How to prepare for General Conference

The General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is a big deal to all the latter-day saints. General Conference happens twice a year, on a weekend, and lasts for ten hours. During General Conference The Prophet, his counselors, the twelve apostles, and other general authorities and leaders speak to all the world.

Elder Uchtdorf told a story in one of his talks titled "General Conference-- No ordinary blessing".

A fine member of the Church was talking with a neighbor who was not of our faith. When the topic of discussion turned to general conference, the neighbor asked, “You say you have prophets and apostles? And twice a year in a worldwide conference they reveal the word of God?”

“Absolutely,” the member replied with confidence.

The neighbor thought about that for a moment. He seemed genuinely interested and then asked, “What did they say in the last general conference?”

At this point the good member of the Church went from feeling excited about sharing the gospel to feeling embarrassed. Try as he might, he couldn’t think of the details of a single talk.

His friend found this troubling and said, “You mean to tell me that God speaks to man in our day and you can’t remember what He said?”

The brother felt humbled by this exchange. He vowed that he would do better to remember the words spoken by the Lord’s servants in general conference.

Now, we don't want to be in that situation, for this reason it is important to prepare for General Conference. So I have some tips for you and for myself. 1) Before the Conference, a week or a couple of days before, write down the question that you have and that you are hoping to find the answer during General Conference. 2) During General Conference, take the paper with your questions and write next to the questions the answers that you hear during Conference. You may find your answers in one talk or several talks. We will not be able to remember what was said in every talk. However, there are messages in each General Conference given as a gift and a blessing from Heaven specifically for our personal life situation. All the talks are important to listen to, to read and to ponder but there are specific talks that touch us more than the others. Using these tips, I feel that it would be easier for us to remember what was said in those talks.

Next week, I will share with you what I learned from the Conference, and I hope to hear your experience as well.

Warmly,
Juliana