Stake Conference and Football

Today has been fantastic. We're currently listening to the BYU game on the radio right now against the Longhorns, but nobody likes them because they're burnt orange... If it was against A&M, I might be a little more torn over this game. I'm not much one for football and sports, but I listen in mostly to hear Kyle make celebratory noises when BYU does something good. We're winning, did I mention? 40-21

So Stake Conference happened today. Elder Nielson rescheduled it to one so that everyone could go to the game tonight, haha. It was nice, though, to have stake conference earlier in the day. It felt really good, like I had the rest of the day to digest everything I learned today. Very nice.

I was so giddy when we got there and saw him up on the stage. We got there early and were in the front to see him better, but I was unfortunately sitting behind a taller guy, and I feel like I got a crick in my neck trying to see the speakers. It was beautiful, though. I wish I could tell you who all spoke today, but I couldn't find a program anywhere, nor did I bring any paper to write notes, so we're just going to refer to them as speakers.

Speaker 1 spoke about the temple. This past week, we were encouraged to go to the temple in preparation for stake conference. (We were a bit busy all week, with school starting and my covering coworker's shifts, so we went the week before.) He talked about how wonderful it was to see all the stake participating in temple work and how fantastic we were with following through with Elder Nielson's request. Speaker 1 also encouraged us to do exactly what we believed to be important. He referred to the pioneers, how when they knew they had to leave Nauvoo, they still made the effort to complete the temple simply because they understood its importance. We should do the same.

The second speaker was a lovely young woman who spoke about service. She talked about how after she graduated, she spent a year trying to get a job, and how none of her interviews were bringing results. After one particularly painful refusal, she knelt on the ground and prayed to God, "What do you want me to do?" Seconds later, there was a knock on her door, and a young mother begged her for help because her children were ill and she didn't know what to do. Speaker 2 said that in face of that terrible trial, her problems seemed minuscule. Even though we live in Provo where people move in and out pretty quickly, we should make every effort to serve and make friends in the ward, because we could make memories here that will last a lifetime.

Wendy Nielson spoke next, and she talked about the trials she had in her callings. She introduced her talk with the scripture Jacob 2:17: "Think of your brethren like unto yourselves, and be familiar with all and free with your substance, that they may be rich like unto you." One trial in particular she talked about was when she was a Miamaid leader. There was a young woman under her leadership that she just felt like she couldn't reach no matter what she did. Eventually, the young woman tried to kill herself, and Wendy interfered in the only way she knew how. For six months, she would pick this girl up from school and take her home, drive her to and from church, and bring her to their house for family home evening, etc. Eventually, she and her family were able to crack into her shell and bring her out to become a beautiful young woman, fresh and full of life. One day at church, the young woman stood up and wrote on the chalkboard, "Sugar Land I Ward is the best at being family."

Then there were a few testimonies our stake president called on, and they were all very sweet. (By the way, our stake president's name is Rasmussen. Ironic much?)

Then Elder Nielson spoke. He talked so much of missionary work and how hard we need to be working on spreading the gospel to the world. He encouraged us to re-memorize the 13 Articles of Faith, simply because they are brief and concise answers to many questions the world has about our religion. 

After the meeting, I took Kyle up to meet him. Elder Nielson is one of my favorite people, simply because of the influence he made on me in my youth. He's just a wonderful guy, and I'm so glad Kyle got the chance to meet him. (Kyle was very surprised at how tall he was... I suppose I should have warned him?)

Then we met up with Kyle's parents who are here for the game. We went up on campus and hung out for a while where we were stranded in between buildings by the biggest rainstorm I've ever seen since Texas. It was coming down so hard, the sky might as well have been pouring buckets on us. At one point, there was so much lightning that there were 3 minutes of uninterrupted thunder. It was amazing!

Well, the rainstorm is over, and so is the game. We won, 40-21. Didn't change much in the time it took to write this post. Yay!

Kyle's dad sent this pic to us. Happy game day!

By the way, post blog mini rant: A deer found our garden, ate our only cucumber that was growing, and ate and destroyed half our tomatoes. All that hard work, and he destroys it all. I'm not very happy with deer right now. I just want to shoot it.