I love Conference

I loved being at the Conference Center today, being personally escorted to this little detached "worldly" compartment known as the media room.

Free snacks, I may add.

Aside from receiving confidential talk transcripts about 15 minutes before Conference started, never have I heard the concept of hope (vague, not talked about often) so eloquently defined as Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf.

And maybe this is blasphemous, but I think he is such a fox! The German accent, the jawline, the white hair.

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Here's my summary:

Uchtdorf defined and outlined the infinite power of hope, saying that together with faith and charity, it can provide a stabilizing influence in rough or uneven life circumstances.

“Hope is not knowledge, but rather, the abiding trust that the Lord will fulfill His promises to us,” Uchtdorf said. He then explained that the opposition of hope— doubt, despair, and failure to care for fellowmen—can be overcome with confidence, optimism, enthusiasm, and patient perseverance in the Lord’s promises. “No matter how bleak the chapter of our lives may look today, because of the life and sacrifice of Jesus Christ we may hope for and be assured that the ending of the book of our lives will exceed our grandest expectations,” he said.

Uchtdorf also expounded on things hoped for and things hoped in.
“The things we hope for lead us to faith, while the things we hope in lead us to charity,” Uchtdorf said. “These three qualities working together, grounded on the truth and light of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, lead us to abound in good works.”

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I wanted to turn to the non-member SL Tribune reporter sitting next to me, with her coffee and objective/indifferent expression, and apologize for the irony of the SLC atmosphere, where all the Mormon cultural nonsense of Utah gets in the way of the wonderful truth of the Gospel. I wanted to just assure her that God loves her, and that trust me, Mormons elsewhere are far less weird, goofy, hypocritical and self-righteous.

Just as a side note: she disappeared somewhere in the middle of the session, and didn't return until after, presumably after this story had been published online. Interesting how SL Trib captured economic nitty gritty counsel of Perry...she was gone for the gems of hope expressed by Uchtdorf.

The concept of memory came to mind (no pun intended) frequently as I sat in Conference. It really is all about remembering our divine worth and potential: that we are children of God, and therefore we should act as such. Little glimpses of our divinity that were forgotten when we came to earth can be remembered as we keep the Spirit with us, read scriptures, pray often and attend church. By doing genealogy work, we can remember those who have come before. Furthermore, by then remembering where we came from, we can remember the great Plan of Salvation for where we are to return to our Father and Heaven after this mortal life.

We can get caught up in inadequacy or feeling like we don't know enough (as Neil Andersen said), or we can take a deep breath, simply remember we're children of God, and respect ourselves and Him enough to let our actions here on Earth dictate that knowledge.