novels, TV soap operas, married women and old boyfriends connecting on social media, and pornography. We must be so careful dear sisters we cannot play with Satan’s fiery darts and not get burned.

I hate soap operas as much as the next guy but… She didn’t come right out and call romance novels or soap operas porn but she did lump them in the same thought as adultery and porn. Sigh. I’ll reference a comment I made in a different thread. This is how people start thinking that Irish Spring commercials are pornography. We barely got to a place where we are correctly defining addiction, now we have trouble with defining porn.

I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be [pornography]; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and [an Irish Spring commercial] is not that.

End strawman. 🙂

Besides repentance what helps or tools have we been given to help us stay clean and virtuous? Our primary and young women all know and sing the song scripture power (fist pump). Can we expand it to prayer power? Temple power. Covenants power. Sabbath day power. Prophet power and virtue power. There are also great blessings and protecting promises associated with the proper wearing of our temple garment. I have come to feel that I am symbolically putting on royal robes given me by my heavenly father. I testify sisters that when we strive to wear the garment properly our father recognizes it as a great sign of our love and devotion to him.

It’s important to remember that she’s speaking for herself here.

Amulek taught that this life is the time to prepare to meet god. It is not the time to receive all of our blessings.

Kind of contrasts with some of Uchtdorf’s later statements. More on those later.

At the end of her talk she tearfully says:

In that day of reward we may feel to say to our merciful loving father, “Was that all that was required?”

I’m not sure what she meant here. On the one hand you could take it to mean “That’s it? I guess that wasn’t so bad.” On the other hand I’m worried she feels like she must earn god’s love. If so that breaks my heart. I was in the same emotional trap and it destroyed me from within. Never feeling as though I was doing enough, never feeling as though I measured up, never feeling as though I merited god’s love. I don’t see her comment as teaching people to earn their way into heaven, I see it as a reflection of her own fears. I once shared them and it pains me to see someone else suffer that way. Her comments leading into the question make me think it was the former interpretation, the comments following the question make me think it was the later (if we knew their love we’d be willing to do anything…).

To be continued…

I’m seriously disappointed by Pres. Uchdorft’s first talk. Maybe others here will enjoy it but I don’t. Seems like a syrup back for him

Uchtdorf: I’m not sure what to make of this talk. I’d love to hear some specifics but I suppose one of the points is to talk in generalities to allow us to fill in the details.

Keep the gospel simple and don’t burn members out. For some simplify will mean step back from church programs and focus on the gospel. For others simplify will mean stop doing things that are keeping us away from the church program. Now toss those two groups into the same church and watch the fireworks.

Ballard: For the most part this was a recap of the “old” ship Zion. Ballard likes recaps, two talks for the price of one. He mentions that leaders aren’t perfect. From there it’s a smorgasbord of topics, do this, don’t do that, can’t you read the sign?

Maynes: Using pottery as an analogy of centering ourselves on Jesus Christ and the gospel. Very specific word choice there, centering ourselves on the teachings of Jesus. He shared a personal story from his convert wife (?) about how Christ filled a void in her life. This was the best talk of the first hour IMO.

Sister Marriott quoting from non-Correlated Protestant hymns is win. I’m liking her talk so far.

I always LOL when people quote Brigham Young’s “good ship Zion” stuff. Young lived and died before the Titanic – the unsinkable ship – led to MASSIVE changes in maritime laws. Among other things, all ships are required to carry lifeboats now.

ETA: This next talk is making the Holy Ghost sound like a jerk.

I loved Pres. Uchtdorf’s talk. The issue is how many members, especially leaders, will understand it and accept the implications.

I like that Elder Ballard said explicitly that church leaders make mistakes, are human and are not infallible.

Elder Maynes’ talk was wonderful. The pottery example and its focus strictly and solely on Christ was perfect.

Sister Marriott’s talk was wonderful – truly wonderful.

Individual perspectives are fascinating.

Elder Lawernce uses some generalizations that won’t work for everyone, but I like the message of his talk a lot. He is teaching a core principle of the Gospel (dependence) and he is doing it in a humble, non-guilt-inducing way. That is good to see.

He didn’t say suffering is a result of sin. He said some suffering is a result of sin and the guilt that accompanies sin.

He also said God does not condemn us – that we condemn ourselves.

Overall, I like his talk a lot. His do’s and dont’s are more concepts and principles rather than a classic list.