A Lesson for General Conference

My parents are serving in the Sierra Leone mission and last month Elder Jeffrey R. Holland visited.  It was a wonderful experience for them and life-changing.  They wrote home with so many amazing experiences and we are so thrilled for them that they were there.
My mom wrote home a short report about what each leader spoke of in their conferences.  Sister Holland told a humorous story about Elder Holland.

Elder Holland is even more wonderful at home than you see him here. One night I was having a hard time sleeping. He was sleeping soundly. I turned to him and said, “I don’t know what to do. I just can’t seem to get to sleep.” Even though he was sleeping soundly, he raised up on his elbow and said, “If you’ll fast and pray about it, I know you’ll be able to sleep.”

This is one of the many stories we talked about for Family Home Evening.  Enoch thought this story was hilarious and would tell anyone who would listen.

A few nights ago at dinner I was so tired I was practically falling asleep at the table.  Between being 35 weeks pregnant, having miserable seasonal allergies and both of them contributing to not sleeping, I am exhausted.  Unfortunately, I'm so tired that even the kids are noticing.  Enoch asked me what was wrong and I told him I'm just not sleeping well.  With perfect seriousness he said, "Mom, I know if you pray and fast about it, you will be able to sleep better."  Not only sweet, but full of faith!

A few days later I was thinking about that conversations (at 3 am while I was wide awake).  Enoch is right, Elder Holland is right (even in his sleep).  It was a great lesson to me to listen to our leaders.  Sometimes at Conference I find myself agreeing with the talks, but not doing anything about it - it doesn't apply to me right now, I'll get to it later, wasn't that good advice?  So many excuses.  But Enoch taught me that everything our leaders say is for us, personally.  That we can apply everything they say to us and we need to incorporate it into our lives. 

I'm hoping I can be better at this.  If not, I know that Enoch will help me!