A New Approach to General Conference

I don't make my kids watch General Conference. If one hour in Sacrament meeting is torture, I can't imagine the pain that would accompany 8 hours. So we send them to the basement to play and we stay upstairs and watch. They have to come up for the prophet's talk and tell us what he talked about. In the past, that has been their only contact with general conference.

Of course I understand that conference is important but I am also aware of the bounds of my own sanity and 8 hours of church in one weekend, with 3 screaming kids is not something that I feel will bring me closer to God or to my children.

I will give you a minute to judge me.

Okay, done?

Now that my kids are getting a little older I have thought that I should start slowly introducing conference to them. Seth was working in Arizona over the weekend and I was tempted to just record conference and watch it while the kids were in bed, but I decided to at least try to get the kids to sit through the Sunday sessions. I looked online and people have some seriously creative and elaborate conference traditions but I decided to keep it simple and just do bingo or something. But I thought it would be distracting to have to keep helping them read their cards to make sure they didn't miss anything, so I modified Bingo a little bit.

We had bowls full of goodies and you could choose one treat per talk when you heard that word spoken. You could choose the first word you heard, or you could listen to the whole talk and then see what your options were. After a few talks where the kids chose too soon and then heard the word that they really wanted, they learned to be patient and listen until the end so they didn't miss out on the best treats. It was funny to listen to conference because Alyssa memorized every bowl and as they would talk she would be rattling off Milky Way, Swedish Fish, green grapes, pretzels....

I am not sure I got as much out of conference as I normally would have, but the Spirit snuck in a few times and I am sure my kids got more out of it than they do from their usual seat in the basement.

Along with our goodie bowl bingo, I had a last minute idea that was actually inspired by Alex. Alex is a Packers fan and so he wants to watch the games with us, but he has no attention span. If you have ever had the pleasure of teaching Alex in church you understand. He can not sit still and he has to have his hands busy at all times. When we watch the Packers, he puts on his jersey and helmet, makes the field out of paper, makes the logo out of Legos, builds goal posts from tinker toys, and drags out actions figures to play football. He is busy the whole time and that is the only way he can sit through a game. It is so cute to watch, so I thought I'd borrow his idea.

Right before Conference I asked Alex to bring me a few building toys and set them out on a table for an activity that we called Building a Testimony. For each talk the kids built, or drew something from the talk to keep their hands busy and hopefully their mouths quiet.

I am not sure it was the most reverent family conference experience anyone ever had but the kids loved it. They were actually excited when the two hour break was over and it was time for a new session. They are still talking about our conference party, so it was a start.

I encouraged the kids to choose a healthy-ish snack every other talk so the grapes, apples, water and pretzels did get chosen, but see those carrots? Yeah, not a chance.

I dragged the bunk bed mattresses out since we only have a loveseat and we wanted to be comfy.

Chloe loves to jump in front of Alex when he tries to get his picture taken.

I also printed up two pictures of each apostle and the first presidency and covered them in clear contact paper to play match. Chloe and Alex are still playing it days later and learning some of their names which sounds so cute coming from my 3 year old. They love to say Dieter F. Uchtdorf and laugh every time.

Why is Squidward's head floating in the reflection pool at the temple? Only Alex knows.

That's a wrap. See you in 6 months conference.