Another six months have passed

Tomorrow we'll sit in front of the TV for hours on end, without sports or cartoons. This year I have to work on Conference Sunday. Very bummed. Here's my summary from October.

Key themes:
Unity
Keeping hope in uncertain times
Serve others

Five favorite discourses:

5) Oaks, Sacrament and Sacrament Meeting

During sacrament meeting—and especially during the sacrament service—we should concentrate on worship and refrain from all other activities, especially from behavior that could interfere with the worship of others. Even a person who slips into quiet slumber does not interfere with others. Sacrament meeting is not a time for reading books or magazines. Young people, it is not a time for whispered conversations on cell phones or for texting persons at other locations. When we partake of the sacrament, we make a sacred covenant that we will always remember the Savior. How sad to see persons obviously violating that covenant in the very meeting where they are making it.

4) Monson, Finding Joy in the Journey

Both abundance and lack [of abundance] exist simultaneously in our lives, as parallel realities. It is always our conscious choice which secret garden we will tend . . . when we choose not to focus on what is missing from our lives but are grateful for the abundance that’s present—love, health, family, friends, work, the joys of nature, and personal pursuits that bring us [happiness]—the wasteland of illusion falls away and we experience heaven on earth.
~ Breathnach

3) Wirthlin, Come What May, and Love It

The Lord in His wisdom does not shield anyone from grief or sadness.

4) Christofferson, Come to Zion

I remember the story of a Vietnamese family that fled Saigon in 1975 and ended up living in a small mobile home in Provo, Utah. A young man in the refugee family became the home teaching companion to a Brother Johnson who lived nearby with his large family. The boy related the following:
"One day Brother Johnson noticed that our family had no kitchen table. He appeared the next day with an odd-looking but very functional table that fit nicely against the trailer wall across from the kitchen sink and counters. I say odd-looking because two of the table legs matched the tabletop and two did not. Also, several small wooden pegs stuck out along one edge of the worn surface.
"Soon we used this unique table daily for food preparation and for eating some quick meals. We still ate our family meals while we sat on the floor . . . in true Vietnamese fashion.
"One evening I stood inside Brother Johnson's front door as I waited for him before a home teaching appointment. There in the nearby kitchen—I was surprised to see it—was a table practically identical to the one they had given to my family. The only difference was that where our table had pegs, the Johnsons' table had holes! I then realized that, seeing our need, this charitable man had cut his kitchen table in half and had built two new legs for each half.
"It was obvious that the Johnson family could not fit around this small piece of furniture—they probably didn't fit comfortably around it when it was whole. . . .
"Throughout my life this kind act has been a powerful reminder of true giving" 

1) Bednar, Pray Always

Morning and evening prayers—and all of the prayers in between—are not unrelated, discrete events; rather, they are linked together each day and across days, weeks, months, and even years.

New apostle? Claudio R.M. Costa, first Latin American apostle (from Brazil)?

Enjoy your weekend.

Katie will pass one more sad GC weekend. Next time we hope to be gathered around the TV with more family, more brunch and more boardgames late Saturday night.