Conference Weekend

Cameron and Tara paid us a visit on Conference Weekend. Cameron and I attended priesthood meeting while Tara and her mother went to Girls Night Out at Deseret Book. Bria, Erin, and Laurel continued cleaning the house and finishing work on the basement that we had started earlier Saturday morning while listening to Conference. On Sunday morning, Tara fixed us all a European breakfast. It was very tasty. After the morning session we enjoyed savory chicken with rice along with all the fixin's.

There were some great talks. I especially enjoyed Elder Jeffrey R. Holland's piercing analysis of the events beginning Palm Sunday and extending through Christ's atonement, betrayal, trial, and crucifixion. I was moved to realize that Christ may have been surprised by what Elder Holland described as "that concluding descent into the paralyzing despair of divine withdrawal" which was "required, indeed, . . .it was necessary that this perfect Son . . . had to know how the rest of humankind would feel--us, the rest of us--when we did commit such sins. . . . He had to know what it was like . . . to die spiritually. . . . One of the great consolations of this Easter season is that because Jesus walked such a long, lonely path utterly alone, we do not have to do so."

Attempting to condense this talk here seems to diminish Elder Holland's transcendent message. Hear the whole presentation at this link: http://broadcast.lds.org/genconf/2009/04/40/GC_2009_04_409_HollandJR___eng_.mp3

See a powerfully visualized video interpretation of a portion of this message produced by a former student of mine on YouTube's "Mormon Messages."