Author Archives: S.D. Sorensen

Spring Break, General Conference Packets and other conference preparation strategies

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UPDATE:  For anyone coming to this post looking for a packet for the upcoming conference, you can click here for more links.

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So I’m taking this whole “Spring Break” thing pretty literally and may be more absent here in the blog world for a couple weeks.  I’ll still pop in for General Conference Book Club stuff because (hello!) Conference is right around the corner and it’s one of my favorite parts of Springtime. (Psst, don’t tell anyone, but I might actually go to General Conference.  *squeal*)

In the meantime, I wanted to put up a few great tools to help out with General Conference Preparation.

For children and youth:

Melanie Day at Sugardoodle.com put together some really great packets for small children (mostly coloring), older children (both my kindergartener and 1st grader could do most of it), and for youth (I think adults could use it too!).  They are all specific to the 2010 Spring General Conference and are great for helping your children to pay attention and stay occupied during the talks.  You can find the packets by clicking on this link, then scroll down and download whatever version you want. (There are also several extra links to G.C. resources at the bottom of the page.)

Here’s another site with a lot of packets, cards, and other resources.

Finally, here is an article from the Ensign that I contributed to a while back:  “Preparing Our Children for General Conference.” I can honestly say that my children LOVE conference and look forward to it and usually surprise us with how much they do pay attention.  The article includes some games and activities that have worked smashingly for us in the past.  I hope you can find something helpful there.

For yourself:

This is a pattern I’ve tried to follow in the past, and I’ve learned that it makes my conference experience feel meaningful and personalized.  I’m going to try and start the process now.  Join me?  I’m sure you have some of your own strategies, so I’d love to hear your ideas too.

  1. Pray everyday that my mind and heart will be prepared for any specific message that the Lord wants me to know.
  2. Read my scriptures and/or recent conference talks every day to keep me in the habit of inviting and recognizing the Spirit.
  3. Think about questions I would like answers to, topics I find myself struggling with, and write them down. Include them specifically in my prayers as I do #1.

Happy preparing.  And happy Spring break.

There should be no secrets in a marriage.

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The late Elder Theodore M. Burton of the Seventy said:

“Couples interested only in themselves don’t communicate. Lack of communication then becomes a major stumbling block in developing true love.” (Ensign, May 1979, p. 73.)

And this is why I have spent the last 20 minutes looking for my husband’s secret stash of Cadbury eggs.  Come on, honey, show me the love.

p.s.  In the search, I did manage to find some Nerds leftover from last Easter.  And for the record, yes, Nerds can go stale.

My defining moment. No, really.

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Just the other day, my blog got featured as the best of “hot off the press” on the homepage of WordPress.com.  I have no idea how it happened, but it created an insane influx of traffic to Diapers and Divinity.  By 8:00 a.m., I had well over 500 hits, and finished out the day at unprecedented numbers.  I felt temporarily famous, and it was pretty cool.  Most of the feedback was positive, but at 11:00 a.m., I received this comment in my Inbox.  I’m assuming the writer had perused the blog and my profile and such.  (I edited out one phrase for the sake of decency.)

So you ended up being just a mother.

Just another mother, like a chimp, a cow, an elephant, a whale, just another mother, like an insect, or an octopus, or a worm.  Just another mother.

Your kids will not thank you, your husband will not like you, your own mother will pity you for making her own same mistake.

Just another mother.

For a moment of frenzy, of uterine voracity, irrational and irreversible, you destroyed your body, your beauty, and your own intellect.

Parental-brain-atrophy-syndrome, where your brain biologically adjusts to the need of your infants, descending at their own subhuman level, with just one dimension, food, or perhaps two dimensions, food and feces. Continue reading →

General Conference Book Club Week 24: Bishop Burton

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Two more weeks until Conference and I’m almost this excited.

Almost.

This week we will study the talk “Let Virtue Garnish Your Thoughts” by Presiding Bishop H. David Burton.  He spoke during the Sunday morning session and highlighted a list of characteristics that he called the “-ity” virtues.

“Virtuous traits form the foundation of a Christian life and are the outward manifestation of the inner man. The spelling in English of many individual virtues concludes with the letters ity: integrity, humility, charity, spirituality, accountability, civility, fidelity, and the list goes on and on.”

“If virtues are lost, families will be measurably weakened, individual faith in the Lord Jesus Christ will soften, and important eternal relationships may be jeopardized.”

Share your favorite parts and insights in the comments.  You can go here to find the links to watch or listen to this talk.  And here you will find more information about the GCBC– We’ll start over again in a couple weeks and would love to have you join us.

Open mouth, insert cork (to keep the foot out).

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“Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing a tempting moment.” ~ Benjamin Franklin

I sometimes think I’m kind of funny.  In fact, I’ve long thought my wit was one of my more attractive qualities.  I can make a quick, snappy comeback to most situations and usually elicit some laughter.  I hate fighting and contention, but I love clever banter.  In fact, I often use humor as a way to diffuse a potentially volatile environment.  This will make sense to any Austen fans out there, but one of the reasons I love Elizabeth Bennett in Pride and Prejudice is her gift for smart and funny conversation, like the time when she and Jane are both lamenting her single status right after Jane and Mr. Bingley became engaged:

Jane Bennet: Oh, Lizzie, if I could but see you happy. If there were such another man for you.
Elizabeth Bennet: Perhaps Mr. Collins has a cousin.

I love that kind of laughing away an awkward situation.  There’s obviously a place for humor:

“Find happiness in ordinary things, and keep your sense of humor.”  ~ President Boyd K. Packer

“There is certainly no defence against adverse fortune which is, on the whole, so effectual as an habitual sense of humor.”~ Thomas Wentworth Storrow Higginson, quoted by President James E. Faust

However, in the last couple weeks my “humor” has made a couple of bad situations worse.  My attempts to make a witty comment left some people offended, and upon reflection, in both cases I realize they thought I was making light of their struggle.  So, I’ve been eating a little humble pie Continue reading →