Gathering the Saints

This past weekend was General Conference. Wow! What a marvelous conference! I have been listening to General Conference twice a year for as long as I can remember, and usually in the comfortable quarters of my home. This year however, I was able to make the experience much more memorable. 

I made plans with some of my best friends to go up to Salt Lake City to attend General Conference in person. Early Saturday morning we met up and walked to the bus station. The bus would take us to the Frontrunner Trax station where we would board the Frontrunner and ride up to SLC. This was my first time to ride the Trax, so it was already an adventure! 

While on the hour-or-so ride up to SLC, it was really neat to watch as people loaded onto the train. Every stop we made, more and more members of the church filtered in and soon the Frontrunner was packed with Mormons making the trip up to General Conference. Seeing this "gathering of the saints" really got me excited to hear what the General Authorities would be speaking to us. 

Unfortunately we did not have tickets to attend any of the Saturday sessions of conference, but we were able to get in the standby line. This allowed us to watch all three sessions that day in the Tabernacle on Temple Square. The Tabernacle is beautiful!

In between sessions we got to walk around Temple Square and downtown Salt Lake. Downtown was crazy! On General Conference weekend, Salt Lake City is SUPER crowded. Thousands of Latter-day Saints were, all at the same time, going to get lunch or going to the Visitors Center, or taking pictures around the temple. And we were included in that crowd. Here are a few pictures I took of the Salt Lake City Temple. 

I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to watch General Conference and hear the words of living Prophets and other Church leaders. Being able to go with close friends made it even better. I know that President Thomas S. Monson is a true Prophet of God. My testimony of this Gospel is very strong and it was only strengthened more throughout this conference. 

Personal Narrative Review

Our most recent paper in my Freshman Writing class was a personal narrative. This gave me a great opportunity to reflect and remember past experiences I have had throughout my life. I decided to write about an experience I had with my high school marching band where we performed at a competition under terrible weather circumstances including pouring rain and very strong winds. However we pushed through and ended up having a great performance and winning the competition.

Writing down this memory was a very neat experience for me. I really appreciated this opportunity because it allowed me to recall other memories from my childhood. While reflecting upon my memories I became more aware of the lessons I have learned throughout my life with all of the different experiences I've had. It has been a very eye-opening experience to recognize how I have grown throughout my life. I am very grateful for the opportunity I had to write this personal narrative.