General Conference Thoughts

Conference this time around was a good one, as it always is! I wanted to be sure to document that, this year, the age for missionaries has changed. As long as I can remember, the age for boys to serve full time missions was 19 years old and for girls it was 21 years old. This year, President Monson announced that the age has changed to 18 years old for boys and 19 years old for girls. The other qualification for a mission as well is to be graduated from high school. How crazy!! I can't imagine how many mission papers are being mailed in as I write. I got on facebook and so many people were going crazy knowing that they could go on a mission sooner than planned. To my future children: This is inspired and such a blessing for you. 

I also wanted to talk about one talk in particular that stood out to me (probably because I paid most attention to this one, because I will admit I was little distracted some of the other talks...). It was given by President Uchtdorf and I liked this quote the best: "Don't wait until you are ready to die to decide to live." I feel that I am constantly hearing quotes like this, but for some reason, this particular talk and quote stood out to me above the rest. I think it's because I finally realized what it truly means. 

I've always felt that actually living was doing all sorts of crazy things like traveling all over the world, skydiving, climbing Mount Everest or whatever else are on people's bucket lists. And don't get me wrong, all of those things are wonderful and contribute to a life well lived. But what about the people who never have the opportunity to do those things? Does that mean that their life was never lived? These questions have constantly been in my head, but after hearing this talk by President Uchtdorf, they were answered.

A life well lived is one where you were happy. Happy with where you are at, happy with the choices your making, happy with the blessings you have received. Being grateful and not constantly wishing for more your whole life. 

Heavenly Father is constantly blessing me and so many times I find myself ready to move on to the next thing without taking in what I have now. I want to be able to look back on my life and see that I was grateful for all those moments that I had and saw all of my blessings throughout my life, rather than just at the end. 

So today I want to list a few things that I am grateful for. One, of course, being my husband who is the biggest support and loves me more than I deserve. I've never met a more patient and giving man and I hope to be more like him. I'm grateful for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints that helps me to know how to live my life so I can strive to be better and all off the truths that I have been taught through being a member (how great was the talk: "I'm a mormon, I live it, I love It"?!). I'm grateful for my family, especially my mother, who has sacrificed so much for me. I know that I can never repay her for all of the things that she has done for me. And I'm grateful for my job and for the Chrastil family for being such incredible examples to me in raising children so that I may one day try to be just as good a parent. 

And, finally, I'm grateful for General Conference and that I was able to hear some of the guidance that was given to us and that we can receive this guidance every six months. In April, I think I will have a notebook to write things that I liked for each talk. Mental note taken.