Thursday, October 11, 2007

Conference Weekend


We really enjoyed Conference this past weekend. Ever since I read that President Faust had passed away, we've been speculating as to who they would call to take his place. There was much anticipation for the Saturday morning session. Then, as life would have it, the baby slept in and we were fifteen minutes late turning the television on. The rest of the meeting we kept wondering who they had called. Every time someone got up to speak, I'd say, "It's not him." When the lights came up in the conference center for the choir to sing, I tried as hard as I could to see who was sitting in that chair. Then, right before President Monson's closing talk, I see that it's Elder Eyring. Of course, President Monson then says it in his talk, so all my strugglings to find out were unnecessary. Elder Eyring wasn't who I speculated it'd be, but I think he'll do an amazing job and I really like him, so I'm happy.

My favorite talk was probably by Elder Oaks who talked on making the best use of your time. It's funny that I liked that one so much, but had to totally tune out Elder Hilbig's talk on pretty much the same subject. I think it was when he said something about spending too much time on the internet. I guess that one is a little bit of a sore subject for me. (Yes, I'm addicted. But I'm not ready to give it up just yet. Or probably any time in the near future.)

Caleb really enjoyed watching conference as well. Granted, he plain old enjoys watching television, but I like to think there was an extra special love for conference. The picture above, where he's smiling, was taken while the choir was singing. As you can see, he's surrounded by tons of toys, but he didn't care. He just wanted to watch tv.

Sometimes I wonder when we forget about the life we had before this one. Sometimes I feel that babies still remember. Or at least recognize to some extent. When Caleb was little, like a week or two old, he used to stare at the one picture of Jesus we have up in our house. We thought it was just something odd, though sweet, that he did. But then we took him to someone else's house that also had a really large (but different) picture of Christ on the wall and he totally stared at that one too. He was five weeks then, I think. Having that second experience to back up the first made us think that he really did remember to some degree.

But he still does it even now. I took him to the distribution center the other day while we were waiting for Brandon to switch our cell phone numbers to Utah numbers. Caleb was in his stroller and I was showing him all the different pictures. Pictures of the temple, of Joseph Smith, of President Hinckley. When I showed him a picture of Jesus, he nearly leapt out of his stroller (except that he was strapped in). I unbuckled him and picked him up and he lunge dived for the picture I was holding. He doesn't do this with any other pictures. Not even pictures of himself, though he really likes looking at them.

So Saturday night, while Brandon was at the priesthood session learning to not get angry all the time, Caleb and I went shopping at Deseret Book where we bought Caleb a picture of Jesus to put up in his own room. It was a lot of fun. I'd hold up a picture and ask him if he liked it. Sometimes he would look away after a bit; twice he tried to grab the picture from me. So then I let him choose between those two pictures which one he wanted and then bought the one he picked. We haven't hung it up in his room yet, but I really like the picture. He made a good choice.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

we must be sisters because those were my two favorite talks as well. Granted I couldn't hear them all because of the kid factor (there were five of them around for Sunday's sessions). I'll have to reread and reconsider.

Jocelyn said...

I thought the same thing about Lt. He would always find the jesus pictures. He is a very special spirit and at 18 months barely talking would remind me to pray before we left the house. Just watching the interaction of the boys tells me they were best friends before and Teak didn't want to be separated thayt long from LT.

FoxFamily said...

Karen,
I completely believe that babies remember somewhat. Levi did a very similar thing and also picked the Jesus pictures in his room. I put a bunch around the house at his eye level when he started to walk and he would walk over to a picture of Christ and just stand there looking at it. It was so precious. I am glad Caleb remembers!

Patti said...

This was a tissue-blog. I am also of the belief that babies remember and then slowly as they get older start to forget. I don't think it's an instant happening that they forget where they just came from.

Unknown said...

okay, the non-mormon has to ask...what's conference??

Ren said...

The Church has General Conference twice a year. There's four two-hour sessions -- two on Saturday and two on Sunday. Basically, the prophet and all the other high up leaders of the Church give talks about various things. Usually stuff like faith, prayer, repenting. The typical religious stuff that we all need reminding of from time to time.