Dad and I just finished our traditional breakfast cake and scrambled egg breakfast and are preparing to watch General Conference. Over breakfast we had time to think back on this tradition and how it began. Share your memories of General Conference weekend and maybe some of the new traditions you have started.
10 comments:
Conference has always been the biggest challenge of will. I am sure that I have fallen asleep during general conference, except twice during my mission:) but when we were young going to conference mean we get to church early and count all the chairs set up in the gym. Tradition number two was seeing how many toys I could fit into my pockets. Once Louise was taking us to church and see decided to check what I had brought with me to play with. She was amazed at the amount of things I had crammed into those pockets. These toys usually included fisher price’s knights and pirates, cars, and maybe a transformer if I was sure that my attention was not going to be on the screen at all.
Since my younger day’s I’ve grown up some, now I take notes and make sure I’m comfortable so that I can enjoy the words of the prophets. But yes I still fall asleep. But now instead of toys and wearing pajamas, I got a bunch of friends watching it with a friendly female shoulder to lean on when I do fall asleep while wearing my usually cool guy outfit. And my phone to make sure I m in instant away from anyone who has a funny story or tell me something that they don’t want anyone else in the room to hear.
One thing I do miss a great deal is the food back home. For Saturdays morning’s sessions, I was making a pancake which was good, but it’s no coffee cake and scrambled eggs. Today I had left over pizza for lunch, still not coffee cake and scrambled eggs.
As far as the picture of dad sleeping, I won’t take a crake at him. If anyone is the worst at that it’s going to be me, today tomorrow and forever.
My memories of General Conference start when I was a student at BYU. In Bismarck Branch, where I grew up, Conference Sunday was just like any other Sunday with the usual meetings. Only one time in my growing up years was the broadcast carried on our local TV station. We got two hours worth. Grandpa Reed tried repeatedly to get the local stations to carry it but our small branch didn’t carry much weight as a viewing audience. Satellite transmission to the buildings was not available yet. We would read the conference talks as they came out in the Ensign.
I got full exposure to General Conference as a BYU student. I remember attending Conference at the tabernacle. It was fun to go up with my roommates and sit tightly packed together on the wooden balcony seats. More often we watched on our apartment TV. One of my roommates had a great recipe for breakfast cake that we made along with scrambled eggs. Guess that is where the food tradition started. I continued the tradition after Dad and I got married. Later he took it over. I think we all came to look forward to his cooking efforts on Conference Sunday morning.
As a parent I enjoyed that time when we were together as a family. There was a sweet spirit in our home as we sat together to watch. You kids tried various strategies to stay interested and awake. Dad’s best strategy to stay awake was to attend at the Stake Center. Whenever he got comfy on the couch he would drift. In the last few years we have designated someone to wake him up when he dozes.
Today was the first time we watched conference without family home . . . but we were not alone. We had Gloria and Aminata Belekwa over along with their eight year old cousin, Terry. Of course he had no idea what was going on but we had fun. I told Terry his job was to hit Harold with a finger rocket if he ever dosed off. Terry practiced shooting and kept an eagle eye, but wouldn’t you know, Dad stayed awake the whole time. We had fun cooking together at the lunch break. We made runzas (the rolls stuffed with meat that Emily taught us). The kids had a great time cooking and ate plenty too.
Even though our family was not together for conference, it felt good knowing we were unified in a desire to listen to the words of our apostles and prophet . . . and probably all still working on strategies to stay focused and awake.
I have always loved conference morning because of the smell. It always smells wonderful on Sunday morning when we woke up to that delicious coffee cake and scrambled egg smell. I mostly kept awake by doodling through the talks. Sometimes I would try to draw a mini portrait of the speaker before the talk was over. I found one recently of Elder Bednar, it was awful. Anyway, more recently I have worked on projects for art classes during conference and it gets a bit more elaborate. The good thing is, I actually remember more when I work on something, it helps me focus my attention, and I am not the only one like that. And yes, I was fond of counting the chairs.
This past conference, I watched with a good group of friends here at school. We got up earlyish on Saturday morning and made a yummy omlette breakfast with orange juice (which I am learning to like) and grapes. It was delicious and almost smelled like home. We watched conference together then made tortilla pizzas for lunch before watching the afternoon session. After that, we all walked over to the Provo temple in the rain and enjoyed the peace around the grounds. It was a really wonderful day. Sunday, was almost the same except we skipped breakfast, then had biscuits and gravy for lunch. I stayed awake for all the sessions and feel like I learned a lot. Still, it's nothing like being home.
