Women's Conference!

I went to Women's Conference today! It was great! I could only go to one day of it because of work, and I actually only had time today to go to two of the classes. But it was still way fun. Here are some thoughts from Julie B. Beck (General Relief Society President) that I'd like to share:

Her talk was called Nourishing and Protecting the Family. She spoke about the definition of the family, and why it was important; the problems that families face; and what we can do to protect our families.

One of her ideas about the importance of the family was a story about her own family. I loved this story. She said that her mother was an older woman when she got married. I'm not sure how old she meant, though. But she had already graduated from college and had a career. She had a lot of things that she enjoyed, like skis, a bowling ball, a racquetball racket. And then she met her husband. He was a widower with three children, and Sister Beck's mom said that all five of them fell in love at the same time! The mom had to decide to give up her career and BECOME a mom. Sister Beck emphasized the choice that she made to sacrifice so that she could have a family. And then on their honeymoon, the two parents talked about what kinds of things they wanted to include in their family. They talked about how they wanted their kids to be married in the temple. They talked about education and work. And Sister Beck's message was about how communication is a big part of preparing for problems.

Some of the problems that she talked about included the idea that the world puts forth, that children really aren't important or desirable. She also included pornography, financial strain, and other problems. She said to FIGHT for our families! And I don't think that that means to fight our families! When we're having problems that are caused by imperfections in our family members, fighting the problem doesn't mean fighting them. It means doing things that will change the circumstances and support our family members. It means creating an atmosphere that is conducive to change.

It was a great talk. Right now they don't have the transcripts for this year up, but sometime soon they will have the transcript of her talk on the Women's Conference web page, and you can find it here.