Conference weekend and my thoughts on the Ordain Women group

We enjoyed this Conference Weekend a lot! It was very inspiring and life changing, as always. I have a lot of work to do during this coming six months to read, study and ponder, the magnificent talks given in conference. I don't know if any of you followed my suggestion to write down your questions before conference and listen to the talks attentively to find the answers to your questions, but I did it. I wrote down my questions before conference. However, I realized as I was listening to the talks were really directed to me, not because they were the answer to my questions but because they were the answers to the questions I should have asked but that I didn't know they were a problem or that I needed to ask about. Does it make sense? For example, I am a little impulsive in communication, including communications with my husband and talks like President Monson and Elder Zwick's were directed to me. I didn't realize how impulsive I am until I heard these talks. Anyway, what I want to say with this is that, conference can be life changing if we listen with an open heart and mind!!!

Next, I have heard a lot about the Ordain Women group lately. I don't want to open any discussion, but here are my thoughts and why. I love my LDS and non-LDS sisters. There is no doubt about that. However, I DON'T support the cause of the Ordain Women group. That's it! In this church I feel valuable and appreciated. In my home my role as a woman is respected and loved and I feel I am equal to my husband, we have different responsibilities, but we are equal. So, I personally don't have any reason to join/support your cause. 

My husband listened to the Priesthood session of the conference at home, so I had a chance to listen to it too. I don't know how much of the talk to include here, because it was all so great and it explained deep doctrine, but here are some of the quotes from Elder Oaks talk titled "The keys and authority of the priesthood".

In an address to the Relief Society, President Joseph Fielding Smith, then President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, said this: “While the sisters have not been given the Priesthood, it has not been conferred upon them, that does not mean that the Lord has not given unto them authority. … A person may have authority given to him, or a sister to her, to do certain things in the Church that are binding and absolutely necessary for our salvation, such as the work that our sisters do in the House of the Lord. They have authority given unto them to do some great and wonderful things, sacred unto the Lord, and binding just as thoroughly as are the blessings that are given by the men who hold the Priesthood.”

The greatest power God has given to His sons cannot be exercised without the companionship of one of His daughters, because only to His daughters has God given the power “to be a creator of bodies … so that God’s design and the Great Plan might meet fruition.”¹² Those are the words of President J. Reuben Clark.

He continued: “This is the place of our wives and of our mothers in the Eternal Plan. They are not bearers of the Priesthood; they are not charged with carrying out the duties and functions of the Priesthood; nor are they laden with its responsibilities; they are builders and organizers under its power, and partakers of its blessings, possessing the complement of the Priesthood powers and possessing a function as divinely called, as eternally important in its place as the Priesthood itself.”

Lastly, Elder Oaks made a great point:

Latter-day Saints surely recognize that qualifying for exaltation is not a matter of asserting rights but a matter of fulfilling responsibilities.

As women, I feel like we have many responsibilities. Let's give 150% of ourselves to accomplish those responsibilities for which we will be held accountable one day to our Father in Heaven.

And lastly, as this conference has passed, let's try a little harder to be a little better, and most importantly, let's be more OBEDIENT to what our leaders have told us.

What did you enjoy the most from Conference weekend? Wasn't it great spending all day with your family? I loved that part as well! :)

Warmly,

Juliana