General Conference and My Kids

This weekend is General Conference, something I look forward to every April and October. It's always such an uplifting, inspiring, and encouraging experience. I just love it.

Last Sunday we had a number of talks about conference, and one in particular (Sean A'lee's) inspired me to make conference a truly special experience for the whole family. My children are still pretty young, but not as young as they used to be. I decided we could step up our efforts, and get them on the next level so that someday (hopefully) they'll be listening to each speaker with their ears and their hearts.

We had a FHE about it on Monday, and everyone got really excited. We each have a copy of Genny's fabulous Conference packet, along with various plans and ideas intended to get the children really involved. In the past, I was happy if they were just quiet (my primary reason for using packets in the past). On Saturdays, I didn't even make them watch at all if they didn't want to. That certainly made it easier for me to pay attention. But this time would be different.

The children were excited about it all week. An improvement right there. And they eagerly participated for the first hour of the Saturday morning session.

The second hour, not so much. I heard more complaining and cries of "when's it going to be over?" I started to wonder how we were going to get through the next three sessions. More than that, I didn't want their enthusiasm for conference to turn into dread.

Then, something miraculous happened. The closing hymn was "I Need Thee Every Hour." This is the hymn we've been memorizing as a family, the first hymn we've ever done that with. I love this hymn for so many reasons, the most recent of which is that I've come to think of it as "our family's" hymn.

The children's enthusiasm returned as they recognized "our" hymn and began singing with the choir. I felt encouraged, and grateful. How wonderful to end the session like this, I thought.

But the choir was singing it very, very slowly. It was beautiful, but about half way through my children were bored again. So much for ending on a good note.

But that's okay. I still felt encouraged. I felt I had been reminded that life is a process. My children are still young. We have plenty of time. We'll get there. It may be years before we have the family general conference weekends I envision, if we ever do at all. But we're trying our best, and that's all I can ask for.