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This year our little LDS family had the opportunity to get tickets (they were free) to go and attend the last session of General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. As most of your may know, the last session is Sunday afternoon at 2:00pm. Luckily, our family also had reserved that very same weekend at my grandfather’s condo up at Park City. We arrived early and picked out seats as close as we could to the front. Our seats, if standing at the podium, were on the far right of the conference center and we were about 15 rows up from the walkway that splits the bottom from the top of the center. We were pretty close, but not quite close enough to see the speaker’s faces very well. It didn’t matter though, directly in front of us were two television sets. One was showing conference with subtitles and the other was showing conference with a sign language professional. I found myself watching the sign language TV the most because of the interesting way that they communicate. I always tried to pick out what words they were trying to sign and I always wondered if they were keeping up with the speaker or not.

We had a great time at General Conference. This was the first time that Katie was able to attend because of the time restriction. Many people may not know but youth under the age of 8 are not allowed to attend. My guess is that they want silence in the conference center so that the speakers can be heard for television and radio. Anyway, it was a great experience. I think my kids were able to feel the awesome reverence that everyone has for the 12 apostles and especially for the Prophet of God. When President Monson walked in the room, everyone stood, everyone was silent. It was something to see, that many people in a huge conference room standing silently until President Monson sat was great to witness.

Below I have posted a video of some of the Highlights from April Conference.

I was going through some old video footage from an external hard drive that I have. There are several hours of video of birthdays, kindergarden plays, songs, christmas’s etc. One particular spot on my video files shows our family over at the Twin Falls Temple grounds before the Temple was built. My Dad came up with a briliant idea one day to go over to the future temple site, after the official ground breaking, and do our own ground breaking. So, my Dad got out two of his shovels, painted them both gold and marched us out to the small patch of dirt that was used by the official ground breakers.

Below is our little video of our family doing our own “unofficial” ground breaking at the Twin Falls Temple.

A few weeks ago I was trying to come up with a good Family Home Evening. Our ward had organized a night when all of the youth would learn about how to be a missionary and were coming over to our house to give my family the first lesson. We were to feed them dinner and then listen to their lesson and help them feel like a true missionary. I decided to use some of the foods that I had to eat while I was on my mission. I served an LDS mission to both Cali Colombia and to Quito Ecuador. So, I went to our local Latino grocery store and found some items that would give them a taste of what I ate while serving in South America. I fried up some platain bananas. I made a bunch of rice. I bought some Guayava candy and made some agua de panela.

Before these young men and young women came over to our house, I thought I would try out all of these things on my own kids. Of course, they all turned up their noses and didn’t taste all of the items with curiosity. They knew the tastes would be different so they only tried a little tiny bit.

In any case, I decided to pull out my mission treasure box and show them some cool stuff from Colombia and Ecuador. While rummaging through my box of stuff, I came across this little poem. I don’t remember when I found this on my mission but it was perfect for how I felt while serving for 2 years. I thought I would share this little poem with the world on my LDS Family website.

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A mission is a strange experience
It is a trial and a test
A mission throws you at the worst
Yet teaches you the best

I’ve never been so happy
I’ve never been so depressed
I’ve never felt so forsaken
I’ve never felt so blessed

I’ve never been so confused
Things have never been so clear
I’ve never felt my Heavenly Father so distant
He’s never been so near.

I’ve never been so discouraged
I’ve never been so full of hope
I feel I could go forever
I think I’ve come to the end of my rope

I’ve never had it quite so easy
I’ve never had it quite so tough
Things have never been so smooth
Things have never been so rough

I’ve never traveled through more valleys
I’ve never ascended so many peaks
I’ve never met so many nice people
I’ve never met so many freaks

I’ve never had so many ups
I’ve never had so many downs
I’ve never worn so many smiles
I’ve never worn so many frown

I’ve never been so lonely
I’ve never had so many friends
Boy, I hope this is over soon
Gosh, I hope it never ends

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