prayers for our prophet

I love conference weekend. I look forward to it every six months.

I love hanging out at home with my family all weekend - listening to the talks in my sweats and slipper socks while the sunlight pours through the window. What a beautiful relaxing weekend. There were so many great talks, so many things I needed to hear and think about in my life. Being able to participate in the solemn assembly and sustain our new prophet and other leaders was a great experience as well.

Of course the kids are always restless for our attention and a bit noisy but all in all they did pretty good this year. Its pretty tough to sit through 8 hours of talks for little ones that don't really understand them. It is important to me that we all be in the same room to listen to conference together. And so every six months I pull out all sorts of cool conference pass times in the hopes that Matt will enjoy them, the word searches and bingo games, the coloring pages and such. But since he can't read yet and he doesn't like to color he just really doesn't get them - maybe next time.

So in order to keep Matt and Ella in the family room with us, hopefully listening and catching some of the spirit of the meeting, and to keep them somewhat entertained so that we can listen without too much distraction, we have our own little conference tradition. I build a fort out of blankets for the kids to play in. Using the back of the couch to anchor the blankets and then stretching them up over the half wall that connects the dining room I am able to create a pretty decent fort.

During last half hour of the Sunday morning session all four of us ended up in the fort. It was warm and cozy in there. Matt had covered the floor with pillows and blankets and we all lay there, putting Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head together and listening to our new prophet speak to us. What a tender time to feel power of conference and enjoy that quiet moment with our children. It was wonderful to hear our new prophet speak to us and to get to know him better.

As conference ended President Monson asked for our prayers and I pointed this out to Matt. He asked why he needed us to pray for him. I explained that being the prophet was a hard job and he needed all of our help. So that night as Matt said his prayers, he said, "Please bless President Monson, bless that he can do good with his new job and not make any mistakes. He has an important job and he can't make any mistakes."