As a child, I remember working outside on General Conference Saturdays with a radio playing a conference session in the background. On Sundays, we would gather in the living room and listen to at least one session on the radio. Sometimes, we would drive 20 miles to Afton to Grandma and Grandpa Jasperson's house on Sunday to watch one or two conference sessions on TV.
After Annette and I were married, we would watch some conference sessions on TV in her dad's (Michel and Mary Call) house.
For the most part, prior to 1994 when we moved to Florida to attend graduate school, I considered General Conference sessions as something to watch or listen to if it was convenient and I had nothing else to do on General Conference weekend.
After moving to Florida and away from the Intermountain West, Annette and I determined to make General Conference a more important part of our family worship. Beginning with the October 1994 conference, we decided we would always participate in all sessions of General Conference each conference weekend if possible.
In Florida, General Conference sessions were not broadcast on local TV and radio stations. However, each conference session was broadcast live to the local church buildings via satellite TV connections.
In the week leading up to General Conference, we would talk with our children about the upcoming conference to build excitement among our children. We would go to the church building for the morning session of the conference (at noon in Florida). We dressed in our church clothes. We would sit in the chapel and watch the conference sessions.
We would take a crockpot and leave it kitchen during the first session to keep the food warm. Then we would eat a "picnic" lunch at the church between sessions. When the kids were younger, we would encourage them to take a nap after eating lunch. We would return to the chapel to watch the afternoon session. Then, we would return home. I would go back to the chapel to watch and listen to the priesthood session in the evening. We would repeat the entire process the next day on Sunday.
We continued this tradition after we moved to Oklahoma and later to Texas.
As technologies changed and internet connections improved, it became possible for us to stay at home and watch conference sessions via live internet streaming. Beginning in October 2008, we started watching conference sessions from home. However, the general women's sessions and priesthood sessions were not streamed live. Thus, we continued to attend these sessions of the conference at the local church building. For the first couple of years, we would still dress in church clothes and attend the Sunday morning session at the church building.
While we lived in Oklahoma, we put together a family 72-hour emergency kit. This kit includes clothing, food, and other essentials that might be needed in the first 72-hours of an emergency that might require us to leave our home (e.g., tornado). The food in our 72-hour kit includes fig bars, wheat crackers, goldfish crackers, jerky, and graham crackers. Because these food items can go bad over time, we decided to rotate these food items every six months which conveniently corresponds with General Conference. So, now we get all the food out of our 72-hour kit and enjoy eating it during conference sessions.
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| coloring during April 2019 conference session |
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| conference snacks for April 2019 conference session from the 72-hour kit |
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