I had the opportunity to go to General Conference with my family and it was so amazing. Brett stayed home with the girls and I got to fly in to SLC to see them. It was so much fun and although it was a very quick trip it was totally worth going.

I typed this up for a Relief Society lesson that I gave the week after and because I am lazy and don't want to type it up again, here is the recap from my lesson:

Before I start with the lesson I just want to tell you some of the experiences I had this last weekend when I was at General Conference. I was able to go with my parents and all of my siblings. My brother is leaving for his mission in two weeks so we wanted to be able to spend some time with him before he leaves. A few conferences ago, Elder Bednar gave a talk about the “tender mercies” that the lord shows us and my weekend was full of tender mercies.
*The first one occurred as my plane was just about to land. As we were descending, the guy next to me asked if we were flying over Southern Utah. I was sitting by the window and answered his question. We started talking and we had a great conversation. I asked where he was from and he said LA. I asked what he was going to Utah for and he told me that he was going to General Conference. He told me that he was a convert to the church and told me his conversion story…
It was so neat to see his faith. It reminded me that there is still good in the world. There are still people searching for truth.

*The next one was a testimony builder that I didn’t even know I needed. As we were walking up to the Conference Center and past the protesters, there was a man yelling things like, “You don’t need a man to interpret scripture for you”. “you have it within yourselves to make your own decisions.”
We just smiled and kept walking past him. When we found our seats, we were all visiting quietly with each other (and everyone else was also). It wasn’t irreverent, but it wasn’t quiet either. When President Monson walked in, everyone stood and the whole building was silent. It was like the world stood still. The spirit testified to me that I was looking at the Prophet of God. And yes…we do need the Prophet to interpret scripture for us-as least I do!

*Third: I attended the Sat. morning session and President Monson was the first speaker. He was welcoming everyone to Conference and then announced 5 new Temples. One of them was the Concepcion, Chile Temple. My brother is leaving in two weeks for the Concepcion, Chile mission. It was a great tender mercy for our family to be present at that meeting when that Temple was announced.

*And finally-I have really been struggling to prepare this lesson. I have known what I wanted to speak on for some time but couldn’t make anything come together. 3 of the talks that were given in the session that I attended were indirectly on this very subject.


From LDS Church News : "Plans to build five new temples were announced today by President Thomas S. Monson, worldwide leader of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, during the Church’s 179th Semiannual General Conference in Salt Lake City. With 130 temples currently operating and with another 16 in some phase of planning or construction, these five temples bring the worldwide total to 151.

The locations of the new temples will be Brigham City, Utah; Concepción, Chile; Fortaleza, Brazil; Ft. Lauderdale, Florida; and Sapporo, Japan. The exact temple sites will be made known at a later date.

Brigham City will be home to Utah’s fourteenth temple. Two Utah temples were dedicated earlier this year; the Draper Utah Temple, dedicated in March, and the Oquirrh Mountain Temple dedicated in August."

The Concepción, Chile temple will be the second temple in Chile. The first, the Santiago Chile Temple, was dedicated by President Gordon B. Hinckley, then a counselor in the First Presidency, September 1983. There are currently 14 temples operating in South America, with another three announced and in some phase of construction.