All-Star Weekend

Imagine Gandhi, the Dalai Lama and Mother Teresa all agreed to speak at a special conference and each in turn would speak anywhere from 15 to 20 minutes about experiences in their lives and give us, their audience, advice on how to live happier and productive lives.  Can you imagine the lines at the ticket booth for this event?  Can you imagine all the news reporters scrambling around to get behind the scenes info or the photographers with press passes trying to sneak a shot of the three together?  Can you imagine the advice we would hear?  Can you imagine how that event might inspire us to be better people and how it’d motivate us to a more meaningful life?  Sadly, this event isn’t likely to happen anytime soon or even in heaven.  But what if I told you there is something just as awesome and inspiring held twice a year every year?

That, my friends, is called General Conference in which leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from around the world give short addresses on principles that will help us better live the teachings of Jesus Christ.  The LDS Church’s organization is structured just like the church Christ set up during his lifetime with apostles and seventies and even a modern day prophet who is guided by God to run the church throughout the world.  All these men and women get together yearly on the first weekend of April and October in Salt Lake and over a live broadcast (consisting of five sessions of one and a half hour to two hours) from Salt Lake City address the world on how to love those others around you better, how to live a more Christ centered life and give advice that they would like us to hear.

It might sound pretty boring and let me tell you, that is what I first thought of it when I first experienced it.  As long as I can remember, in our house, General Conference meant waking up at 9:00 a.m. on a Saturday and Sunday morning and listening to older men speak to us.  My parents sensed that it might be boring for us and gave us fun activities for us to do during the broadcast.  Sitting in the living room I still remember playing “Conference Bingo” (in which kids place cereal pieces on boxes of certain church-related words such as “Baptism” and “Joseph Smith” when a speaker mentions that specific term) and eating the home-made breakfast my Dad had cooked as I had been struggling to get out of my bed.  General Conference became a Hall family tradition of watching General Conference together in our pajamas munching on the Fruit Loops we were supposed to be using to play Conference Bingo.

I viewed conference as just a simple, relaxing weekend when you were able to lounge on the couch in the comforts of your home instead of having to get dressed in a suit and tie and drive to church; that is until I started actually listening.  One of the first talks I still remember to this day that helped change my life was given by the now deceased apostle Elder (a title referring to one being called of God) L. Tom Perry.  He said in the April 2013 General Conference during the Sunday Afternoon session:

“The world changes constantly and dramatically, but God, His commandments, and promised blessing do not change.  They are immutable and unchanging. Men and women receive their agency as a gift from God, but their liberty and, in turn, their eternal happiness come from obedience to His laws.”

Basically he said that by following what you know to be true that it will bring you more happiness than by allowing yourself to have no rules or no bounds.  For me, it meant that in order to be free, I first must follow the rules God has set for me or I will be held captive by the consequences of bad choices.  This had a strong impact on me as a senior in high school and motivated me to be more confident in my choices and be the best person by being faithfully to things I had learned from my parents and church leaders.

No matter who you are, a young high school student, a single young adult, or a mother of five children, I promise there is something for everyone at General Conference this weekend.  You don’t have to watch all ten hours Saturday and Sunday but just listening to one or two talks I know will touch you in a way you never had expected it to.  So pop a bag a popcorn and take a crack at it and tune in on the radio, online or on TV.  I’ll be on my Twitter @shawnhallz during the conference and afterwards I will be posting my favorite quotes here on this blog as well so stayed tuned for that as well!  Happy watching!

Viewing Schedule & Options: https://www.lds.org/general-conference/how-to-view-live?lang=eng&clang=ase

General Conference Bingo Boards: https://www.lds.org/bc/content/shared/content/images/magazines/new-era/2015/09/conference-bingo_1534000_prt.pdf