Stake Conference - Well Done

Twice a year our church holds a stake conference. I'm a convert to the church and when I was verbally invited to attend my first "stake conference" at the age of 22 I was a little confused as to why we would meet to eat sirloin when the Word of Wisdom clearly states to eat meat sparingly. So let me clarify. A stake (not "steak") is a region that is made up of individual church wards (congregations.) All the wards attend this conference. Our stake consists of about 9 wards. There's a lot of people at the conference and we listen to speakers and sing some hymns. It can be a struggle getting 6 kids to sit there for 2 hours, but today we managed well with the help of some friends. Our Stake President gave us some wise counsel today. He counseled us to make ourselves a better people. He specifically told us to be modest in our dress. That's easy stuff! After giving birth to 6 children, I have no desire to wear a bikini, crop top, tank top, or mini skirt - ever. Secondly he urged us to be more reverent. Now mostly he talked about having a reverent attitude in our chapels and in our prayers. We should not use our chapels as a place for socialization and our prayers should be addressed as if we are respectfully addressing our Father in heaven and not a best friend who is an equal. Our Stake President did not give mention to whether or not we should discuss nipples in our blog posts which leaves me to make the judgement call. Therefore, I determine that since breastfeeding is a natural process that gives nourishment to children, it's ok.

Tonight David and I decided that one thing we are going to work on this week to make us better parents is not raising our voices to the kids. I don't know if every parent struggles with yelling, but sometimes we feel like drill sergeants barking orders to our army of midgets. I guess it will be classified as one of our little experiments and I will update 'yall with a conclusion at the end of the week. We made the decision while cooking lunch. As we sat down to eat, Wendy leaned over and grabbed a de-shelled hard-boiled egg from a bowl with what was probably an unwashed hand. David said in a raised tone, "Get your dirty hand out of the eggs!" I gave him a look and he corrected himself. Yay! We are recognizing, correcting, and on our way to creating a piece of Heaven on Earth. Later during the meal Wendy was making a mess by not eating over her plate. David said to her kindly, "Eat over your plate, you pig!" Next week we will work on the name calling.