Stake conference

Last weekend was general conference and then this weekend was stake conference and while we didn't have any general authorities visit we had some inspiring talks. I wanted to share some of what inspired me. Last night's session had a general theme of the importance of families. One story really stood out to me, it was from a talk by Suzanne Smith.

"There was a kind merchant who was traveling by foot to a distant city. Around his neck he had secured his funds, seven gold coins which he had strung onto a string. After traveling most of the day, he came upon poor man who was begging at the side of the road. The good merchant took pity on the begger and took from his neck the gold coins and gave the man six of his gold coins. The compassionate merchant then continued on his way with his remaining one coin. After traveling all day, the merchant was exhausted and as the shadows deepened the merchant lay down under a tree at the side of the road to rest. While he slept the begger came upon the merchant and finding him asleep, stealthily stole the merchant's last gold coin".

When she finished this story, I felt violated, how could someone who was the recipient of such overwhelming generousity from a kind benefactor be so unfeeling as to then turn around steal the man's last coin.

She then said, imagine then that God was the merchant and the coins are time. The Lord has given us six days to use as we will and has only kept one day. We however have stolen that last day as well. She continued to share the importance of keeping the sabbath day holy. She reviewed the history, and the emphasis placed upon it by the Lord. She shared some general guidelines about what should or shouldn't be done on the sabbath and especially how to help children honor the sabbath.

This morning, the topics were varied. One that stuck with me was given by the Temple President. He of course talked about the blessings of temple attendence. He told that there are two blessings attached to temple attendence and that if we were just coming to the temple and not researching and bringing our own family names to the temple that we were missing half of the blessings which we could be recieving. During his talk I really did feel the desire to be more diligent in going to the temple, and I thought about how I had planned in the past to attend once a week and how that had all gone by the wayside, (especially in this last year) He said that only 14 people from out stake were temple workers and that he thought there should be at least 50. I hope that I can overcome whatever it has been that has kept me so immobile and that I can start attending regularly again.


Susie and Micah got back late last night from Tucson, Susie says that the photo session was amazing!! She is so excited. I haven't got to see any of the pics yet as they only brought back a couple on a disc because his cousin shoots in RAW and still needs to Photoshop the rest. And for whatever reason, we couldn't get them to come up on my computer so Susie went to print them. (Micah did view them on his computer so I know the disc works) In the meantime, if anyone is interested, I did get Micah's cousin--the photographer's website address so if you want to look at some of their work, you can check it out at www.Pangburnphotography.com