Thoughts on General Conference April 2010

General Conference always leaves me feeling like I want to, and can do better. That makes me happy. I like when I set goals, and make plans for how I am going to achieve them. The harder part is after that, actually following through. But no matter how poorly or how well I do, every six months Conference comes around and I get motivated all over again. I love that.

I thought Conference was so good this year (is it ever bad? No.). The overall theme that seemed to stand out to me was an emphasis on parents teaching their children. I don't know if it was really there, or if that's just something I needed to hear and so it jumped out at me, but it seemed that almost every talk someone said at least something to the effect that parents have a responsiblity to teach their children. That really stood out to me, and reminded me of an experience I had my freshman year of college. Before I had even met Aaron, I was sitting in Dr. Talbot's Masterpieces of World Literature class. I don't remember what we were even talking about, but all the sudden it hit me, very strongly, that I would be held responsible for the education of my children. Ever since then, education, and specifically the education of a child, has been an important topic for me. I consistently find myself pondering over, worrying about and researching, the best ways to educate the children I now have.

The talks I liked best were Elder Perry's talk on how his mother took upon herself the responsiblity of the education of her children, and Elder Nelson's talk about family history and the New Family Search site. I also liked the thought (although I can't remember who the speaker was) that even infants can benefit from scripture study, not because they understand the words, but because they can understand and recognize the familiar feeling of the spirit that comes with them. I also rememer really liking Sister Beck's talk and President Uchtdorf's talk, although I can't recall what they were about off of the top of my head. Guess I'll have to go back and reread them :)