I love being surrounded by my handsome men in their suits. We went to stake conference last night and this morning. They read a letter from the 1st presidency that the youth should be in attendance at the adult session and that the them needed to be on Hastening the Work. Our ward did not let us know that the boys should go so none of the youth from our ward were in attendance. We heard from Elder Villarreal (heard him speak at Ellie's in February) and Elder Corbridge. Elder Corbridge knows his scriptures. He just spoke to us but was so powerful and incorporated scriptures and just had them memorized and knew where to turn to them. We had big changes as they split our stake and also realigned ward boundaries and created a new ward. This change affected lots of people and an entire bishopric was called for the new Hope Ward (love that name) and then that bishop was a bishop of a previous ward so they will have to call new leadership. Our beloved stake presidency was released and they created the new stake Roundrock East Stake which our ward is a part of. I had a name come to me yesterday and I told Rick that Brother Parker would be called as some part of the new stake presidency. Today the old Roundrock stake had three brothers called and I had only ever heard one of them speak before. They all shared their testimonies and the wife of the new stake president bore her testimony. Amazing men and you could feel of their love for the Savior and for hastening the work. Our stake was then created and President Huntsmen who has been our president for 8 years remained as president and he called Brother Parker and Brother Appiah (from ghana and amazing) to be his counselors. As they spoke and shared their testimonies, I felt that I was in the presence of the noble and great. They just love the Lord and do and will sacrifice so much to further the work. Sometimes I come away from these meetings feeling a bit inadequate. How can I ever measure up? It just seems that they are on such a different plane than I am. Of course my husband reminded me that even the humblest member of the church that "lifts where they stand" will be welcome into the kingdom. Anyway a couple of thoughts that Elder Corbridge shared that impacted me to not get distracted. He asked us a question, What is it that you want? What do you spend most of your time thinking about? What you base your decisions on will let you know what God you serve. If you focus and think about how to fit in and how to be popular, than popularity is your god. If your decisions are based on your bottom line and acquiring more and more than your God is wealth. He also said that our god could also be "following our dreams" He said we need to learn and follow the Lord's dreams for us. He also made a comment and told us to ponder on it. Do we center our lives on Christ or center them on the church. He said they are not the same thing. He is the way and the only way. He said that we will know that we serve God when He factors into and affects what we think, do, say and be.
He talked about distractions and recounted the story of Mary and Martha. Martha was distracted by things that were good but had no lasting value, while Mary chose the NEEDFUL thing. The ONE thing that is needful.
He also shared a study that was done at New York University. Two groups were given random words and told to make sentences out of them. One group was given words that are associated with old age, wrinkle, grey etc. The other group was given a different set not related to age. They then had the two groups move to another location. Without fail the groups that were given the old age words, moved slower to the location. He pointed out how much our environment and the things we see, hear, read affect us. But also how in Alma we read, "the preaching of the word had a great tendency to lead the people to do that which was just--yea, it had had more powerful effect upon the minds of the people than the sword or anything else. Elder Corbridge held his scriptures over his heart and said these have more power than pornography, pride, selfishness, anything else! It was a powerful moment.
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