A Great Weekend

It has been another too-good-to-be-true Bonneville Stake conference!

Saturday night we had three people report on the December Saturday session on preparedness, and they gave almost a complete summary of that meeting. Becky Owen blew the dust off in her semi-annual cleaning of the organ pipes, playing "All Creatures of Our God and King." Rick Evans then introduced the topic of "Spiritual Preparedness," after which we had Adrian Pulfer and Valerie Cooley speak on building the faith necessary to withstand adversity. Adrian Pulfer was particularly powerful, talking about the loss of his mother on the same day that Tamara was diagnosed with a brain tumor.

Sunday morning we held our priesthood leadership meeting at the Garden Park ward so people could see the new building. We had a counselor from the mission presidency join us (as the topic was missionary work), and he was blown away by the beauty of the building and grounds. We had a wonderful, open discussion/Q&A on missionary work, followed by light refreshments by the pond. It was the perfect start to the day.

The Sunday session was nothing short of spectacular. The strings began the prelude with "If You Could Hie to Kolob" and I thought our guest from the mission presidency would fall off his chair! Meredith Campbell, concertmistress of the Orchestra at Temple Square, joined us for the first time in several conferences - all in all it was the largest group of strings we have had in some time, and the sound was wonderful.

Following the sustainings (the first time we had sustained the new First Presidency), the choir and strings performed "God Bless Our Prophet Dear." The Walkers were with us, and it pretty much reduced Kathy to tears. First-half speakers were:
Pres. Babcock
Madeleine Gleave (a Laurel from B2)
Jonathan Lee (a YSA from B2)
Stephanie Tanner (YC2)

Stephanie Tanner is an incredible woman who spent ten years making documentaries for PBS, including one on the healing power of family history work, which was the topic of her talk. Her story about crossing the checkpoint at midnight from Israel into the Gaza Strip is quite a story...

For the second-half we started off with the legendary Kevin Pinegar, our stake YM president. We then had testimonies from three converts: Joel Stice (read by Parker Paulson, as Joel is serving in the Bulgaria Sofia Mission), Rob Jones (GP) and Susan Rowe (YC1), all of which were great, followed by the amazing Parry Cutler who just returned from Australia Sydney North. The common comment after the meeting was, "who are these people, where did they come from, who knew them?"

By the time we heard brief testimonies from Pres. and Sister Atkinson (from the mission) and Pres. and Sister Walker (from the temple), I had five minutes left. Luckily, I had not prepared a talk so I didn't have to cut anything. I spoke for just a few minutes about Dad's passing, the funeral, etc., and the mantle falling upon Pres. Monson.

It was an incredible meeting. By the time the choir and strings were into the first verse of "Come Thou Fount," most of the congregation was reduced to heaving sobs!

Who loves the Bonneville Stake?!!