January 2016, Week 2

*Today at church, I attended the first Ward Conference of the year.  It was in the Spanish Branch.  This is the first time their branch has had the 9 o'clock time slot, and it was 28 degrees when I left the house.  These things really affected the attendance for the morning.  There are some really dedicated, lovely people in that branch, though.  It's an honor to work with those working so hard to keep the branch functioning.

*This was the first Ward Conference for my two new counselors.  (If I didn't write it before, my previous first counselor moved, and my second counselor got cancer.)  These are good women.  I've been working with them through the fall, and they are willing and happy, and it's nice to spend time with them.  I look forward to all that we will do together.  We had a great visit with the Primary Presidency of the branch, and were able to answer some of their questions and get to know them better.

*The theme of our conference is Honoring the Sabbath Day.  It has been about a year that the church has increased its emphasis on the Sabbath Day.  I'm excited to do a Sharing Time with all the wards about the Sabbath Day, using President Nelson's April 2015 General Conference talk.  We've tried to keep from doing the typical Primary list of dos and don'ts, but it's tricky--we do talk about things we can do, but we try to talk about the why and the sign we want to give, and making the day a delight.

*Yesterday, I was blessed to be part of a focus group with Elder D. Todd Christofferson.  He was in Dallas for the weekend, and asked to have three stakes (ours included) have their Stake President, Stake RS, YW, YM, Sunday School and Primary Presidents attend.  The focus group wasn't for him to preach, but to listen to us.  He wanted to know about the Sabbath Day--about things we've seen in the last year since the emphasis has begun.  He wanted to know challenges, blessings, changes, and any other comments we had about how we felt about the Lord's day.  (I will get my notes out and write them down sometime!  Probably on my other blog...)  We talked about this for about an hour, and then he asked if we had any other questions about anything, and talked another 15 minutes or so.  One question he got was how his life has changed since he's been called as an apostle.  He said that he's been traveling and speaking as a church representative for a long time, but as soon as he was made an apostle, the expectations people had for him immediately increased a hundred fold.  It bothered him at first, until he learned that he needs to stop worrying about what others were expecting of him, and just do what he can for the people he's with.  Just do the Lord's will for that moment, and that's all that matters.

It was a delight!