General Conference

It is General Conference time again.  October and April, this has been ingrained in me my whole life.  It is a tradition, like Christmas and Thanksgiving.  Growing up we Conference wasn’t just a two day deal.  General Conference lasted for several days with several sessions each day.  We didn’t have a television in the house for many years while I was growing up.  So I loved Conference time because my parents would rent a television for a week or two  so that we could watch.    We got caught up on all of the shows like the Brady bunch and Gilligan's island.  The interesting thing was, six months later, when we rented the TV again, we found that we had not missed much.  We would sit around as a family during conference and color and listen.  We had stoves that heated the house and we would put our paper up against the stove and melt the crayons onto the paper.  We could get away with this until dad got sick of the smell.

Going to school during conference week was interesting also.  They had just put televisions into the schools.  The teachers would pull them into the classroom and watch General Conference while we did our assignments.  It never occurred to me that life was any different than this.  I didn’t realize until years later when I had moved away that having the same belief as those who I was surrounded by during the day, was unique.  I wonder if I had known then, if I would have appreciated it more.  My children grew up being very much the outsiders.  Maybe that is one reason that I like General Conference so much.  Beyond the spiritual uplift, I love the camaraderie I used to feel as a child.  Plus, it’s tradition.