Well, we have some new scriptures to study.

Really. Remember general conference? (Wasn’t it so great???) The talks are all available for study now. You can find them here. President Howard W. Hunter said this about general conference:

“Much inspired counsel by prophets, seers, revelators, and other General Authorities of the Church is given during general conference. Our modern-day prophets have encouraged us to make the reading of the conference editions of our Church magazines an important and regular part of our personal study. Thus, general conference becomes, in a sense, a supplement to or an extension of the Doctrine and Covenants. In addition to the conference issues of the Church magazines, the First Presidency writes monthly articles that contain inspired counsel for our welfare” (The Teachings of Howard W. Hunter, ed. Clyde J. Williams [1997], 212; emphasis added).

Oh, and President Joseph Fielding Smith said this:

When one of the brethren stands before a congregation of the people today, and the inspiration of the Lord is upon him, he speaks that which the Lord would have him speak. It is just as much scripture as anything you will find written in any of these records, and yet we call these the standard works of the Church. We depend, of course, upon the guidance of the brethren who are entitled to inspiration.

Elder Richard G. Scott has talked a lot about the importance of memorizing scriptures. Here’s one of my recent favorites:

If you young people would review a verse of scripture as often as some of you send text messages, you could soon have hundreds of passages of scripture memorized. Those passages would prove to be a powerful source of inspiration and guidance by the Holy Ghost in times of need.

So in light of all this new scripture a.k.a. general conference and “let’s memorize more scriptures” business, I put together some scripture mastery of simple and powerful statements that we’re going to try and study in my family over the next six months. Did you ever notice before that there are always just about the exact number of talks from the four general sessions of general conference that if you study one talk a week, you’ll finish up right in time for the next general conference?  I love that. So here are some quotes from each talk. I chose one to memorize with my kids each week. (Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn’t, but I think the effort is worthy.)

Here is a link to download the document if you want to print it out or tweak it: General Conference Scripture Mastery Oct13

I focused on quotes with principles that I thought were meaningful and age-appropriate for my children.

And here is a .pdf you can print out with each quote on one page that you can hang up by your dinner table or in your kids’ rooms or wherever:  Quotes from conference  We like to practice repeating ours at morning and dinner prayers.

So if you’re like me, and are already feeling a little bit of general conference withdrawal, this is one way to keep the messages alive in your heart and home until the next conference rolls around. Enjoy.