I usually do a post-conference trivia contest, but I thought it might be fun to shake things up a little bit and do a pre-conference guessing contest. This might be fun to duplicate in your own family and play with each other.
For the sake of the blog, go ahead and make your guesses in the comment box below. Since it’s all random guessing, I don’t think there’s any advantage or disadvantage by seeing each others’ picks. I will pick the winner for each question (by drawing if there’s a tie), and then those 10 winners will go in a drawing for the “Grand Prize,” which will be a copy of the book I was proud to be a part of:
So here goes:
General Conference Guessing Game
1. How many new temples do you think will be announced?
2. What’s your guess for any auxiliaries to be reorganized? (RS, YW, YM, SS, none)
3. Take a guess at one location of a new temple. Name a state in the US or a country outside of the US.
4. Barring any absence, 11 of the 12 apostles speak in the four Saturday and Sunday sessions. Who’s your guess for the one apostle that only speaks in Priesthood session?
5. Who will conduct the first session of conference (Sat. AM)?
6. How many members of the church will be announced in the statistical report?
7. What color dresses will the women of the Tabernacle Choir wear on Sunday morning?
8. Who will be the first woman to speak in this session of conference?
9. What color tie will President Monson wear on Sunday?
10. Make a guess for a congregational hymn that might be sung at any of the four sessions.
I acknowledge that this is just for fun and has no true spiritual benefit other than to maybe make us pay a little more attention while we watch. All entries recieved by 9:30 a.m. MST on Saturday morning will be in the running for the prize. 
Other ideas:
I’ve shared tons and tons and tons of conference preparation in the past, especially for the kids. This year, I decided to do a little variation on the tradition “packet” idea. Sometimes my kids just flip through the packet and pick a few things to do and then don’t seem to pay as much attention to it as I would like. So I’m trying a new approach, based loosely on this idea I saw on Pinterest:
I printed out a list of the names of the First Presidency and 12 Apostles and then cut them out. One copy for each child. (You could also use pictures instead of names.)
I skimmed through all the different packet versions I’ve seen over the years (there’s a good collection here) and printed out pages of specific activities I knew would engage my kids based on their interests, reading level, etc. Then I stapled each apostle’s name to one activity (a crossword puzzle, a cut-and-paste of apostles in the red chairs, a Friend magazine to cut up and make a collage, etc.). Not all of them are conference related. There are one or two that are just stickers or stencils and crayons to keep their hands busy. Some of them are just stapled to a piece of paper that says: “Get 3 popsicle stick puzzles and play with them” or “Play the Apostles Memory Game“
The idea is this: Whenever an apostles or First Presidency member speaks, the child finds the speaker’s name and can do that activity during his talk. There will still be ongoing bingo and traditional packet items with notetaking, etc. (see below) for them to do during all the other speakers, but it helps them to pace out different activities and change focus often.
So other than making food and gathering up snacks, I’m ready to roll! I hope it’s helpful to someone. Let me know if you have any questions.
Bring on Conference!
