Stake Conference

We had our leadership meeting last night in Corvallis. I don't usually go to night meetings that far away, but had been impressed that I should go last night. I always LOVED our stake conferences when we lived here before. They were SO powerful. David Blake was stake president then and he was amazing. (I understand that he and his wife are on a mission now) I was pleasantly surprised that Tom was willing to go too. Mom chose to stay home.

It was different than the ones back in 1999-2000, but good. There is such a palatable feeling when that many faithful saints come together. It's like taking a long, warm bath.

While driving there, I was enjoying the beautiful fall colors. We have had weeks of clear, cloudless skies. As the temperatures have dropped, we haven't had the cloud cover to give us our usual insulation. The temperatures have been lower than normal for this time of year, as a result. There wasn't been much wind, either. The result was bright reds, yellows and oranges - full trees on fire. The first wind storm will cover the roadways with this pallet of color, but right now they have a wonderful display.

I started thinking about the differences that have occurred in stake conferences since I joined the church in 1966. When I first joined, Stake conferences occurred more frequently. They used to have one every three months. And they had two sessions - one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Both lasted two hours. Once a year, we would have a general authority come and speak at our conference. Those were the ones I liked the best at the time.

About the time I had my son (1979), things changed. There was another energy crisis, and resulting gas shortage. Prices rose. Gas stations shut down. The church changed it's meeting schedules.

Up until then, all the meetings were an hour to an hour and half long and spread throughout the week. Priesthood and Sunday school were held on Sunday mornings. Sacrament was held Sunday evening. Relief Society was held on Tuesday afternoon. The children had Primary and Mutual on Wednesday afternoons. That was a lot of traveling back and forth and required greater expense for heating and lighting at the meeting house. The schedule was designed to cut down on operating expenses for the meeting houses and time and provide relief for families in their commuting expenses. It put more responsibility on parents for maintaining their children's spiritual education.

They also cut stake conferences back to twice a year and a general authority would attend only every other year. This year we are having a regional satellite broadcast for our Sunday meeting. The theme for our conference was the same as many of the talks at general conference - Unity. Building strong families. "Flourishing" where you are planted. That's a subject for another posting...