General Conference Preparation #2


One of the very first ways the Spirit taught me I need to prepare for General Conference was to help my children have a positive experience. I wanted my children to love conference weekends and look forward to them in the hopes they would develop their own testimonies of the revelatory experience conference is and the power and protection available we act on the promptings we receive and the invitations extended during conference. Additionally, I knew I could not have the revelatory experience I yearned for and needed if my children were miserable or distracting me. A blog post I read last year summed up perfectly my thoughts as a young mother: "My heart can only hear what it needs during General Conference if my wee ones are successfully busy in their own activities." (Sandra Turley)

There are so many ideas available today to help mothers prepare. I will share a few I have seen successfully used and share a few links with lots of additional ideas. 

  1. Conference Bingo - either using pictures of the First Presidency and Quorum of the 12 or different words that often are used in conference talks, i.e. Baptism, scriptures, Holy Ghost, etc.
  2. Coloring pages - the church has published coloring books. You can download a PDF copy here: https://www.lds.org/.../coloring.../pearl-of-great-price. Additionally, you can find a lot of coloring pages in The Friend magazine that can be printed off or at @ldscoloringpages on Instagram. 
  3. Put pictures of the First Presidency and Quorum of the 12 on the walls around the room your family watches conference. Give everyone a stack of sticky notes and have them write down something that stands out to them from each talk. They then put the sticky note under the picture of the person speaking. You can use those sticky notes in a discussion either between conference sessions or in FHE on Monday. Additionally, you can save them and use them as you discuss the talks further over the next six months. 
  4. To help my Young Women, seminary students, and my own teens learn how to take notes, I gave them a sheet I created for taking notes. On the backside it had a place for them to choose one talk that stood out to them in each session and write down what stood out and how they could apply it in their own life over the next six months. I also provided a list of all 100 doctrinal (scripture) mastery scriptures for them to track which ones were used. We then generally played conference jeopardy the following week in class or FHE, and they could use their notes. This provided a great way to engage them and allowed them to share the things they learned. These are some of my favorite memories as I always learned additional things when they shared their insights in these discussions. 

Our conference weekends were not always perfect, but I noticed the difference when I took the time to prepare and help my children have a positive experience. They looked forward to conference weekends, as did I, and we all gleaned so much more. Additionally, the Spirit was present, which allowed us all to hear the things we needed. 

Here are some links to additional ideas: 





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