Conference is in the air

The first weekend in October is coming! What an awesome time of year this is. I think I subconsciously associate General Conference with the chilly morning air of September. It's an awesome time of year for a few reasons like no more summer heat, trees change colors (well, lots of trees in this area just go to sleep, but stay green), and the dark mornings will soon brighten with the end of Daylight Savings. All cool stuff.

Of course, I've been waiting for 6 months for General Conference. Ever since the last amen by President Monson in the Sunday afternoon session in April I have looked forward to October. And for 6 months I have read conference talks and have lessons on them in sacrament meeting talks and in elders quorum meetings. I also listen to talks in my car on my way to school. There were tons of awesome talks last conference and I'm re-reading some of them now and loving them. You know what's funny? I notice a big difference in how I feel when I read talks for my morning scripture study compared to when I hear them in the car. The Spirit is stronger when I read. It's probably because it's quieter and because I'm not distracted by details of driving.

This last week or so, I read and heard some really cool talks. When I really concentrate on them, I feel the Lord reaching down from heaven and filling my mind with directions for all aspects of my life. He helps me in my research, especially when I'm stuck on something. He helps me be a loving and kind husband. He helps me see how to teach my kids the gospel so they will be happy, both in our home now and for the rest of their lives.

The most important part of listening to conference talks, of course, is to feel and recognize the Spirit and learn how to become like our Savior, Jesus Christ. There is a tasty side to General Conference for our family. You may remember that we make peanut butter popcorn! T&L, if you're watching, thanks again for that recipe. :)

We have started talking with our boys about conference weekend. This helps us to look forward to it and also to settle down and prepare our minds for the weekend. It's like a marathon mixed with a fire hose. It really takes a few months to digest all the talks properly. And I'm thinking now about ways I can adjust my scripture study to make it for efficacious. This time I want to read through all the talks and mark them up. When I've done this in the past, I get more out of them when I hear them in the car. It doesn't go the other way for me.

Last night Angie brought up taking notes as she was heading to the Relief Society session of General Conference. It is something I used to do a lot more than I do now. I was on the extreme end in my younger years, to the point that only be able to summarize the talk and the stories therein and miss the real meaning or the principles that the Lord would have me learn right then. Now I'm on the other extreme and I hardly take any notes. Today at church, my friend JO said (and if it wasn't him, it was someone else in our joined meeting) that he takes notes just so he can pay attention. The debate for Angie and me is whether or not it actually helps because we don't go back and read the notes! I know that taking a few notes will keep my mind on the talks so that's a good reason for doing it. The times I take notes on what impressions come to me are the times I take away a really important theme for me to work on. It's really important to me and I love working on things and improving myself.

Maybe taking notes like that works for you too. If you'd like to share your thoughts on how you take notes, please do. As for me, I'll have out my little notebook and watch and listen for the Lord's direction in my life.

And eat some peanut butter popcorn.

500 Dates

Angie and I have been on about 500 dates. Sounds crazy, right? It does to me, but it's true. We aren't keeping track, exactly, but we make it a point to go on a date each week and have done so ever since we were first married. I think we've missed some weeks and I remember going twice some weeks (when we went out for lunch spontaneously and didn't need a babysitter).

We've been married for 10 years now (in March). Multiply that by 52 weeks/year puts us over 500 dates just since we got married. We saw each other almost daily while we dated, but I don't know if those count as dates. If they do, add over 100 more (that's rounding down). We dated for over 4 months, including our engagement, before getting married.

Our first date was on Nov 3, 2001. We went bowling with some of Angie's friends. I knew Kristi from the singles ward we attended. All the other people were their friends. The guys were Dave and Davey, which is easy enough to remember. My other memories of that night were mostly about Angie and how I really, really loved being with her. I still love being with her. There was some leaning going on at the bowling alley. She sat on a table between turns and I only had the guts to lean my arm up against her leg as I sat on the seat next to her. She wanted to reciprocate some contact (she told me later), but we were both pretty shy about it.

After bowling, we went to her house and watched Shrek. Angie's dad was there with us. He must have been coming and going and I'll tell you why I think that. During the movie, Angie and I started leaning. Ya, leaning. It was pretty awesome. I really wanted to hold her hand and was getting up the, well, I can't call it "courage," to do so. It's more like I was building up a whole bunch of "anti-regret" and I didn't want to look back on the night wishing I'd have held her hand.

Let me tell you, this was very forward for me!

We leaned more and more until our hands were touching back-to-back. I faked a pretend hold in the hopes that she'd think I was going for her hand and then she'd hold mine. She didn't bite. Then it was just a flop attempt and I decided to just grab her hand. So forward for a first date! But I really, really liked her and there was crackling energy in the air. It was magical (for both of us). It was the awesome-est feeling.

I still get that feeling around her. Ya, she's that awesome.

So anyway, we were holding hands and this must have been when her dad left to make poopcorn (ew, that would be gross). How about popcorn? Let's just say he made popcorn. Because when he came back I could see his surprised reaction in my peripheral vision.

After Shrek, we watched Iron Chef. It was one of their family's favorites, but was new to me. What a fun show! We have lots of inside jokes from watching that show over a year or two before it was taken off the air. Anyway, let me jump to the end of the date.