I do a lot better with conference now than I did when I was younger. What I remember as a kid is the breakfast (of course) and the activities to try and pay attention. We would make a list of words like church, or Jesus or other church words and then we would put a tally mark by each word when it was said. I also remember making a fort behind the lazy boy and fighting christian for that spot throughout the day. (I then proceeded to move out of our shared room and into that area for the next couple of days.) I also remember waiting for Dad to fall asleep. We also made sure to record conference on VHS and then they were never watched again. That did provided us with a stash of tapes to record over later. I think that is most of what I remember.
We moved to El Paso Texas when I was in the 3rd grade (10 years old) and during most of that time we did not have a television. We had a tradition of going to a great aunt twice removed to see conference as she had a big house. Our entire family dressed in Sunday cloths and sat listening. Soon the sitting turned to slouching then slipping to the floor. This aunt Florence had a big bear rug with the bear head with fangs etc so when we finally landed on the floor we had an additional diversion. That time period I also remember going to a church to listen to the Priesthood session transmitted over a radio signal and we all sat in a chapel with the lights on and listened to only the audio. Rarely, if ever, did we miss attending conference. One of the few times I missed either as an adult or child was to attend soccer games with our kids or other such conflicts.
It is always a challenge to have small children or even teenagers excited to listen to conference. Mom did a great job getting activities for all of us to participate in. For my own selfish preservation, I had to go to the church to stay focused on the talks and I got a lot out of them but I did it knowing I was mission out on the family activities.
Going to conference has always been important. Listening and learning from the prophets is such a high priority and I had this fear or call it a great concern that I would treat the prophet like a thing of “naught” if we discarded his words or just casually forgot. I can remember countless talks and feeling the spirit and deciding to change my life to do a lot of different things differently. I can not claim to have heard every talk and would admit to learning a lot of things in the Ensign that I may have missed live but conference is and was great.
I looked forward to conference morning breakfast. For many years that was the only predictable time I was home on Sunday morning. I am glad mom thought of the tradition and that we have had it to look forward to all these years. I must admit that in the last year, leftovers are great!
I was the one who slept through conference. My mom would wake me up for when the prophet would speak but it usually took a few minutes and I was out again. We also had fun breakfasts of french toast of pancakes and yummy dinners. Lots of times we would go to a friends house and watch it with them. We also went to the church but that was my least favorite.
When I was a kid, my mom would let us do arts and crafts during general conference. I loved painting with my mom and sisters while we listened to conference. Since then, I have always found it easier to stay awake and focused if I'm doodling. I swear... it really does help.
Em-dog, you need to stop swearing in front of the family.
My conference memories are a lot like Darren's. The most memorable game was picking your top 10 words to listen for then tallying them each time they were said. One thing he did not mention was the waffle blocks. We would sit in the basement and make waffle block cars during conference. I am now remembering the laborious process of getting the waffle blocks, ninja turtles and other toys out to play with. We all started on the TV side of the basement in chairs or on the floor with pillows and blankets. Then I would start the 20 minute mission of slipping over to the toys and back without getting yelled at. Then I would slowly pull out one toy and play with it right in front of me where Mom and Dad could not see. Some how I really thought I was fooling my distracted parents into letting me play during church. Soon I would be completely consumed in the waffle blocks and action figures, with sound effects and all.
This year Emily and I discovered Sudoku. It works pretty well to keep you up.
Finally, I do really enjoy the messages of conference. I mostly enjoy being able to talk with Emily about the talks later and decide what new goals we would like to work on together.
At church I loved getting to sit next to dad. I didn't need any toy or game to keep me awake; the fear of him doing some kind of joke to me if I dozed off kept me pretty alert. On the flip side I also loved to snuggle up with dad and hunt for whiskers on his face. When we watched conference at home I loved making a fort under the kitchen table and inside/around the kitchen stools. It made the perfect nest for my quilt, Snow (as in Klondike and Snow), and myself. Conference Cake is something that I always crave now during General Conference. However, since none of us are now home for G.C., could we make it into a Christmas Morning Tradition?
I really enjoyed conference as a kid when we would watch it on TV in the basement. We would play bingo or other games to listen for words that were said. We didn't pay too much attention to the talks, but we did listen. I do remember hearing President Kimball's voice and I liked listening to him because he sounded really wierd. We also would wait until dad fell asleep and then we could start creeping to the other side of the basement and start playing games.
In college I liked watching conference with friends and making our own fancy breakfasts etc. I was able to go to the Conference a couple of times while I was in school and that was just fantastic. I once went shopping in downtown Salt Lake during the priesthood session of conference and the mall across from temple square was just a mad house of women, it was one crazy cultural experience not to be repeated.
This year I went with my friends to the Conference center. While I loved being there in person, I also really appreciated listening to conference while we drove through Utah. I could focus so well on the talks while we drove and then talking about them with my friends afterward was really rewarding as well.
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