Many great stories.  Elder Stevenson’s stories of the painted labrador dalmation and the polecat kitty made a real impression on all our family.  Once the texts are released I’ll probably put up a post of the stories from Conference.

Maybe my favorite bon mot was President Page quoting a friend of his, “home church is not about having one hour less of church a week, its about having 6 days more of church a week.”

I noticed themes of joy and integrity the first day, and daily repentance the second.  Social media also came up a lot.  A lot of it was about how it distorts our sociality: the dangers of a false measure of your social group, of consuming overly curated images, and of social media mobs.  That is also an integrity theme in a way.  President Owen gave us the following comparison:  Revelation is to social media/information as food is to straw.

Brother Vinson’s talk spoke to me very much.   It was about the praise of God.  It was the capstone in an inspiration I had at stake conference last week.  Anything where you feel the hand of God moving is obviously going to stand out to you.

Elder Gong’s family histories moved us all.

Elder Bednar quoted someone saying that our appetites are essential.  That is a profoundly Saintly perspective that I am still pondering.  Something he said, I don’t know what, made me think that our entire family should maybe come up with a family diet.  Not a family weight loss plan, but a family diet in Bookslinger’s sense of a lifestyle switch where we upgrade the kinds of foods we habitually eat.

Brother Budge was really dynamic.  Maybe the most dynamic.  He and a Belgian brother whose name I didn’t catch also had–I say this with love–really interesting looking faces that moved in unusual ways and were intriguing to watch.

My wife has just finished reading the Hobbit to our younger children for home school.  When Elder Uchtdorf said “in a hole in the ground their lived a hobbit . . .” they were riveted.

Sister Franco’s talk was just one long story; man, I loved it.

Brother Johnson looks remarkably like my (Caucasian) brother-in-law.  I could do with less breathiness but the repetition of every day every day every day was top flight rhetoric, very effective.

Lots of changes, of course.  Some of them are more cosmetic than they first appear, like eliminating Young Men’s Presidencies and advisors and replacing them with advisors and specialists.  Mostly a name change.  But, like the change from hometeaching to ministering, the intent is probably to take something that has been the program and have the members approach it with fresh eyes and therefore hopefully more effectively.  In this case, the idea that the young men lead and the Bishopric focuses on them.   Some of the changes look more weighty, time will tell.  The conference and the announcements took every possible superficial or cosmetic way that we could to bend over backwards to placate feminists and women who have had their worldview and sense of worth partially formed by feminists, which is basically all western women.  I’m convinced it won’t do anything, and in fact will probably make matters worse, but I would love to be proved wrong.

Your retrospectives are invited below.

Other Posts from the October 2019 General Conference

We Have Prophets, Seers, and Revelators
Unconventional Joy