Our Ultimate Life: Conference

What an exciting time to be a member of God's church! I am so excited about where our leaders are taking us and I am 100% on board. I thought conference today was amazing - Elder Oaks knocked it out of the park in the morning session and the women's conference. My friend Heather said she turned to her 16 year old son after President Oaks' talk and said, "Do you have any questions about where the church stands on gender identity?" It was bold and courageous and no-nonsense. I LOVED the women's conference. We are called to be sharp! To teach and be intentional with our time! We are the greatest force for good in the whole world and I am so proud to be a woman influencing the lives of my little boys every day. It is the MOST important job on this planet. I did the social media fast back in the spring when President Nelson challenged the youth to do a 7 day fast and I loved it so much I just deleted my social media off my phone. More recently I hopped back on it and after tonight's challenge to the women to do a 10 day fast I'm ready to just delete it all together! I agree with whoever said this first: that the effects of social media on mental health compare to the effects of smoking on lungs. We didn't know how dangerous cigarettes were until much later and I believe the same is true for social media. I think that came from Jory in an email? Anyway I agree and I am LISTENING! If President Nelson has taught this twice now, this is something we need to pay attention to. I love the focus on teaching the gospel in the homes. I had a mother who TAUGHT us the gospel. We KNEW the scriptures. And if I'm being super judgy, the youth today don't know very much at all. I've been amazed at how I'll ask a gospel question in Young Women and **crickets** - nobody knows the answer! Parents are deceived if they think church is the place for their kids to learn the gospel. I called Mom a while back and told her, "I'm realizing that not everybody had Shelley Beal as their mom," haha! and this new focus is just perfect. I'm so excited. And it's something I've been praying about lately. Especially living in such a liberal place, I've been feeling overwhelmed with HOW in the world do I cultivate these boys' testimonies, teach them the gospel, protect them from the firey darts of the adversary? And I felt like I was given answers to those prayers today. Anyway, with all these historic changes I wanted to jot down some of my thoughts tonight.

In other historic changes: Logan slept through the night for the first time last night! I think it's because he finally cut the tooth he was working on. The boy has pretty much been teething since he was born. He popped his first two teeth at 3/4 months old and now has 2 top teeth at nearly 7 months. But yeah I woke up this morning and knew right away it was morning. If he sleeps through the night again tonight and Sunday night, I think I can start getting up early again to exercise and do my "miracle morning" (based on the book The Miracle Morning) before the boys wake up. Those are the BEST days. I haven't done it since we moved Logan to his own crib because I've been getting up 2-3 times a night with him. He turns 7 months old next week and he can now officially sit up. He's been eating solids here and there, but I continue to mostly breastfeed him. He's "talking" a lot more.

I've started a new routine with Emmett of reading with him every day. With the change of the weather I find us inside much more. Justin and I will read to him before bed but now we've also picked more up around lunch/nap time. He's learning letters and numbers. He does this adorable things where if you pat his back, he pats yours back. If he wants something he'll ask for it like "go outside?" and if you reply, "you want to go outside?" he'll emphatically reply "OKAY!" Same goes for if he wants a drink, or to read, or play at the park.

Justin is teaching the Deacons how to modify nerf guns at their mutual activities. Hilarious! I put together an amazing race combined activity with the yw/ym that was pretty epic. I failed to get pictures but we made legit route clues and challenges.