I belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints

This weekend was the best.  It was General Conference for our church.  That is when we stay home and watch the church leaders give the most amazing, inspired talks, on Saturday and Sunday...live from Salt Lake City, Utah.   This happens twice a year.  The spirit was so strong.  We soaked up every last bit of it.  I'm always sad when it is over.  My testimony has grown and I'm more grateful to be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  It was the best decision I have ever made to be baptized in this church.  Nothing brings me more happiness than living the gospel and having the knowledge of Heavenly Father's plan of Happiness and knowing His love for us.  Conference is always an emotional time for me, as I get hit with the reality that I can do so much better, but also, my heart feels fuller than ever as my testimony grows of the truthfulness of this gospel.  Life is filled with endless distractions that take us away from more important things and blinds our eternal perspective.  Conference always brings me back to that eternal perspective.  The goal is to keep these feelings and not let myself become distracted.  It's all too easy to become idle if we aren't consciously trying to go out of our way to live the gospel.  Even watching conference twice a year won't be enough.  But it sure gives me a boost to make some major improvements and to set new goals.  All the talks were amazing, but some of my favorites that I wanted to share were (and I did add a link to each name below here for those who may have missed conference or want to learn more):  

Elder Tad R. Callister. He spoke on the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and why we need it, even though we already have the Bible.  He spoke about how there is no middle ground with the Book of Mormon.  It's either true or it is a total fraud.  The only way to know for yourself is to read it and live it's teachings. 

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland: He spoke during the Priesthood session.  He spoke on the fact that Satan is a real being and we need a stronger army of righteous missionaries to fight the war against Satan.  His talks are always so powerful and this talk is just that. 

Elder Neil L. Andersen: He spoke on having children. It was a wonderful talk on having faith to have children. How motherhood is not a hobby, it is a calling. 

Elder M. Russell Ballard: He spoke on where the name of the church comes from and the importance of it. "Mormon" is the nickname of our church.  He also differentiates The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints from other religions/groups/secs that confess they are "Mormons."  

President Henry B. Eyring:  Sunday morning session.  He spoke on becoming fully converted to the gospel.

President Dieter F. Uchtdorf: He spoke on our infinite worth; Satan's tricks to make us feel insignificant, forgotten, and alone; we will never be forgotten or forsaken, God's love is infinite.

Elder Ian S. Ardern: He gave a great talk on how we use our time.  Satan seeks to distract us. "Let us be as quick to kneel as we are to text."  

There were many more talks and all were amazing.  If you would like to watch more, here is a link to the whole conference.  Here. 
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And on a side note: totally side note:).  We were out on a walk in between conference sessions and as we approached the the trash area of our apartment complex, something caught my eye.  I've been needing some storage for some of our school supplies.  We have this wide hallway that I sometimes look at and dream of having a console table or even an old dresser to hold school supplies in.  So the something that caught my eye looked very much like an old abandoned dresser, (amongst a ton of other furniture and things that someone so rudely dropped off there-but I'm glad they did:)).  From far away it looked very beat up, maybe even with major holes.  As I got close up, I saw that it was a dresser and those were not holes, they were just some really ugly plastic flowers around the hardware.  It was definitely an eye sore and smelled like Febreze (which makes me gag-that comes from one of my pregnancies).  It for sure needed some tlc, well, a total makeover.  Since we were out on a walk, we had to leave it behind and hope that it would be there when we got back.  Well, when we got back, it was still there!  Thank goodness no one else saw the potential!  We ran and got the van and brought it home.  I've never refurbished any furniture, but I've been craving to do it for quite some time now.  It just seems like fun to take something so ugly-but with potential and make it something beautiful and useful.  And what better way to do that, than to first get it for free and only have to put a little bit of money into beautifying it!  Rich so kindly let me take this old dresser even though he seemed grossed out by it.  But shortly after we got home (we left in the garage), he was gung-ho about helping me refinish it!  Score!  We haven't started yet.  We'll just do a little at a time, but I'm excited to do a little project with my hub.  And I'm super excited that we will have an extra place for storage and even one more place to display family pictures.  So, hopefully it won't be too long from now before you see the after pictures, but here are the before shots:

 Hope you all had a great weekend too!