Time to celebrate!!!!

I'm still on cloud nine about the General Women's Conference but am shifting my focus to the most amazing time of the year...General Conference!!!  I have a grandson that is a Seahawk fan.  I mean a real fan.  He outfits his wife, two young children and himself in Seahawk shirts and all sorts of stuff.  They don it for every game.  Life comes to a standstill when the Seahawks play.  That is how I am about General Conference!  I know the routine of my personal readiness.  Time to get ready!

I prepare myself (most likely I'm at Temple as you read this) as to questions I want answered...guidance I am seeking...assurance that I find necessary.  I 100% believe in personal revelation and that it just pours down during General Conference.

A friend in Yakima, a Seminary teacher, shared below with me.  I really enjoyed it and think you will also.  it's a great perspective on the preparation the speakers go though.  Each in their own way.  I remember reading once that Elder Packer had worked 8 years on his talk about purity/chastity.  He wanted to talk about reproduction and never mention the word sex.  I think the talk was made into a pamphlet and maybe a filmstrip.  These men do not just quickly jot down thoughts.  They receive their errand from the Lord.

General Conference to me is like the greatest spiritual gift in the whole wide world!!!  LOVE IT!!

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Here is what Sharon shared last year....

I was listening to General Conference on LDS radio and after one of the sessions, there was an interview with Elder Dallin H. Oaks and his wife. It was wonderful and I couldn't stop listening.  Something that impressed me was his answer when asked how he prepares his talks for general conference.  He said that he prays diligently for the 6 months before to know what the Lord would want said.  Usually about 3-4 months before Conference he begins to receive impressions, sometimes a letter from a member along the same lines, he reads or runs across the same subject, etc. Basically, he understands what the Lord is telling him because all these indicate the same message.  He said as he begins to put the talk together 2 months before,  the least number of drafts he has done are 8 rough drafts, but often run as high as 12 or 14.  When he finally feels it is near completion, he lets his wife read it and make suggestions, as well as his brethren in the Twelve.  They also help him see things like areas where he may mean one thing, but it may be taken by some to mean something different. Then he makes his final talk.  Hours and hours of preparation.  The most important thing to him is that he speak the mind and will of the Lord.

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by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles....

 “Perhaps you already know (but if you don’t you should) that with rare exception, no
man or woman who speaks [in general conference] is assigned a topic. Each is to fast and pray, study and seek, start and stop and start again until he or she is confident that for this conference, at this time, his or hers is the topic the Lord wishes that speaker to present regardless of personal wishes or private preferences. … Each has wept, worried, and earnestly sought the Lord’s direction to guide his or her thoughts and expression” (“An Ensign to the Nations,” Ensign or Liahona, May 2011, 111).

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