Comments on Conference, April 5/6, 2009

Hi all,

It's 3:45 p.m. Sunday afternoon (Apr 5). What a wonderful General Conference so far! Not only the regular General Conference with absolutely great talks; we've been able to see the Sat. morning session last night (Sat. evening) and this morning at 11 a.m., the pre-recorded Priesthood session, and then, on the net, we saw Sat. afternoon session, although we paid a little less attention to it because we were having lunch. I was particularly impressed with Presidents Uchtdorf's and Eyring's talks! I felt like those two men are truly pillars of strength! One of the favorite images of my mind is what I imagined when I first read a story about Moses in Exodus 17:12. (Check it out.) Aaron and Hur were Moses' first and second counselors!

It's nice to see that one of the Twelve Apostles will be able to speak to French speakers in their native language, even if he is not a native speaker of French. That will be nice! And I believe that's a first. I don't know if there's ever been an Apostle who didn't need a translator, at least for the French. True, some of the Apostles have learned German or Spanish as missionaries, but I don't think there has been any apostles, up to now, who could do French or Portuguese (or Italian). I think there were some, like John A. Widtsoe, who might have been able to do Norwegian, but that's a long time ago (1925? - 1952?), and the apostles didn't go to far away places back then.

We were touched by Elder Scott's very personal remarks. Elder Cook was pretty direct! Elder Christofferson was absolutely eloquent, and taught the doctrine in a very touching way! Sister Lifferith of the Primary was “right on” with her comments about respect! All in all, this is a great Conference. But in addition, we watched the Young Women's Session held on March 28. It is also on the Internet. President Monson was at his very best in that session! You've gotta listen to it! Go to http://www.lds.org/ and then to General Conference, and then find Young Women's. We men are missing a lot when we don't listen to Relief Society Conference in September and Young Women's Conference in March.

Connie, is it true that Sister Cook, whose maiden name was Nelson, is a relative of yours? A cousin? She's too young to be your aunt! 2nd counsin?

We also watched Sunday morning and heard Pres. Uchtdorf again, and also Elder Holland.
W O W! Some of the Interweb comments are that Elder Holland's talk deserves to be memorized!

We didn't hear Sunday afternoon. . . it will be played next Sunday. But already we've heard that Elder Bednar's talk was also very doctrinal and very inspiring.

The Gospel is true! It's wonderful to know that it is!

Luv to all, Dad and Mom / Gerry and Alice.