At Parting

This entry is part of my general conference application series.

At Parting, by Thomas S. Monson
President, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints


I love general conference! Apparently I'm not alone; earlier in the week my five-yr-old daughter asked, "What day is it?" After I told her that it was Tuesday, she smiled and said, "I'm excited for the weekend because we get to watch general conference!"

I'm cutting it close this time. Tomorrow is the first day of general conference, and I'm just now finishing my review of last conference. (How embarrassing for me!)

As is our family tradition, we're going to watch conference together with our proverbial tent towards the temple. To keep it exciting for the little ones, we'll play the word listening game we love, where the children choose a word at the start, listen for that word, and receive a piece of candy each time they notice the word is said. I don't remember each of the words they chose for this last conference, but they did listen for "church" and "prayer" in two of the sessions.

As part of another tradition, here is a word cloud of the top 100 words said in the conference talks. Do you see "church" or "prayer" in the cluster?


I wonder which words the children will choose this time... Regardless of their choice, I hope they come away from conference knowing that, as President Monson taught:

We face many challenges in the world today, but I assure you that our Heavenly Father is mindful of us. He loves each of us and will bless us as we seek Him through prayer and strive to keep His commandments.

I'm excited for another great conference weekend with my family!

C'mon conference!