Conference on Saturday

We enjoyed conference today. It was my first non-Utah conference in a long time. We watched the morning (which didn't occur for us in the morning) session on the internet. It (the internet, I mean) wasn't too bad. With the buffering and resultant catching up, the first session lasted about 2 hours and 15ish minutes. We drove up to the branch for the afternoon session (and I mildly stressed about whether or not my kids were being quiet enough). Tomorrow, we plan to watch the (non) morning session at the branch, join them for a potluck and then return home for the afternoon.

I was amazed (as always) at how well the talks meshed together. My theme for the day (and it seemed to shout out to me) is the Primary song (that Abby calls the "Sand Song") "The Wise Man and the Foolish Man". For me the big ideas were:

• Rough times are here and none of us can escape the storms of life. (That is the rain.)
• The world’s solutions aren’t going to solve the problems. (That is the sand.)
  
• We can try to search in a lot of places for answers,
• But the only place we’ll find a true foundation is in the Savior, Jesus Christ. (That is the rock.)
  
• If we return to the basics (i.e. our faith in Jesus Christ), our problems won’t go away, but we’ll have the spiritual strength and POWER necessary to successfully endure our trials. He is our only foundation.
  

And, referring not just to homes:

• "Building a house” with money that we don’t have (or using money we have on “home furnishings” we don’t need) is foolish – resembles building on a sandy economic and spiritual foundation.

(I think I used too many parentheses in this post.)