Angie asked me out on this date so she came to pick me up. When she dropped me off, I didn't want to shake hands in the car or hug across the arm rest. I didn't want it to look like I was going for a kiss or anything! That's way beyond what I could have gone for. So I asked her if I could give her a big hug. I went around to her side of the car and gave her a hug. The hug she gave me back was 10 times more magical than holding hands during Shrek. It was bliss. Pure love. And I still feel that way when we have some peace and quiet and give each other a sweet hug.

In everyday life we still have a lot of good feelings for each other. We work hard at our marriage and parenting. We have good days most of the time. There used to be more hard days than we have now. We've come a long way and still have a long way to go. This weekend's stake conference was uplifting and I love how the Spirit teaches us what we need to do to be more like our Savior, Jesus Christ. It is only through Him and our Father's plan of salvation that we can find true happiness in life.

And it's so good going through life with my wife and best-est friend, Angie. I love you, Babe!

General Conference was awesome, once again

Our family spent Saturday morning relaxing and getting ready for a day full of conference talks from church leaders. We made peanut butter popcorn, as promised, and snacked on it in three sessions. (By the last session on Sunday, we had completely forgotten about it. Sugar overload, I guess.)

We have spent years helping our little guys be reverent in sacrament meeting. It has paid off at church and it sure pays off on conference weekend. The boys actually sat through most of the first session before they got restless and went to play in their room. They often play quietly and that was the case this time too. Our boys are just the best.

We felt the Spirit so much by paying attention to the talks, talking about the messages together and listening for messages that would answer questions that we had written down beforehand. A couple questions I wrote down were:

How can we be a happy family?

How can we know the Lord's will for moving after Dad graduates?

I've been working on being patient with my boys. It can be tough sometimes. And I feel like they are really, really good boys. They bring a lot of happiness, peace and joy into our home. I'm so glad to have them. We are happy when we cooperate, speak kindly to each other, give lots of hugs, spend time together and have tickle fights.

I'm getting closer and closer to graduation. It's kind of weird to be so close to the end. It has been coming for nearly 6 years and now it seems like it's zooming up! We are talking about what kind of house we want to live in, how big it might be, if it will have a yard, what Skyler will do if there's no snow during the winter, etc.

We also got some bonus material from conference talks. It's stuff for our extended family. We have family members who are struggling with some tough medical and parenting issues. We passed along our thoughts to them and, hopefully, helped strengthen them at the same time.

Conference is just the best. I look forward to downloading all the talks (they are all available here now. Enjoy!) and swapping out the CD in my car from last conference.

Maybe I'll blog again about the talks I liked the most. If anyone suggests what they like to read here, I could lean toward more conference talks and scriptures or family happenings. Or else I'll just keep writing about whatever happens each week.

It's been 6 months since I started this blog. I've posted something each week and I'm s'happy that I have. I love talking about the gospel and hearing that others are reading my blog. Thank you all for reading, sharing it, and Liking it. May you be blessed for helping share the gospel!

The feeling of "General Conference" is in the air

I love General Conference. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints assembles two weekends a year, in April and October, to listen to church leaders and get a full dose of Spirit for the next six months. I look forward to conference weekend for several weeks before it actually arrives. I’ve been thinking about it for a few weeks now.

I like to listen to talks in my car from the previous conference. I have made some attempt to keep a growing list of my favorite talks and listen to them in the car too. We used to have to buy the CDs from ldsdistribution.org, but now they put the mp3s on lds.org and I download them within hours or days and burn them to CD. I didn’t want my several years’ worth of sets to go to waste so I gave them to other people to listen to. I was happy to get back so many “thank you”s. The warm fuzzies made it all worth it!

The new signin on the church’s web site allows users to keep notes online. I’ve been marking conference talks mainly, but also making some notes in the scriptures. That came in handy one Sunday in particular. I can’t remember if I blogged about it or not, but I’ve told the story many times. One Sunday there was a mix up with the elders quorum instructor and nobody had prepared the lesson. I borrowed an iPad, accessed my notes on the conference talk and we had a nice lesson.

I love technology.

I also love that song from Naponeon Dynamite, where I got those words/lyrics.

One silly thing about scheduling General Conference is that it’s not on “the first weekend of April/October”. It’s actually on the first Sunday and the Saturday preceding it. The “numbers guy” inside of me has been looking forward to this happening for a long time. I’m sure it’s happened in my life, but I don’t remember when. I’m happy to see that it’s happening this month. Conference starts on Saturday, March 31. Woo!

Our family has a tradition for watching General Conference that we started to get the kids excited to watch it. We talk about this tradition leading up to it and Skyler has already been talking about it. What do we do? We make peanut butter popcorn and chow down as soon as the first session starts. We have usually made a double batch, but found that it’s way too much for us. That was enough popcorn to give us a treat during several of the sessions and still have some left over after Conference weekend. We have trimmed down our consumption to one batch.

Here’s the recipe. It's from our friends, T&L.

2 poppers popped popcorn, remove unpopped kernels
1/2 cup white karo syrup
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup white sugar
1 cup peanut butter
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt

Cook the sugar, honey and syrup for 2 minutes. Remove from heat and add the vanilla, salt and peanut butter. Drizzle over the popcorn and stir. (This is the end of the recipe. Try it. And enjoy. Thank me later! :) )

The peanut butter really stands out in this recipe. It’s probably all the sugar and corn syrup. We actually halved the sugar in the recipe and I think it’s tastier now. It was too sweet before. (The recipe listed here has the amount of sugar we use.)