Gratitude Post - April 3, 2023

I'm grateful for General Conference weekend!

To begin, let me explain what a General Conference weekend is.  As a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints we are privileged to hear messages from the leadership of the church twice a year, every six months during the first weekend in April and October.  It's our belief that these men and women have been inspired by God to share specific messages that are meant for us today.  The entire weekend is a wonderful, rejuvenating experience that often leads to commitments to improve in one area or another, recognizing how those improvements can produce amazing benefits.

But with General Conference weekend comes a bit of an expectation.  I fully expect to be able to spend the time focused on the messages being delivered, and that the weekend will be largely uneventful, outside of the messages I get to hear.  That's not how this past weekend went.

I have a tradition of having gummy bears during General Conference, and so my wife and I went to Bulk Barn Friday evening to have the desired gummy bears ready for the next two days.  But we didn't really get anything else to make the day special which led to two rather interesting situations.  First, it led to me trying to make homemade potato chips using a mandoline slicer to create the slimmest slices of potato possible to then be rinsed in ice water, sprinkled with salt, and turned into chips in the microwave.  Instead, I sliced open my thumb.  We then proceeded to question whether a visit to the ER was required, and it really threw off our day.  Second, it led to us going back to Bulk Barn in between two of the sessions of Conference.  We didn't miss any of the speakers, but similar to the thumb slicing, it threw off the day.

What I'm grateful for is that General Conference was still uplifting, and I still went away feeling rejuvenated and energized to face the craziness of life.  Even though expectations for the schedule of what happened were reversed from the calm, no interruption idea, the expectation of the result was unaffected.