SATURDAY NIGHT'S ALRIGHT

The Saturday evening session of stake conference used to be the Leadership Meeting - just for people in presidencies and councils.

Then the church realized that everyone who had ever been in a leadership position discovered that this was the most interesting meeting in stake conference, and since we were all showing up anyways, why not just start calling it the 'Adult Session' and make it official.

It's also a heck of a lot quieter without all the kids.

It helps that I've been in this stake almost ten years; some of the talks have extra meaning because I know the person and their situation. The talk by President Gore (isn't that just a odd name for anyone not a butcher?) about not putting things off, but doing them NOW made extra sense since he is undergoing surgery this week - especially since without the surgery he stands a good chance of becoming a paraplegic. RS President Debra Evans made the normally-pretty-boring-subject of supporting the priesthood interesting by relating it to callings and day-to-day practical stuff (I just love reality sometimes instead of lofty ideals).

And President Goates (another great name) gave the closing talk about one of my favorite subjects now - doing right instead of being right. I even gave him a piece of paper afterwards with one of my favorite quotes - "Be Kind Rather Than Correct."

The only difficulty was sitting through two and a half hours between a person sewing dolls clothing (honestly) and another person doing scriptural research and markings while people were talking and making growling noises like a pacing beast when someone make a comment that did not agree with his personal view.

So it helped to hear about doing right. I kept taking deep breaths, and repeating "I am not responsible for how they listen, I am only responsible for how I listen" and kept taking notes.