October 2023 GC Debrief
What a great time. As President Monson might have said, hearts were touched, inspirations were jotted down, apples were canned.
Having General Conference every 3 months might take away the specialness, but I’m willing to try the experiment.
Question:
who presided? If they announced who was presiding, I missed it.
Themes: (For me)
- Jesus Christ (obviously)
- Eternal identity–know who you are
- (related) Eternal perspective–“Celestial seeing”
- (related) eternal marriage, parenting, family
- “In the days to come, you will not survive spiritually without the Holy Ghost”
Themes are a vehicle for revelation. E.C.’s themes are pretty different from mine. My daughter noticed multiple references to President Nelson’s prophecy that the in the days to come we’d see a spiritual outpouring like the world had never seen. I didn’t notice any references to that at all. The lovely one keyed in on the theme of covenants. Same conference, different conversations with the Holy Ghost.
Talks:
The prophets and the apostles seem to have talks of uniformly high quality. The mantle is real. My favorite talks right now from the others (all talks were good) were
- Esplin–I liked his innovative approach of mainly telling a story instead of having a doctrinal topic. When he wrapped up his story of the Japanese and Okinawan saints trips to the temple by bearing his testimony and choking up, I cried with him.
- Sabin–“What if sin had an odor?” is a phrase that is going to stick in my mind for a long time.
- Runia
Stories:
- Where is Jasper?
- Don’t you know who I am?
- Brother Choi’s wife isn’t afraid of the dark anymore
- Rebecca Guzman and the Osmonds
- Camping on King Tut’s tomb
Inspirations:
Ask my dad to do PPIs with me.
Filed under: Deseret Review | Tags: General Conference, ldsconference
John Mansfield
October 2, 2023
A week ago I wondered if this Conference would double down on April’s intense focus on Jesus Christ. The Saturday morning session arrived to me as an answer to that question. The talks were direct in their delivery, as April’s had been, but went further, with the speakers able to preach aspects discipleship without worrying that hearers would forget who the speaker was exhorting us to follow since his name was not being repeated every other sentence. Elder Ballard even felt like he could share a testimony of the works of Joseph Smith.
President Nelson’s closing (“Think celestial”) was interesting after President Oaks talk the previous night about the many mansions prepared for us, each person to receive a future home that will make him as happy as he has a capacity to be.
Rozy
October 2, 2023
Elder Sabin’s “What if sin had an odor?” is something I’ve thought about for half a dozen years because of a man who attends our branch who is not a member of the church but comes because he likes the doctrine and feels welcome. He also smokes and stinks to high heavens, as the saying goes. The smell of tobacco smoke makes me feel sick both physically and spiritually. I don’t want to smell the world at church, I want to escape the world. However, ever since I thought about the concept of all sin having an odor I decided that I could endure the cigarette smell, and be grateful that my very sensitive nose isn’t assaulted by more. (My daughter, the writer, was intrigued by my musings and wrote a story about someone who could smell emotions. It was really good.)
I kept hearing the two main quotes from President Nelson, one about not being able to survive without the Holy Ghost, and the other about the greatest manifestations of Christ’s power. I heard them so many times that I figured I’d better make a sign for my mirror with those specific quotes so I could be reminded of them daily.
I loved “Think Celestial”! It’s a perfect, concise phrase to have at the front of our minds to help with being obedient, keeping covenants, and following the Savior.
For me the conference was a sumptuous banquet of Spiritual loaves and fishes, with about twelve baskets of thoughts and impressions leftover to study in the coming months.
John Mansfield
October 4, 2023
Elder Neil Andersen started Saturday afternoon with a talk on tithing. It reminded me that it was the last day of the month, and I had not yet tithed my September earnings. Wishing to do so before the next month would begin, I used my phone to submit tithes to the church before Elder Andersen’s talk was finished. I wonder if the church saw a spike of transactions like mine while Andersen was speaking.