The Plague II

Generally I come away from stake conference with great feelings. Positive feelings. The same goes for general conference.

Not so much yesterday.

Don't get me wrong. They were GREAT meetings. Some seriously great counsel was given to the members of our stake. In fact, this new stake presidency has its collective finger on the pulse of my fellow church-goers like nobody I've ever seen. They are inspired and spiritual men.

The general theme was "Love in the Home". If you are a Latter-Day Saint, you know that the adults have their own meeting on Saturday night, before the "general" meeting on Sunday morning. I think the speakers talk a little more from the hip and are a little more open in those adult sessions because there are no children about. They speak VERY candidly at times. And this meeting was never short on openness.

Guess what the stake president's talk was about? Pornography. Again!!! Lives are being destroyed by this...even indirectly.

I came away from these 2 meetings with a feeling that things are about to get more 'interesting' in this world. Remember when President Hinckley spoke about a "portent of stormy weather" in 1998?

"Now, brethren, I want to make it very clear that I am not prophesying, that I am not predicting years of famine in the future. But I am suggesting that the time has come to get our houses in order.

So many of our people are living on the very edge of their incomes. In fact, some are living on borrowings.

We have witnessed in recent weeks wide and fearsome swings in the markets of the world. The economy is a fragile thing. A stumble in the economy in Jakarta or Moscow can immediately affect the entire world. It can eventually reach down to each of us as individuals. There is a portent of stormy weather ahead to which we had better give heed."

That's a 10-year old statement and we just saw fulfillment of that statement this past week with the failing of 2 or 3 major banks, 2 major housing lenders, an international insurance agency, and a $700 billion bailout by our government. If there are 200 million taxpayers in this country, that means each of us owes around $3,500 in increased taxes in order to pay for that sucker. That ain't money I got layin' around, I'll tell you that much.

I also came away with a greater desire to set the religious tone in our home. FATHERS HAVE A CRITICAL ROLE IN THE MENTAL, SPIRITUAL, AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT OF CHILDREN.

I remember teaching a lesson in priesthood about 5 years ago that went something like this: "Holding regular family home evenings and studying the scriptures daily and attending church meetings MAY be enough to keep us and our families safe today. But the day is fast approaching when those things will do nothing more than give you a 'D-' in the class of life. You'll barely pass. Having a passive relationship with God and the Church will ensure that you are dumped off this fast-moving train that is rolling 'like a stone which is cut out of the mountain without hands...until it has filled the whole earth.'"

I won't be left behind.