Earlier this week we had a Family Home Evening about General Conference and hearing the Prophet speak. When I asked, "What's coming up this weekend?", Diego excitedly responded, "General Conference! Yay! General Conference is my favorite!" There are many times where I have heard other moms talk about the sweet things their kids say about wanting to read the scriptures or touching comments about their love for Jesus Christ. I've always thought, "Why don't my kids ever say stuff like that?" I've worked hard to make Conference Weekend a big deal. I plan activities for them, I talk it up in the days before, I make special food and treats, and I try hard to make them understand that it's a special weekend. Diego's comment about it being his favorite made me want to cry and say, "It's working! He gets it!" I had another proud moment last night as we were telling the boys what our Saturday would be like. We told them that their soccer game would overlap over part of the morning session of General Conference. Diego said, "Awwww! Then we shouldn't go because I don't want to miss Conference!" We assured him that he would only miss part of it and he said, "Okay, as long as I get to hear President Monson speak." I was amazed.
Then came today. I put together a "Conference Store" with treats, Halloween decorations and activities, and Angry Birds coloring books. I gave the kids some tally sheets and picture sheets from a Conference packet for kids that I found online, and I explained that every time they heard a certain word during Conference, (from the sheets: church, love, family, Jesus Christ, prophet, etc.) they'd have to put a penny in a jar and at the end of the session, they'd get to go shopping in the Conference Store. We did this in April, too, so they already knew how it worked and were excited about it.
The picture below shows the "prices" I put on each item. We ended up having to change these because the kids got waaaay too many pennies.
I made these Halloween Parfaits (from Pinterest) and the kids loved them.
The boys were into the penny thing pretty hardcore for about 2 talks. Eliana just screamed and whined 90% of the time. After the first couple of talks, Celo started playing with some angry bird toys and not paying attention anymore, but occasionally stopped to drop a penny into his jar. Diego was putting pennies into his jar every 10 seconds. We were only a little over halfway through the session when he said had about 170 pennies. Celo had 35. Then they both started just dumping the pennies out and playing with them. After telling them to stop several times and after several attempts at getting them to be reverent fell on deaf ears, we took the pennies away and made them start over by just putting check marks next to each word they were supposed to listen for. This bummed them out, but got them to listen quietly again for a bit. Diego kept strong for most of it, but Celo lost interest quickly and went back to playing with his plastic angry birds more noisily than I would have liked. Eliana continued to whine and cry and then Camila started crying because she was hungry. I did not freak out. I did not get frustrated that we couldn't really hear each talk in its entirety. I whispered to Marcelo, "Heavenly Father can't say we didn't try." I just thought, hey, this is where we are in life. They are little kids. This is boring for them. Sitting here is not fun, nor is it uplifting for them just yet. One day they will be less wiggly and have longer attention spans, and hopefully when that time comes, they'll know that Conference is special and will have a desire to listen.
After it was over, we had pizza and we talked a little about what we had just heard. I asked them what messages they heard at Conference. Celo said, "Love your family." Diego said, "Love your neighbor and have faith." I asked them what else they heard and they said, "I heard them talk about Jesus and about going to church." So I'm going to call it a success.
Earlier in the day we had talked about the fact that the only picture we have of the 6 of us is from the hospital, so after baths I decided to test out the timer on my older camera. I put it on the coffee table and we sat on the floor. The first attempt was ok. The second was not great. I asked everyone to sit still just one more time, and was so happy when I looked at it and saw that even Camila smiled! Amazing! She is such a smiley baby.
What did I get out of today's Conference? When we heard the announcement about the age change, I immediately thought, "Camila is going to want to serve a mission." Her baby's blessing gave me that feeling, and hearing that she can go at 19 made me feel even more like it's something that could happen. Marcelo's first thought was, "If Diego does a year of college after High School and goes at 19, he and Celo could go at the same time and help strengthen each other while they're on their missions." Even if he goes at 18 their missions should overlap by a year or so.
The talk that affected me a lot today was by Sister Ann M Dibb, 2nd counselor in the Young Women general presidency. At one point she said that if she could put a declaration on a shirt, it would say, "I'm a Mormon. I know it. I live it. I love it. She talked about not being ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ and about prioritizing and paying attention to the things that matter most. It made me think about the fact that I've always been kind of shy about sharing the gospel. Maybe scared is a more accurate word. And it made me ask myself why. What am I scared of? Why not declare to the world that I'm Mormon and love it? It's true, so why not say it? I'm determined to start doing that more.
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