Meeting one of the 12 Apostles

(No pictures here, unless you click the link below I guess.)

My mom was especially excited for our annual Stake Conference. (Our stake includes our county.) She invited me and Steven and got us a babysitter (my li'l bro.) Her friend was going to be presiding at the conference and my mom was excited.

Here's the back story, or some of it. My mom helped her BYU room mate, Kathy, "pursue" a guy named Neil. My mom says that Kathy was the beautiful petite one and boys would call to see if Kathy was free on Friday night. That's how I used to feel when I was with Chrissy. Guys would go through me to get to her. She was so beautiful and fun. My mom is also beautiful of course, it's just a funny memory. My mom was happy when Kathy finally "picked one" and helped Kathy and Neil get together. My mom thought she'd marry Kathy's brother, Greg. I don't know all of that story, but Kathy, Neil, and Greg were at our church building on Saturday night and Sunday.

My mom and Don were V.I.P.s in the reserved seats section with her friends. I met that family a long time ago and remember their family picture from when they were called to be missionaries in France. I thought that was so exotic and cool that they got to go learn French for a couple of years. Their kids were our ages. My mom has always loved that family too so she was excited to be a part of when they came back in town for our conference.

Elder Neil A. Anderson, was recently called to be a member of the 12 Apostles. It's pretty amazing. My mom couldn't wait for me to shake his hand and see his wife, Kathy, again. She wanted to introduce them to Steven, her son-in-law. They have lawyers in their family too. Two went to school with Steven and were in the branch with us. They are also amazing people. They made it a point to ask what Steven likes to do so we could all hang out. We ate pizza, of course:) They're good examples. I just met their baby boy who is just a month older than Isaac! It was good seeing them again too.

My mom ate dinner with Elder and Sister Anderson (and others) before the Adult session of the conference. Then, Elder Anderson called my mom up out of the congregation to say a few impromptu words about the protecting power of temples. My mom is so beautiful, smart, humble, and good. I wish I got as excited about church leaders as she does. One thing mentioned at the conference is that we "get it" more and more as we age. I guess I'm still young compared to some people with white hair. We took my grandma home after the conference and I liked listening to her perspective and thoughts. She's smart too. I'm loving being her new visiting teaching companion. Friendships and relationships are so important.

[This is such an unorganized journal entry here, sorry, but I want to get some thoughts down in between cleaning Isaac's messes.]

There was an article in our Sunday paper about Elder Neil A. Anderson. See his picture and the article here.

Anyway, I wrote down lots of notes and some action points. (Things I'm going to resolve to do when I get home.) One is to plan a time to go to the Orlando Temple. The last time was when Kat visited. I didn't write as many notes down for the Sunday session because I had Dylan with me. Isaac had a fever so Steven stayed home with him. I'm so glad that Steven and I could both go on Saturday night. I like going to things in person b/c it's a pep-rally feeling that gets me more motivated. I wrote in my journal last night and it's been a YEAR! That's too long. I guess this blog is my journal, but still. I'm going to go through my notes more and enter more in my journal. It's not every day that I get to listen to and shake the hand of an apostle!