Conference Weekend: Partyin, partyin, YEAH!

I am in love. I am totally and completely in love and nothing anyone says will ever make me feel otherwise.

I am totally in love with this dang church I am proud to be a member of. Seriously! Conference this year was SO good!!!

This year I was determined to listen to every single session of conference and take notes too. That in and of itself made the experience noticeably better - just taking notes. I had 3 questions in mind and all of them were answered over and over in many different ways.

And, even questions that I was too afraid to actually ask, but questions I've just had about life - those were answered too.

The first session on Saturday was arguably the best, at least for me. And here is why:

As some of you may know, I was pretty affected by the tabernacle burning down. Everyone was sad, but for me it felt like somebody had died. I don't know why, but for the first week every time somebody mentioned it, I would tear up. And then in the months afterwards even when I drove past it I would get sad. I was even afraid to do the promenade because I would be directly facing the burnt remains of the tabernacle, and I was certain that I would probably burst into tears. Dumb, but that's just how it was.

So... :) ... you can imagine my reaction when President Monson (who is officially my favorite person ever) announced that they were going to rebuild the tabernacle into Provo's second temple.

A temple!! What a blessing!! I have never before cried during conference, but as soon as he announced that I burst into tears. Everyone in my family did. There was nothing more perfect that they could have done with the tabernacle. I...am so excited. And, now I totally know where I want to get married. Like, for sure. I will not get married until that temple (calling it a temple is so exciting! :D) is finished.

So, a note to my future husband: I love you, and I respect your opinion, but we are getting married in the Provo Tabernacle Temple. No matter what. So...deal with it.

If you really think about it, is there any more perfect way for that to have happened? A couple analogies I talked about with my dad were these: First, the tabernacle burns down. In other words, it experiences a temporal death. But then, it is resurrected into a celestial being. Just like what will happen to us, as long as we are faithful.

The other analogy is that, in our own lives, we will experience painful things like getting burned down to the ground. Or, a better way to say that is a "refiners fire." We'll experience trials and hardships that will leave us feeling, perhaps, like an empty shell. But then we can take those experiences and turn into something beautiful and wonderful like a temple.

But really, I seriously can't even begin to describe how excited I am about it. I was floating on cloud 9 for the rest of the session. And Elder Uchtdorf's talk at the end just sealed the deal. I was crying during that one too. I don't even know why. But it just gave me so much reassurance about my life. It's okay if I am not perfect. And it's okay if I'm not as smart as or as pretty as or as talented as everyone else. "You matter to Him."  :D What a great experience it was to listen to that talk.

Unfortunately, I had to go to work right after his talk ended. In fact, I was late to work, but I didn't even care. I was still so happy about everything that I had heard. Except my shift ended at 5:30, and the second session was between 2 and 4. I was determined not to miss it, no matter what.

I endured work, and then at 1:59 my co-worker and I were frantic. Nobody else seemed to care, but both of us were desperate to watch conference. We ran back and pled with our boss to let us watch conference on our computers. She agreed, but only if the other 4 people working with us were okay with it.

So we ran out, and asked if they were okay with us watching it, just in the corner, with the volume turned down so that only we could hear it. Everyone was okay with it...except for one girl. She told us that she hated conference, and would be offended if we tried to watch it. She didn't stop there though. The rest of the time, she proceeded to tell us how stupid mormons are.

After being on a spiritual high, I was determined not to let that get to me. So I just read previous conference talks whenever it got slow, and ignored the deragatory conversations that were going on. But dang it all, I was determined to watch and take notes on EVERY session!! So my co-worker and I knew that as soon as this girl left, we would be able to watch conference. So I kept the live streaming internet broadcast up on my computer, muted, and watched in agony as each speaker shared special messages that I was forbidden from hearing. And I waited for something to happen, or change. For a subtitles button to magically appear. Anything. I wasn't trying to blow things out of proportion, but I was still so affected by the first session, it was killing me to think of what I was missing in the second session.

Eventually, my friend and I convinced the girl to leave early, and then we were able to catch the last hour. Then, thanks to technology, we were able to rewind it and watch most of the first hour. And I even took notes on reciept paper. The second session was really good too. I loved Elder Christofferson's talk. We were right in the middle of it when the phone rang, and we had to pause it. And it was like waking up, almost. The spirit was pretty strong with just the two of us in the office, watching all of the conference talks.

So eventually, when I got home from work and had eaten dinner and all of that good stuff, my dad left for the priesthood session. Which left my mom and I free to do whatever for 2 hours. We decided to go car shopping, just for kicks. Which basically meant go to the Nissan dealership and drool over the cars that I have yet to be able to afford. So, that was pretty fun. I learned that the Nissan LEAF will be available in the spring, but in the meantime I should probably just buy a cute little Versa.

The next day, Sunday, conference wasn't any different than it had been in the past for me. I was still taking notes, but nothing super intense happened like on Saturday. I just crocheted a hat, and ate a bunch of ice cream. Like I usually do. It was still great though, and I was super sad when it ended.

But seriously, this has been probably my best conference experience ever. So many of  my questions were answered and I'm so determined to become a better person now.

And yeah...my favorite part was really the tabernacle/temple news. Seriously, I looked back over my life and I couldn't think of a moment where I was happier. There are a few that have come close, but seriously, I can't get over it. What a blessing.

So...I hope you all had a great conference experience too :)

Love,
Kaela :)